Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition Long List

The Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition Long List has been announced. 

Congratulations to everyone who made the list! 

CWA Margery Allingham 2021 Short Mystery Competition – Winner Announced

 

The world-famed Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) has announced the winner of its Margery Allingham Short Mystery Prize.

Camilla Macpherson beat strong competition with her short story, ‘Heartbridge Homicides’.

Camilla lives in The Hague in the Netherlands. Her debut novel, Pictures at an Exhibition, which revolves around the National Gallery during the Second World War, was published by Random House in 2012 and translated into Dutch, German and Polish. Camilla is currently working on a detective story set in the Netherlands in 1940. She has won a number of awards for her short stories and travel writing. 

The competition celebrates the classic mystery story, and entries had to adhere to Allingham’s definition of a mystery. The great Golden Age author summed it up as: “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.”

The Margery Allingham Society, set up to honour and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author whose most well-known hero is Albert Campion, works with the CWA to operate and fund the writing competition. One of the UK’s most prominent organisations for the support and promotion of crime writing, the CWA was founded in 1953. Each year the competition attracts many entries from the UK and overseas.

Dea Parkin, Secretary of the CWA, said: “We are in awe of the quality and number of entries we received this year. We’ve witnessed a huge resurrection in the popularity of mystery stories in the pandemic, thanks in part to the popularity of Richard Osman’s The Thursday Murder Club and authors like Elly Griffith's with The Postscript Murders and Robert Thorogood who created the popular BBC murder mystery series, Death in Paradise and wrote The Marlow Murder Club. This short story competition is a fantastic way of building a writer’s craft, and profile, in the mystery genre.”

Camilla will receive £500 and two passes for the international crime writing convention CrimeFest in 2022.

The announcement has come during National Crime Reading Month, an initiative promoted and supported by the CRA. Online events as well as blog posts and videos on the 2021 theme of emergence and escape are featured on the website www.ncrm.co.uk throughout June.

 

CWA Debut Dagger Writing Competition 2021 Opens for Entries

Budding authors are invited to submit the opening of their novel to the coveted Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) Debut Dagger competition 2021. The international writing competition opens for entries on October 1. Created in 1955, the Daggers are the oldest and most regarded awards in the genre, and for over two decades the CWA has been encouraging new writing with its Debut Dagger competition for unpublished writers. Submissions are judged by a panel of top crime editors and agents and all shortlisted Debut Dagger entrants receive feedback from the judges about their entries. Moreover, all shortlisted entries are sent to UK agents and publishers of crime fiction.

Anyone is eligible who has not had a full-length novel published by a traditional publisher and who, at the time of the competition closing, has not got a contract with a publisher or literary agent. Independently published authors, provided they fulfil the criteria above, are eligible to enter. Entries must send in their first 3,000 words and a 1,500-word synopsis of their novel. Writers do not need to have completed their novel in order to enter. The competition has helped launch the careers of established crime writers, including M W Craven, who entered the 2013 CWA Debut Dagger competition.

M W Craven said: “Little did I know that it would go on to change my life.” Craven was offered a publishing contract by an independent publisher who were influenced by the shortlisting. He went on to write The Puppet Show, which sold to Little, Brown and went on to win the CWA 2019 Gold Dagger for Best Crime Novel of the Year. It has been sold in 17 foreign language territories, and TV rights have also been sold. “All this success,” Craven said, “comes from entering the Debut Dagger.” Linda Stratmann, Chair of the CWA, said: “Winning the Debut Dagger ensures your work will be brought to the attention of leading agents and top editors, who have to date signed up over two dozen winners and shortlisted Debut Dagger competitors.” Leanne Fry, who was shortlisted for the Debut Dagger 2020 for Whipstick, said: “The CWA Debut Dagger shortlisting has sparked the sort of interest from agents and publishers that a new writer bashing out her first manuscript on the other side of the world could only dream of. I knew I needed to get my work in front of industry professionals which is why I sucked up the self-doubt and entered the Debut Dagger. It’s been a fantastic experience and I’d encourage every writer out there wondering what on earth to do with that manuscript they’ve been labouring over to submit to next year’s Debut Dagger.”

The winner, who also receives £500, will be announced at the annual CWA Dagger Awards ceremony. Also launched on October 1 is the annual CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition. The Margery Allingham Society, set up to honour and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author, works with the CWA to run the writing competition. Submissions have a limit of 3,500 words and stories must pay homage to the author’s definition of a mystery. The winner is awarded £500. Linda added: “We’re proud to offer support and advice for writers at all stages of their career. Alongside our writing competitions, we host a welcoming Debuts community on Facebook where budding authors can ask questions, share experiences and help out fellow writers. The CWA’s Debuts mailing list provides information on author events, courses and the writing process via the monthly CRA & Debuts Newsletter, as well as an ezine – Case Files – showcasing the latest crime writing.”

The closing date for submissions to both competitions is 6pm on Friday 26 February 2021.

For tips, case studies of shortlisted and winning Debut Daggers, and full details on how to enter both writing competitions, go to - https://thecwa.co.uk/the-debuts 

 

CWA Margery Allingham Short Mystery Competition

Entries are being invited for the CWA Margery Allingham Short Story competition. 

This year, the competition has changed the weighting of its scoring system to match Margery Allingham’s definition of a Mystery. Entrants are asked to focus on specific elements to match the definition: “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.” 

Entries should therefore feature the elements: the crime, the mystery, the enquiry and at least a partly satisfactory conclusion, ideally in that chronology. 

The submissions have a limit of 3,500 words. It costs £12 to enter and the winner walks away with £500, a selection of Margery Allingham books, and two passes for the international crime writing convention CrimeFest in 2021. Being shortlisted for this renowned competition also brings attention and prestige to the writing CV. 

The winner will be announced in early June at CrimeFest 2020 – when the long-list of the CWA Debut Dagger and other Daggers are also made public.  

For the rules, and to submit, go to Short Story Competition on the CWA website. The deadline is 6pm on 29 February 2020. 

Professional feedback on stories before submission at the CWA Mini Critique is also available for any writing up to 4,000 words, including short stories. The service is open until 19 Dec and then from 2 January 2020 and promises a speedy turnaround. 

For more details, contact secretary@thecwa.co.uk before 19 December 2019 or after 2 January 2020. 

CWA’s Margery Allingham Short Story Competition to Continue

© Margery Allingham Society

The Margery Allingham Society has agreed with the Crime Writers’ Association that the popular short mystery competition will run for at least another five years, until 2024. The Society, set up to honour and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author whose well-known hero is Albert Campion, works with the CWA to operate and fund the writing competition that opens for entries in the autumn on the CWA’s website and closes every February.

Each year the competition attracts many entries from the UK and overseas and the winners are announced at CrimeFest, the international crime writing convention, in May. The short story can be up to a generous 3,500 words long and must echo Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery.

This year the winner was Ray Bazowski, with ‘A Perfect Murderer’. Ray wins £500 and two passes to CrimeFest for 2020. Ray says: ‘Aspiring writers are routinely told to write what they know. Such advice is less plausible for writers of murder mysteries, especially those who take the point-of-view of murderers, or at least I hope so. In my case, what knowledge I have of the subject is speculative, and entirely incidental to my regular job of teaching politics at York University in Toronto.’ Ray is considering writing a novel next.

Runner-up with ‘Decluttering’ was Rosie de Vekey, a teacher who lives with her family in east London.  As she has a passion for acting, she came to writing through plays and has written a number of pieces for Network Theatre, Waterloo. As a teacher and mum, she often writes children's fiction too. Decluttering is one of a collection of stories Rosie has written, set in the near future, on aspects of mental health.

© Margery Allingham Society

Next year’s competition will emphasise the definition of mystery by Margery Allingham with more points allocated to how well the story matches it, and, just to reinforce the point, it will be renamed the Margery Allingham Short Mystery competition.

Barry Pike, Chair of the Margery Allingham Society, says: ‘We’re very happy to be able to continue our co-sponsorship, along with the CWA, of our short mystery competition for another five years.’

Linda Stratmann, Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, says: ‘We are delighted that the CWA’s very rewarding association with the Margery Allingham Society is going to continue. We congratulate Ray and Rosie and look forward to helping other talented mystery writers with their careers in the years to come.’

Look to the Lady........

ESSEX POLICE MUSEUM

"Look to the Lady" - The life & crime fiction of Margery Allingham

An illustrated talk about the Essex author Margery Allingham and her famous detective character 'Albert Campion', by Roger Johnson.

Thursday, July 7 · 7:00pm - 9:00pm

£3 Entry (Tea and coffee provided) All profits go to the Museum which is a registered charity.

Spaces Limited. To book please call 01245 457 150 or email museum@essex.pnn.police.uk

Becky Wash
Museum Curator

Information on the Margery Allingham Society can be found here.