This past weekend saw the presentation of ITW’s 2022 awards for books and stories published in 2021. I’ve read two of the winners and can wholeheartedly say they deserved every accolade.
So, in honor of award season, and if you’ve published or will publish anything in 2022, here’s a list of industry recognized awards you can submit your work to for next year. I mean, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
International Thriller Writers Awards
In order for a novel, short story, or audiobook to be eligible for the 2023 Thriller Awards, the author must be an Active ITW member. If they are not an Active member, they may apply for membership. If the author does not qualify for Active status, then the publisher must be an ITW-recognized publisher.
Check the site for the final submission date for your work published in 2022. It’s usually at the end of September.
The Edgars
With the ITW awards, The Edgars are presented to the crème de la crème of the Mystery universe by The Mystery Writers of America.
WORKS PUBLISHED/RELEASED
April 2022
May 2022
June 2022
July 2022
August 2022
September 2022
October – December 31, 2022
SUBMIT BY
May 31, 2022
June 30, 2022
July 29, 2022
August 31, 2022
September 30, 2022
October 31, 2022
December 5, 2022
PLEASE NOTE: Only works with a November or December release date may be submitted to judges in galley/ARC form. All works MUST be received by the judges by December 5, 2022. Works received after that date will not be considered for an Edgar award. Absolutely no exceptions.
Nominations are usually announced in the middle of January (on or near Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday) of the following year and the winners are announced at the annual Edgar® Awards Banquet, which takes place in New York City in late April or early May each year.
Entry Form for Books
Entry Form for Short Stories
Entry Form for Television/Teleplay
Entry Form for Mary Higgins Clark Award
Entry Form for Sue Grafton Award
The Agatha Awards
The Agatha Awards celebrate the TRADITIONAL MYSTERY, best typified by the works of AGATHA CHRISTIE. The genre is loosely defined as mysteries that contain no explicit sex, excessive gore, or gratuitous violence, and would not be classified as “hard-boiled.”
- For 2022 awards, everyone who is registered for or becomes a Friend of Malice December 31st of any given year will receive a nomination ballot in early January.
- All ballots that are returned by the due date will be counted by the Agatha Awards Chair, who then prepares a slate of up to top five nominees in six categories.
- The Malice Board verifies that the titles presented on the slate meet the criteria for their categories (confirming pub dates, etc.). The slate is approved.
- The Agatha Award Nominations are announced!
- Malice attendees receive an Agatha Ballot in their registration bags when they check in to the convention. Ballots that are completed and turned in by the deadline (1:00 on Saturday) are counted by the awards committee onsite, and the winners in each category are determined.
- The Agatha Awards are announced at the Agatha Awards Banquet on Saturday night during Malice!
The Anthony Awards
These awards are given out at the annual Bouchercon Writers Conference. Everyone who is registered for the conference can nominate their favorite in a category, and whoever gets the most nominations is put on a ballot. As a bonus, Bouchercon usually publishes their own short story anthology to coincide with the conference, and that gives you one more chance to be published and nominated!
American Book Fest Awards
Accepting 2020-2022 Titles. Open to all books with an ISBN and published in 2022 (galley copies welcome). 2020 and 2021 titles are also eligible. Legacy categories are open to 2010-2020 published titles.
Entry Fee: $69 per book/per category through June 30, 2022
The Barry Awards
The winners of these awards are announced at the Opening Ceremonies at Bouchercon.
All readers of Deadly Pleasures are qualified to vote. For a book or story written in 2022 being considered for the 2023 awards, please submit votes to george@deadlypleasures.com by sometime in August 2023 (check the website for exact date).
Get in touch with George if you’d like to send your novel or short story for consideration.
The Hammett Prize
To be eligible for consideration:
1) The book may be fiction, non-fiction, or a graphic novel, the primary theme of which must be crime or the effects of crime. True crime is eligible. “Crime” is meant in the general sense and may include financial and political crimes, espionage, genocide, or any other form of crime. Traditional (detective, mystery, thriller) or non-traditional books (experimental, non-genre) are considered. E-books will be considered only if bound copies are submitted as required below. Collections (anthologies) are only considered if the entire book is by a single author and the entire book first appeared in the copyright year.
2) The book must have a copyright of 2022.
3) To enter the competition, one copy of each nominated book must be submitted to each of the members of the screening committee. The members of the commitee are:
- T. C. Rice,
1075 Webster Ave.
The Bronx, NY, 10456 - James McCrone,
1504 South 5th Street,
Philadelphia, PA 19147 - Ann Romeo,
13205 Linden Ave N,
Seattle, WA 98133, - Christina Hoag,
1301 17th St. #208,
Santa Monica, CA 90404 - Caro Soles,
12 Roundwood Court,
Toronto, ON M1W 1Z2
4) The deadline for entries is December 15, 2022.
Lefty Awards
The annual Left Coast Crime “Lefty” Awards are chosen by registered members of each Left Coast Crime convention. During the first two weeks of January, nominations for awards to be presented at the annual convention are made by people registered for that convention and also the immediately prior convention. A ballot listing the official nominees is given to each registrant when they check in at the convention, and final voting takes place at the convention. The ballots are tabulated and that year’s Lefty Awards are presented at the Awards Celebration.
To be eligible, titles must have been published for the first time in the United States or Canada during the calendar year preceding the convention, in book or ebook format.
The Silver Falchion
Award presented at the Killer Nashville writing conference.
There’s still time to submit your 2021 books! The 2022 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award seeks to discover and honor the best books of 2021 (novels, novellas, and non-fiction) that incorporate the elements of mystery, thriller, and suspense.
Submission Deadline: June 15, 2022. Killer Nashville will contact publishers, but fundamentally it is the task of each author to ensure his or her work is submitted either by his/her self or through his/her publisher. Entries received after June 15, 2022 are ineligible.
Shamus Awards
Awards given by the Private Eye Writers of America. Eligible works must feature as a main character a person PAID for investigative work but NOT employed for that work by a unit of government. These include traditionally licensed private investigators; lawyers and reporters who do their own investigations; and others who function as hired private agents. These do NOT include law enforcement officers, other government employees, or amateur, uncompensated sleuths.
Deadline for works published in 2022: check the site, but will probably be sometime in March 2023.
Staunch Book Prize
Prize given to novels and short stories for a thriller in which no woman is beaten, stalked, sexually exploited, raped or murdered.
Deadline: July 31st, 2022
The Derringers
The Derringers are awarded by the Short Mystery Fiction Society.
The current regular Derringer Awards are:
- Best Flash Story (Up to 1,000 words)
- Best Short Story (1,001 to 4,000 words)
- Best Long Story (4,001 to 8,000 words)
- Best Novelette (8,001 to 20,000 words)
Members who joined the society by December 31, 2022 may submit eligible stories written by anyone, including themselves. Winners are announced in May and the medals presented at Bouchercon.
The IPPYs
Awards given out to Independently Published Works.
CONTACT INFORMATION
Amy Shamroe, Awards Director
Phone: 1-800-644-0133 x1000
Email: amys [at] jenkinsgroupinc.com
Lambda Literary Awards
Awards for excellence in LGBTQ storytelling. Lammy Award judges are impaneled in the fall. These panels typically consist of three judges per award category, with some exceptions based on anticipated submission volume. Among the factors for selecting judges are: interest, availability, affinity for the assigned category, and familiarity with the field. Lammys finalists are revealed in the spring of the award year, and celebrated at the award ceremony in June. Winners receive plaque, the coveted Lambda Literary Award sticker for the covers of their award-winning book, and a place in Lambda’s decades-long history of recognized LGBTQ literary brilliance.
The Goldies
The Golden Crown Literary Awards are presented every year during the Golden Crown Literary Society Annual Conference and recognize excellence in women-loving-women and sapphic literature. Check the site for deadlines and contact information.
Best of luck!
Emilya Naymark
Her short stories appear in the Bouchercon 2023 Anthology, A Stranger Comes to Town: edited by Michael Koryta, Secrets in the Water, After Midnight: Tales from the Graveyard Shift, River River Journal, Snowbound: Best New England Crime Stories 2017, and 1+30: THE BEST OF MYSTORY.
When not writing, Emilya works as a visual artist and reads massive quantities of psychological thrillers, suspense, and crime fiction. She lives in the Hudson Valley with her family.