Louise Phillips's Blog, page 8

CWA's Margery Allingham Short Story Competition!

CWA’s Margery Allingham Short Story Competition to Continue....
The Margery Allingham Society has agreed with the Crime Writers’ Association that the popular short mystery competition will run for at least another five years, until 2024. The Society, set up to honour and promote the writings of the great Golden Age author whose well-known hero is Albert Campion, works with the CWA to operate and fund the writing competition that opens for entries in the autumn on the CWA’s website and closes every February.

Each year the competition attracts many entries, and the winners are announced at CrimeFest, the international crime writing convention, in May. The short story can be up to a generous 3,500 words long and must echo Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery.

This year the winner was Ray Bazowski, with ‘A Perfect Murderer’. Ray wins £500 and two passes to CrimeFest for 2020. Ray says: ‘Aspiring writers are routinely told to write what they know. Such advice is less plausible for writers of murder mysteries, especially those who take the point-of-view of murderers, or at least I hope so. In my case, what knowledge I have of the subject is speculative, and entirely incidental to my regular job of teaching politics at York University in Toronto.’ Ray is considering writing a novel next.

Runner-up with ‘Decluttering’ was Rosie de Vekey, a teacher who lives with her family in east London.  As she has a passion for acting, she came to writing through plays and has written a number of pieces for Network Theatre, Waterloo. As a teacher and mum, she often writes children's fiction too. Decluttering is one of a collection of stories Rosie has written, set in the near future, on aspects of mental health.

Next year’s competition will emphasise the definition of mystery by Margery Allingham with more points allocated to how well the story matches it, and, just to reinforce the point, it will be renamed the Margery Allingham Short Mystery competition.

Barry Pike, Chair of the Margery Allingham Society, says: ‘We’re very happy to be able to continue our co-sponsorship, along with the CWA, of our short mystery competition for another five years.’

Linda Stratmann, Chair of the Crime Writers’ Association, says: ‘We are delighted that the CWA’s very rewarding association with the Margery Allingham Society is going to continue. 

We congratulate Ray and Rosie and look forward to helping other talented mystery writers with their careers in the years to come.’


Note to Editors

Margery Allingham’s definition of a mystery is as follows:

‘The Mystery remains box-shaped, at once a prison and a refuge. Its four walls are, roughly, a Crime, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an Element of Satisfaction in it.’

Margery’s best known crime novels include The Tiger in the Smoke and The Crime at Black Dudley, which first introduced Albert Campion (later winningly played by actor Peter Davison in the TV series) to readers.

The Margery Allingham Society was founded in 1988 to celebrate the life and works of Margery Allingham, one of the four great Queens of Crime from the ‘Golden Age’ of detective fiction, largely seen as the period in the twentieth century between the world wars. https://margeryallingham.org.uk/

The competition is read by authorities appointed by the Margery Allingham Society and the CWA, and is judged by an expert panel from the Society. Entry costs £12.

Paramount Pictures Acquire Film Rights to The Chain by Adrian McKinty!!

Irish author, Adrian McKinty, will appear as part of Murder One Festival (http://www.murderone.ie/tag/adrian-mckinty/) in Dublin on the 23rd July 2019, where he’ll be interviewed by Steve Cavanagh.

McKinty’s lastest news is however a great ‘rags to riches’ story!
Paramount Pictures has acquired the screen rights to McKinty’s latest novel The Chain in a deal that will generate a guaranteed low-seven-figure payday for the author.


The Chain tells the story of Rachel, whose 11-year-old daughter is kidnapped, and the only way she can get her back, is to kidnap another child. Her daughter will be released only when that next victim’s parents kidnap another child. If Rachel doesn’t kidnap another child, or if that child’s parents don’t kidnap a child, her daughter will be killed. She is now part of The Chain, a terrifying and meticulous chain letter-like kidnapping scheme that turns parents from victims into criminals.

The book tells Rachel’s harrowing story as a victim, survivor, abductor and criminal. What the masterminds behind The Chain know is that parents will do anything for their children, however, what they don’t know is that Rachel is both smart and tough enough to attempt to beat them, having survived cancer, she is now determined to break The Chain while getting her daughter back.


This is an amazing turn of events for the Irish Crime Author, who up to this point was doing odd jobs from construction to picking up fares as an Uber driver to support his family.  He had reached out to writer Don Winslow in the past, both as a fan, but also to express his frustration that as a writer, McKinty wasn’t yet able to support his family financially. Winslow, urged McKinty not to give up. He referred him to Salerno, who with tough negotiating and brash marketing campaigns helped Winslow become a perennial bestselling author with several seven-figure movie and TV deals under his belt.  Together, Salerno and  Winslow, convinced McKinty to give it one more try, and that book turned out to be The Chain. 

The Chain was acquired by Little Brown/Mulholland in another pre-emptive deal, and it became a hot book at Frankfurt that has been sold in 35 countries. It is getting strong reviews and has drawn supportive quotes from authors that include Stephen King and Dennis Lehane.

McKinty in a statement said - “My story is a story of never giving up. It’s a story about writers helping fellow writers. I hope it inspires other writers who may be thinking about quitting, to never give up. I never imagined any of this could happen, but I hoped it would. I had hope. I am so grateful, and I hope my story inspires others.”

Advance Review Copies of The Hiding Game DOWNLOAD FOR FREE

Lovely Bloggers/Reviewers/Netgalley folk...

If you're on NetGalley....You can NOW download THE HIDING GAME Pre-Publication!!

Yes, you can...

PLEASE do...

Crossing fingers, toes, eyes, and everything else that you like it!! 

A Cracking Good Read!!

As the publishing date of Sept 5th for THE HIDING GAME gets ever closer, the nerves are starting to set in...but I am so thrilled with these words from Karen Perry Author....

Full cover reveal front and back later this week...

Thanks again everyone for your support...


"THE HIDING GAME is full of twists and turns, along with poignant insights into the emotional bond between mother and child - A CRACKING GOOD READ" - KAREN PERRY

Exciting News!!

I am THRILLED to announce that THE HIDING GAME will be available very soon in Audio....more details to follow!!

Making Stuff Up Can Be Very Pleasurable .....

Tonight, will be the last session of my current workshop at the Irish Writers Centre. It is always tinged with a little sadness that a course is coming to an end, primarily because I enjoy them so very much.
I will miss the passion and energy of being in a room every week with other writers, eager to pursue their desire to write.
I will miss not only the students, but also the characters they have created, some arriving quite shyly at first, others jumping off the page, but each there all the same.
I will miss talking about writing and what drives us to write stories and also, discussing aspects of writing that can and will bring your story to life.
I will miss putting our fictional beings through hot seat exercises, experimenting with dialogue, and reading weekly submissions, but most importantly, I will miss spending two hours every week with people who want to create stories, who like me, get extremely excited about this notion, because making stuff up can be very pleasurable indeed.
I’ve gotten some lovely messages over time as a workshop facilitator, and some over the last few days, each in their own way about how I’ve encouraged folk to be passionate about writing and themselves as writers, and if that is case, then that is a very good thing indeed.
:-)

"An undoubted master of the psychological thriller.."

I will never be able to repay the wonderful writers who read THE HIDING GAME in advance of publication, all of whom I admire greatly.

I look forward to seeing your wonderful words on the final cover, words which have made the writing of this story all the more worthwhile.

Thanks today to Author Cormac O'Keeffe....

Getting To Grips with Dialogue...

It was a great morning at the Dublin Writers Conference yesterday, when I got the opportunity to talk all things dialogue to those attending the session on 'Getting to Grips with Dialogue'.

Here are two of the slides which you may find useful.....

Sprinkled with Fairy Dust!!

What a lovely sight... 
Beautiful early copies for booksellers...
All signed and sprinkled with fairy dust!!...
#Magic

THE END

Well, I finished the final proof read of THE HIDING GAME today.....it was a bit of a marathon run since Saturday morning, but fulfilling all the same.

It got a bit emotional towards the end, as this one has pulled at my heart strings quite a lot over the last while.

Anyhow, here is a little bit about the story. Now I can finally type the words THE END!