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The Crime Writers’ Association (CWA) is to launch a new initiative, the Crime Readers’ Association (CRA) next year, as well as expanding its Crime Writing Week to an entire month.
The CRA will launch in February 2012 with a new website, the url yet to be confirmed. The site will offer readers information about upcoming books, author interviews and features by CWA member authors. An e-newsletter is also lined up, with plans to organise events for readers to meet authors.
National Crime Writing Week is also set to expand to a month of literary activities in bookshops, libraries and arts centres beginning at the Bristol-based Crimefest event which runs from May 24th-27th 2012. The month will conclude with the new CWA Dagger awards, which include all of the CWA’s awards which do not feature as part of the ITV3 Specsavers Crime Thriller Awards—the International, Non-Fiction, Short Story, Library and Debut Daggers—plus the Diamond Dagger and Ellis Peters Award for historical crime. The date for the event is to be confirmed.
CWA Chair Peter James said: “We’re very excited about launching these new initiatives. The idea behind the CRA is to bring readers and writers closer together. The CRA will create a bond between fans and writers and promote further the crime writing genre."
He added: “Crime Writing Month further underlines the point. Running it over a month will allow members to take part in more events than ever, getting out to meet their readers and support their local libraries. The CWA has long been concerned about the threat to libraries and Crime Writing Month will allow us to champion them as they face cutbacks. The month should be a really exciting event.”