The Historical Writers’ Association helps traditionally published authors to connect with other writers, to find publicity opportunities and benefit from involvement in a thriving, supportive community. Interested in joining?
The Historical Writers Association
The official website of the HWA
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
Julie Anderson
Julie Anderson writes historical crime fiction. Her latest series is set in south London immediately post World War Two, in Clapham where she lives. The first book, 'The Midnight Man' focuses on events in and around the South London Hospital for Women and Children, a real and highly unusual hospital run by women for women. The second 'A Death in the Afternoon' is set two years later. The Welfare State is being put in place and the HMS Empire... more
MJ Porter
MJ Porter tried to give up the study of history at GCSE, A Level, and degree level, but now holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in history. MJ Porter is an author of many action-filled historical fiction titles (Early English/Saxon, Vikings and the British Isles as a whole before the Norman Conquest) as well as five 20th-century historical mysteries and historical romantasy. MJ Porter has also written a non-fiction title about the... more
Renita DSilva
Renita D’Silva has had fifteen historical fiction novels published. Victory Days for West India Dock Road, the new book in her West India Dock Road WW2 saga series will be published on 1 July. Her short stories have been published in The View from Here, Bartleby Snopes, this zine, Platinum Page, Paragraph Planet, Verve, the Best of the Net anthology, the Arts Council funded Bridges Not Borders anthology of prizewinning stories, among others.... more
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
