Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) is a national, non-profit organization, founded in 1982 by Derrick Murdock and other professional crime writers. Its mandate is to promote crime writing in Canada and to raise the profile of the genre's established and aspiring authors.
Crime writing, as defined by the CWC, is any fictional or factual book-length work, novella or short-story that features crime as a major or principal element, and is written for any print or electronic medium. The genre includes any written account of criminal activity, crime detection and/or crime solving, set in any historical or geographical context, and usually involves a strong element of suspense. Crime Fiction may include detective stories, mysteries, thrillers, tales of espionage and suspense, as well courtroom, police or forensic procedural dramas. Other genres such as romance or speculative fiction may also involve a strong criminal or crime-detection theme.
Speculative fiction is an umbrella genre encompassing fiction with certain elements that do not exist in the real world, often in the context of supernatural, futuristic or other imaginative themes. This includes, but is not limited to, science fiction, fantasy, superhero fiction, science fantasy, horror, utopian and dystopian fiction, supernatural fiction as well as combinations thereof.
Among the CWC members are professional and emerging authors, publicists and literary critics, author representatives, librarians, book sellers, and fans of crime fiction.
The CWC offers several author promotion services for its members, including exposure on the national website for recent book releases, in quarterly catalogues, in newsletters, in municipal, regional and national events, and with annual award presentations.
Annual Awards
The Arthur Ellis Awards for Excellence in Canadian Crime Writing, first established in 1984, are presented at an annual banquet. The awards are named for Arthur B. English, a British expatriate who, under the pseudonym Arthur Ellis, became Canada's official hangman in 1913. His professional successors adopted the same pseudonym.
The Arthur Ellis Awards are a group of Canadian literary awards, presented annually by the Crime Writers of Canada for the best Canadian crime and mystery writing published in the previous year. The award is presented at a gala dinner in the year following publication.
Arthur Bartholomew English was a British national who was the official hangman of Canada between 1912 and 1935.
An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country other than their native country. In common usage, the term often refers to professionals, skilled workers, or artists taking positions outside their home country, either independently or sent abroad by their employers, who can be companies, universities, governments, or non-governmental organisations. Effectively migrant workers, they usually earn more than they would at home, and more than local employees. However, the term 'expatriate' is also used for retirees and others who have chosen to live outside their native country. Historically, it has also referred to exiles.
The Arthur Ellis Award itself is an articulated wooden model of a man hanging from gallows. It is presented to the winner of each of six categories, including Best Crime Novel, Best First Crime Novel, Best Crime Book in French, Best Crime Nonfiction, Best Juvenile/Young Adult Crime Book, and Best Crime Short Story. A similar award is given to the winner in the Best Unpublished First Crime Novel ("The Unhanged Arthur"). The Derrick Murdoch Award is a special achievement award and is given, at the discretion of the CWC President, to a CWC Member who has contributed greatly to the advancement of the CWC and/or to crime writing in Canada.
A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, from which objects can be hung or “weighed.” Gallows were thus widely used for public weighing scales for large objects such as sacks of grain or minerals, usually positioned in markets or toll gates. The term was also used for a framework from which an ship’s anchor might be raised so that it no longer sat on the bottom, i.e., “weighing [the] anchor.” In modern usage it has come to mean almost exclusively a scaffold or gibbet used for execution by hanging.
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Related Research Articles
Detective fiction is a subgenre of crime fiction and mystery fiction in which an investigator or a detective—either professional, amateur or retired—investigates a crime, often murder. The detective genre began around the same time as speculative fiction and other genre fiction in the mid-nineteenth century and has remained extremely popular, particularly in novels. Some of the most famous heroes of detective fiction include C. Auguste Dupin, Sherlock Holmes, and Hercule Poirot. Juvenile stories featuring The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, and The Boxcar Children have also remained in print for several decades.
Carol Ann Shields, was an American-born Canadian novelist and short story writer. She is best known for her 1993 novel The Stone Diaries, which won the U.S. Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the Governor General's Award in Canada.
A whodunit or whodunnit is a complex, plot-driven variety of the detective story in which the audience is given the opportunity to engage in the same process of deduction as the protagonist throughout the investigation of a crime. The reader or viewer is provided with the clues from which the identity of the perpetrator may be deduced before the story provides the revelation itself at its climax. The investigation is usually conducted by an eccentric, amateur, or semi-professional detective. This narrative development has been seen as a form of comedy in which order is restored to a threatened social calm.
Crime fiction is a literary genre that fictionalises crimes, their detection, criminals, and their motives. It is usually distinguished from mainstream fiction and other genres such as historical fiction or science fiction, but the boundaries are indistinct. Crime fiction has multiple subgenres, including detective fiction, courtroom drama, hard-boiled fiction and legal thrillers. Most crime drama focuses on crime investigation and does not feature the court room. Suspense and mystery are key elements that are nearly ubiquitous to the genre.
Mystery fiction is a genre of fiction usually involving a mysterious death or a crime to be solved. Often with a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character will often be a detective who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Sometimes mystery books are nonfictional. "Mystery fiction" can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism.
Genre fiction, also known as popular fiction, is a term used in the book-trade for fictional works written with the intent of fitting into a specifically literary genre, in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.
Crime is a typically 19th-, 20th- and 21st-century genre, dominated by British and American writers. This article explores its historical development as a genre.
Edo van Belkom is a Canadian author of horror fiction.
Otto Penzler is an editor of mystery fiction in the United States, and proprietor of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, where he lives.
The Crime Writers' Association (CWA) is a specialist authors’ group in the United Kingdom, most notable for its Gold Dagger award for the best crime novel of the year. The Association also promotes the crime fiction genre by attending literary festivals and other writing events, liaising with libraries, and enabling members to meet at its annual conference.
Romance Writers of America (RWA) is a national non-profit genre writers association. It provides networking and support to individuals seriously pursuing a career in romance fiction and supports top authors such as Nora Roberts and Judith McNaught.
Richard Marsh was the pseudonym of the English author born Richard Bernard Heldmann. A best-selling and prolific author of the late 19th century and the Edwardian period, Marsh is best known now for his supernatural thriller novel The Beetle, which was published the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897), and was initially even more popular. The Beetle remained in print until 1960. Marsh produced nearly 80 volumes of fiction and numerous short stories, in genres including horror, crime, romance and humour. Many of these have been republished recently, beginning with The Beetle in 2004. Marsh's grandson Robert Aickman was a notable writer of short "strange stories".
Anne Frasier is a pseudonym for Theresa Weir.
Barbara Fradkin, née Currie, is a Canadian mystery writer, and a two-time winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel.
Martin Edwards, whose full name is Kenneth Martin Edwards, is a British crime novelist, critic and solicitor.
Louise Penny is a Canadian author of mystery novels set in the Canadian province of Quebec centred on the work of francophone Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec. Penny's first career was as a radio broadcaster for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. After she turned to writing, she won numerous awards for her work, including the Agatha Award for best mystery novel of the year five times, including four consecutive years (2007–2010), and the Anthony Award for best novel of the year five times, including four consecutive years (2010–2013). Her novels have been published in 23 languages.
Rick Mofina is a Canadian author of crime fiction and thriller novels. He grew up in Belleville, Ontario, and began writing short stories in school, selling his first short story at the age of fifteen. As a member of the Mystery Writers of America, the International Thriller Writers, the International Crime Writers Association, the Crime Writers' Association and Crime Writers of Canada, Rick continues to be a featured panelist at mystery conferences across the United States and Canada.
William Herbert Deverell is a Canadian novelist, activist, and criminal lawyer. He is one of Canada's best-known novelists, whose first book, Needles, which drew on his experiences as a criminal lawyer, won the McClelland & Stewart $50,000 Seal Award. In 1997 he won the Dashiell Hammett Prize for literary excellence in crime writing in North America for Trail of Passion. That book also won the 1998 Arthur Ellis Award for best Canadian crime novel, as did April Fool in 2003. Trial of Passion launched his first crime series, featuring the classically trained, self-doubting Arthur Beauchamp, QC, a series that continued with April Fool, Kill All the Judges, Snow Job, and I'll See You in My Dreams.
Alice Kuipers is a British-born author living in Saskatchewan, Canada who is best known for her young adult novels. Life on the Refrigerator Door won the Grand Prix de Viarmes, the Livrentête Prize, the Redbridge Teenage Book Award in 2008 and the Saskatchewan First Book Award in 2007, was narrated as an audio book by Amanda Seyfried and Dana Delany, and has been adapted for theater in England, France and Japan. 40 Things I Want To Tell You won a Saskatchewan Book Award for Young Adult Literature in 2013. The Worst Thing She Ever Did won the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Juvenile/YA Crime Book in 2011.
