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news and features
HWA Crown Award Winners 2025
The winners are:Gold: The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry (Canongate Books)Non-fiction: Moederland by Cato Pedder (John Murray)Debut: A Poisoner’s Tale by Cathryn Kemp (Bantam) Read more about the books and the shortlisted titles on... more
Dorothy Dunnett / HWA Short Story Competition 2025
The winning and shortlisted stories! Huge congratulations to our winner, Sean Lusk, our Highly Commended writers, Alex Edwards and Joseph Dragovich, and the writers of our shortlisted stories, Liz Kershaw, Sopie Lenoir, and Elaine... more
Dorothy Dunnett Society / HWA Short Story Competition Longlist
Many congratulations to the writers of our longlisted stories. The shortlist and winning stories will be announced on Friday 3 October! We ended up with nearly 150 stories this year and the standard was extremely high. Many thanks to our first... moreauthor showcase
Sarah Rayne
Sarah Rayne, the daughter of an Irish comedy actor, began writing in her teens, including plays for the Lower Third to perform in her convent school. Her first novel was published in 1982, and since then she has written over 30 books. As well as being published in America and Australia, Sarah’s novels have been translated into German, Dutch, Russian and Turkish. For many years Sarah was active in amateur theatre, and lists among her... more
Patrick Larsimont
Patrick worked in advertising with some of the most globally recognised agencies and brands. Always fascinated by history, particularly military history, and spurred on by two lockdowns, he took to writing stories. His debut WW2 aviation thrillers launched on the 16th December 2022 with 'The Lightning and The Few,' the story of Jox McNabb, a Scottish schoolboy who earns his wings defending his country in its hour of need. As of June 2026 the... more
Jean Findlay
Jean Findlay was born in Edinburgh. She studied Law and French at Edinburgh University and Theatre under Tadeusz Kantor in Cracow, Poland. She co-founded an award winning theatre company and wrote and produced plays which toured to London, Berlin, Bonn, Rotterdam, Dublin, Glasgow and the Pompidou Centre in Paris. She wrote drama and book reviews for the Scotsman, and has written for the Independent, Time Out, and the Guardian. For work in... more
Lottie Taylor
Lottie Taylor studied history at St John’s College, Cambridge, specialising in European history and her pet project, the history of Esperanto. Since leaving Cambridge, she has worked in a number of fields and settled on the island of Madeira with her husband and furry children. She currently works in marketing but is collaborating with her father, military historian Prit Buttar, on studying the history of occupied cities during... more
