Crime Writers' Association
writers' association in the United Kingdom founded by John Creasey in 1953
The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) is a specialist authors' organisation in the United Kingdom, most notable for its "Dagger" awards for the best crime writing of the year, and the Diamond Dagger awarded to an author for lifetime achievement. The Association also promotes crime writing of fiction and non-fiction by holding annual competitions, publicising literary festivals and establishing links with libraries, booksellers and other writer organisations, both in the UK such as the Society of Authors, and overseas. The CWA enables members to network at its annual conference and through its regional chapters as well as through dedicated social media channels and private website. Members' events and general news items are published on the CWA website, which also features Find An Author, where CWA members are listed and information provided about themselves, their books and their awards.
The CWA publishes a monthly magazine exclusively for members called Red Herrings, edited by Matthew Booth since 2020.
The CWA runs a sister organisation aimed at readers of crime fiction and non-fiction called the Crime Reader's Association. Anyone can join free of charge and receive two digital magazines: the bimonthly Case Files and the monthly CRA Newsletter. On the site are blogs, short stories and author profiles.
Terms of membership
Annual membership is open to any author who has had a crime novel published via a traditional publishing contract or to self-published authors who meet the membership criteria. Associate and corporate membership also offered to individuals and organisations in the publishing industry such as editors, bloggers, literary agents and publishers.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Crime Writers' Association” is writers' association in the United Kingdom founded by John Creasey in 1953. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Crime, Writers' and Association, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “writers' association in the United Kingdom founded by John Creasey in 1953” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Contemporary correspondence, administrative files and participant testimony can test how later narratives organized the event or institution. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2185131. VIAF identifies the subject as 148868095. The Library of Congress control number is n83054187. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2020.
Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Crime Writers' Association”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Crime Writers' Association primary sources, Crime Writers' Association archive and Crime research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Crime Writers' Association”?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
- Who created the surviving record, and for what administrative purpose?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Crime Writers' Association” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.