Wednesday 18 November 2009

CWA unveils Crime Week for 2010

The Crime Writers Association (CWA) is to hold a National Crime Week in 2010 to celebrate crime writing. During the week, which runs from 14th June, members of the CWA will take part in readings, discussions, readers' group events and workshops all over the country.
The winner of the Young Crime Writers Competition will also be announced. Taking place from 18th January—19th February 2010, the competition, which is organised by the CWA in partnership with nationwide library authorities, will be judged by members of the CWA.
CWA chair Margaret Murphy said: "Building on the success of our partnership with Oxfam Bookfest in 2009, the CWA is looking forward to promoting crime fiction through a variety of events.
"The crime genre is very broad, ranging from spine-tingling suspense, through historical, to edge-of-seat thrillers. Add to that non-fiction—increasingly popular with readers fascinated by forensic aspects of crime—and events organisers can create a programme of events that will tempt the most fastidious palate."
The shortlists for some of the 2010 CWA Daggers will be announced in May as part of the Bristol-based convention, Crimefest.

Otto Penzler joins Cheetham at Atlantic
Atlantic has expanded its publishing outfit once again, with Otto Penzler joining to create his own imprint under the Corvus division in January. Otto Penzler Books will publish six-to-10 new crime fiction, spy and thriller titles a year.
The move reunites Penzler with Atlantic's director and associate publisher of Corvus Anthony Cheetham, with whom he worked at Random House and Quercus. Cheetham said: "Otto helped to found the Quercus trade list, and was the first to champion Stieg Larsson. But we’re definitely saving the best for our third collaboration."
Penzler will kick off with a debut novel by Lou Manfredo, entitled Rizzo's War. The publisher described the book as the most exciting discovery of the last decade. Set in a Brooklyn police precinct, the novel explores, through the lives of veteran detective Joe Rizzo and his ambitious young partner, the byzantine procedures and grubby politics, the trading of favours, and the grey areas between practice and malpractice, which form the real basis of modern police work.
Scheduled for next Christmas is Agents of Treachery, a 400-page anthology of stories from the world of espionage, edited by Penzler himself. The contributors include Charles McCarry, Lee Child, Stella Rimington, Dan Fesperman and Robert Wilson. A number of the stories are of novella length, and none has been previously published elsewhere.
Penzler is the founder/ owner of The Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan, recipient of an Edgar Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Mystery Writers of America. In the US, Otto Penzler Books is published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

No comments: