Celebrating the best in historical writing
We are once again delighted to welcome submissions of works of historical fiction and non-fiction from UK publishers for the HWA Crown Awards.
The 2025 Crown Awards (Debut, Non-Fiction and Gold) are for full length books published for the first time in English in the UK between the 1 April 2024 – 31 March 2025.
Due to some technical problems with the site (sigh) we extended the date for submissions for the HWA Crowns to midnight on Friday 9 May 2025. If anyone has continuing problems with the site, or you want to check that your submissions have been received, please email Imogen on chair@historicalwriters.org
We will be awarding three crowns: for Debut, Non-Fiction and Gold.
The Debut Crown is for a writer’s first full length novel.
The Gold Crown is for novels by writers who have previously published full length novels.
The Non-Fiction Crown is… for non-fiction.
Translations are welcome in all categories.
Each submission costs £35.
For fiction, the bulk of the narrative of the work submitted must take place at least thirty-five years prior to publication. For non-fiction, the key events must have taken place, or the subject have been primarily active, at least thirty-five years prior to publication.
Our judges are writers, historians, booksellers and enthusiasts and we support all our longlisted and shortlisted books with extensive social media and features on Historia. An author does not need to be a member of the Historical Writers’ Association for their book to be entered.
Please use the form below to submit a book.
We are happy for publishers to submit multiple titles – just scroll up and fill in the the form for each book – though each title can only be submitted for one award. We’ll send the nominator an invoice for their entries towards the end of the submission period, and then they’ll be asked to send copies to our judging panels.
If you want to check that an entry has been received, or have any questions about eligibility, please email the chair, Imogen Robertson, on chair@historicalwriters.org
Crown Awards Timeline
Due to some technical problems with the site (sigh) we have extended the date for submissions for the HWA Crowns to midnight on Friday 9 May 2025. If anyone has continuing problems with the site, or you want to check that your submissions have been received, please email Imogen on chair@historicalwriters.org
Longlists announced: 17 September 2025
Shortlists announced: 15 October 2025
Awards ceremony: 19 November 2025
We will hold the 2025 Crown Award ceremony in central London
You can read about the fabulous books which won and were shortlisted for the 2024 Crowns in Historia, our online magazine here. There are still sponsorship opportunities available for these awards. To discuss sponsorship of any or all of the Crown awards, please email Imogen Robertson.
We encourage authors to ask their publishers to nominate them, but are happy to accept nominations from the authors themselves. Please note however that authors will have to send out between five and ten copies of their books to our judges, and postage and packing costs are born by the nominators.
Full Terms and Conditions are available here:
Thank you for your support of the HWA Crown Awards!