National Crime Reading Month Goes Digital for May Lockdown
The month of May sees the return of National Crime Reading Month (NCRM), a unique, UK-wide literary festival, designed to connect authors and readers and promote the crime genre.
The festival, which is a major annual initiative co-ordinated by the Crime Writers’ Association and Crime Readers’ Association, normally promotes live author events up and down the country. During lockdown, the initiative has moved online with crime authors posting vlogs and blogs on the website crimereadingmonth.co.uk
Linda Stratmann, Chair of the CWA, explained: “We’ve – quite literally – created Crime Writers in Residence by asking authors to post films from their homes while in lockdown. It’s a kind of criminally-good Through the Keyhole! Readers love the personal insights from meeting authors in person, and most crime authors love to connect to their readers. With all the major crime writing festivals, as well as author events in libraries and bookshops, cancelled for spring and summer, we felt it was important to step in and offer a digital alternative.”
Festivals allow readers to meet established writers and discover new authors to widen and enrich their reading life. They also play an important role for aspiring authors, as well as help forge new friendships.
Linda said: “Reading and writing are of course solitary acts but you’re never alone with a book. There’s a real connection on the page that is passionately celebrated in our festivals and author events. The crime genre is perhaps the most accessible and democratic of all, which makes our community a very sociable and inclusive one. We understand how important those connections are, so we’re encouraging CWA members to join in and submit videos from their homes to reach out to readers in lockdown.”
Although May is the official month for mayhem and murder with NCRM, the CWA began collating vlogs in April in response to lockdown.
Featured authors include AJ Waines, a former psychotherapist who has gone on the write ten thrillers selling half a million copies, with her latest psychological thriller Cut You Dead released this April.
Fiona Veitch Smith, author of the Poppy Denby Investigates series, shortlisted for the CWA Historical Dagger in 2016, also joins the video series to talk about her life under lockdown during the Covid-19 crisis, alongside Holly Watt, who won the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger last year for To The Lions.
Holly Watt said: “One thing I am finding weird about writing at the moment is that my characters are meeting up with friends! And having dinner together! And getting on planes! And all these things suddenly seem completely alien. It’s quite hard to write several paragraphs without interjecting ‘and then he washed his hands while singing Happy Birthday’.”
NCRM will also see the launch of short stories that will be free to read on the Crime Readers’ Association website, to provide a public platform for CWA authors wishing to showcase their work.
Readers and authors can join in #CrimeReadingMonth online and subscribe to the Crime Readers’ Association for free to receive the CRA Newsletter and bi-monthly e-zine, Case Files.
Join in #CrimeReadingMonth on Facebook and Twitter @The_CWA or find out more on the Crime Reading Month website.
National Crime Reading Month (NCRM)
The festival is a major annual initiative that takes place each May, co-ordinated by the Crime Writers’ Association (CWA), an organisation dedicated to the promotion of the genre and to supporting professional writers.
The CWA, together with its sister organisation the Crime Readers’ Association (CRA), aims with NCRM to get people talking about crime writing and more specifically to get them reading.
About the CWA
The CWA was founded in 1953 by John Creasey. Its aim is to support, promote and celebrate this most durable, adaptable and successful of genres.
It runs the prestigious CWA Dagger Awards, which celebrate the best in crime writing, hosted every autumn.
A thriving, growing community with a membership encompassing authors of all ages and at all stages of their careers, the CWA is UK-based, but attracts many members from overseas.
It supports author members (plus literary agents, publishers, bloggers and editors) with a monthly magazine called Red Herrings packed with crime-related articles; a digital monthly newsletter showcasing CWA authors and their books and events that goes to 11,500 subscribers; and Case Files, a bimonthly ezine highlighting new publications of CWA members’ books. www.thecra.co.uk
The CWA also supports the Debuts; as yet unpublished writers, many of whom enter the Debut Dagger competition and the Margery Allingham Short Mystery competition.
The CWA run an annual conference and hold chapter meetings throughout the UK so members can access face-to-face networking and socialising.
It supports libraries and booksellers, with three Library Champions and a Booksellers Champion. It has links with various festivals and many other writers’ organisations such as the Society of Authors.
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