2018 winning story
The Value of Vermin Control - Russell Day I took my hat off and cleared my throat. The young man behind the armour glass and the steel bars didn’t look up, even though I was his only customer. I wasn’t especially surprised. In my experience, p...
2017 winning story
Box Clever - Sam Hepburn I’ve always been a dreamer – the nerdy kid hunched over his Playstation dreaming of being popular, the geeky teenager in sweaty boxers dreaming of hitting the big time with his latest bit of software, the broke student...
2016 winning story
A Box-Shaped Mystery - Peter Guttridge ‘The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.’ Margery Allingham P...
2016 shortlisted story
The Blockage - Ian Cowmeadow Fine drops of rain bloomed on the van’s windscreen. The engine clicked as the heat drifted from it and Shelly Wrench was beginning to feel the cold. Across the street, a strip light flickered behind a frosted window ...
2015 winning story
Game Over - Lesley Mace The feel of the skateboard rumbles up through the bones of his feet. He is enclosed within the sound of wheels. He concentrates on contracting muscles, on making his body into the correct shape to fly over the top of the co...
Promote yourself
Promote yourself Members can take advantage of our wide range of platforms to promote books, news and events, including our main CWA website, the Crime Readers’ Association (CRA) website and our regular monthly newsletters. Here are some of the wa...
Emerging Author Dagger
Emerging Author Dagger The Emerging Author Dagger (formerly the Debut Dagger) opens 1 October and the deadline for entry is Friday 28 February at 6pm GMT. Please return here after 1 October for the full rules and terms of entry. The internationa...
The Best Bit of Writing Advice I Was Ever Given by Morgan Cry
Gordon Brown aka Morgan Cry When I signed a two-book deal with Polygon back in 2019 under the new name of Morgan Cry, I was ecstatic. I delivered both books to the publisher by late 2019 and thought, what do I do now? I knew that there was editing a...
Wild Words Festival
A Brand New Festival … It’d be a Crime to Miss it! Wild Words Festival is a brand new literary festival in Cuffley, Hertfordshire, taking place over the Jubilee Weekend of 3–5 June 2022. Featuring a host of true crime and crime fiction write...
Notes on Word Count for CWA Writing Competitions
Different competitions have different rules – and different levels of rigour in the way they apply them. For the Debut Dagger we are super-strict. We ask for entries not to exceed 3,000 words (1,500 words for the synopsis) by even a word. The ti...
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