We are delighted to announce the 2024 HWA/DDS Short Story Award is open for entries. The deadline for submissions is 1 July and the entry fee remains only £5. Visit the award page to read the terms and conditions and enter. Best of luck!
HWA Crowns 2024
Submissions are now open!
SUBMISSIONS ARE OPEN.
Go the HWA Crown Awards 2024 page to submit titles for the Debut, Gold and Non-Fiction Crowns for 2024. You can see the fantastic titles which won in 2023 on Historia.
Dorothy Dunnett / HWA Short Story Award 2023
Read Jo Tiddy’s winning story on Historia. Black Christ by Judith Wilson and Dawn Rising by Anne Byrne were highly commended.
Crown Awards 2023
The winners were: For the Gold Crown – The Colour Storm by Damien Dibben. For the Non-Fiction Crown – The Captain’s Apprentice by Caroline Davison and for the Debut Crown The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho by Paterson Joseph
Discover the books that were shortlisted, and see a gallery of pictures from the night of the awards on Historia
HWA Crown Longlists 2023
Some fantastic books on the longlists this year!
Read all about them on Historia – https://www.historiamag.com/the-2023-hwa-crown-awards-longlists/
Historia Live! 15 June 2023
Hazel Gaynor, Anna Mazzola and AJ West in conversation
Come to the Wheatsheaf in Fitzrovia to enjoy a free ranging conversation with three brilliant historical novelists, chaired by bestselling author Gill Paul.
The Wheatsheaf 25 Rathbone Place Fitzrovia London W1T 1JB
Enjoy the talk – which will last for about an hour – then stay to buy copies of their books (you know you want to) and enjoy a drink with them all, as well as other authors and enthusiasts of historical writing.
Doors open at 7 and the conversation will begin at 7.30!
Anna Mazzola is a writer of historical thrillers and Gothic fiction. Her novels explore the impact of crime and injustice. Her new novel, The House of Whispers, is set in Rome in 1938.
As the world teeters on the brink of war, talented young pianist Eva Valenti enters the house of widower Dante Cavallera to become his new wife. On the outside, the forces of Fascism are accelerating, but in her new home, Eva fears that something else is at work, whispering in the walls and leaving mysterious marks on Dante’s troubled young daughter. Soon she starts to wonder whether the house itself is trying to give up the secrets of its mysterious past – secrets that Dante seems so determined to keep hidden.
Hazel Gaynor is an award-winning, New York Times, USA Today, Irish Times and international bestselling author. Her new novel, THE LAST LIFEBOAT is inspired by a remarkable true story, from 1940 as young teacher evacuates children to safety across perilous waters.
Her most recent historical novel, set in China during WW2, published as The Bird In The Bamboo Cage, in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and as When We Were Young & Brave in the USA and Canada, was an Irish Times bestseller, a National Bestseller in the USA and was shortlisted for the 2020 Irish Book Awards.
A.J.West is the winner of the HWA Debut Crown for The Spirit Engineer and an award-winning former BBC journalist, radio broadcaster and voice artist from Buckinghamshire. He has also written for national newspapers and magazines and has appeared on national television programmes, including BBC Breakfast, Good Morning Britain, This Morning and the legendary reality television show, Big Brother.
Keeping order is bestselling novelist, Gill Paul, whose latest novel, The Manhattan Girls, is a 1920s version of Sex and the City, as Dorothy Parker—one of the wittiest women who ever wielded a pen—and her three friends navigate life, love, and careers in New York City.