• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Historical Writers Association

The official website of the HWA

  • Members
  • Awards
  • Events
  • Historia
  • About us
  • Resources
  • Contact
  • Login
Promote. Support. Connect
  • Awards
  • Events
  • Members

Home

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?

Go to Awards page
Go to Events page
Go to Members page

news and features

Flag showing HWA logo

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...  more

author showcase

Historical Writers Association member - Catherine (CB) Hanley
The Root of All Evil: A Mediaeval Mystery by HWA member Catherine (CB) Hanley

Catherine (CB) Hanley

Catherine Hanley (who also writes as CB Hanley and JF Andrews) was born in Australia; since moving to the UK she has lived in many corners of it, and is currently based in rural Somerset with her husband and three children. Her love of medieval studies led to a PhD in twelfth- and thirteenth-century warfare, and a number of academic publications; she now splits her time between writing popular non-fiction history and historical...  more
Historical Writers Association member - Julie Anderson
Festival Days by HWA member Julie Anderson

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
Historical Writers Association member - MJ Porter
Stormlost by HWA member MJ Porter

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
Historical Writers Association member - Renita DSilva
The Sisters of William Street by HWA member Renita DSilva

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
Historical Writers Association member - Sarah Rayne
THE HAUNTED TAPESTRY by HWA member Sarah Rayne

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

Primary Sidebar

Press enquiries

We welcome enquiries from the media and are happy to put you in contact with our members.
Press Enquiries

Join the HWA

Find out more and apply to join
Join Us

Copyright © 2014–2026 Historical Writers Association Log in