Crime Writers of Canada (CWC) is calling for submissions for the 2010 Arthur Ellis Awards, this country's premier award for excellence in the crime genre. The 2010 awards are for books and short stories published in 2009.

The Arthur Ellis Awards, established in 1984 and named after the nom de travail of Canada's official hangman, are awarded annually by the CWC in the following categories:

      • Best Crime Novel (by a previously-published author)

      • Best Crime Non-fiction (formerly Best True Crime)

      • Best First Crime Novel (see eligibility rule #4 below)

      • Best Crime Short Story

      • Best Juvenile Crime Book (fiction or non-fiction)

      • Best Crime Publication in French (fiction or non-fiction)

The Arthur Ellis Awards are for CRIME WRITING, and are not restricted to mystery writing. Crime-writing encompasses far more than the traditional whodunit. The crime genre includes crime, detective, espionage, mystery, suspense, and thriller writing, as well as fictional or factual accounts of criminal doings and crime-themed literary works. If you are not certain that your submission qualifies as a crime book or story, please contact us at info@crimewriterscanada.com.

 2010  Arthur Ellis Award Submission Rules

To qualify, a work must fulfill the following criteria:

1.  First publication (includes print, electronic/e-book, or self-published), whether in English or French, in the preceding year (2009) by a Canadian citizen regardless of place of residence, or by a writer, regardless of nationality, who has been granted Permanent Resident status in Canada. The year of publication is determined solely by the copyright date of the book or the short story.

2.  If the work was originally published in a language other than English or French, the first English or French translation of the book is still eligible if:

•  this translation is first published in the preceding year (2009), and

•  the author fulfills the above citizenship/residency requirement.

3.  If a work is co-authored, at least one of the authors must fulfill the citizenship/Permanent Resident requirement.

4.  Special eligibility requirements for the First Novel category: In addition to the above eligibility rules, an author entered in this category cannot have had any other novel of any kind published commercially:

•  in print, electronic/e-book, or self-published, and

•  in Canada or any other country, and

•  in any genre, including literary, and

•  under the author’s given name or a pseudonym, and

· alone or jointly with another author

Note 1: A novel that has an ISBN is considered to be published commercially.

Note 2: The author may be published in other formats (e.g., short stories, non-fiction, plays/screenplays, poetry) and still be eligible to enter in this category.

5.  The book or story fits into the crime-writing genre (see above for our description of “crime genre”).

Please note that the following books and short stories are not eligible:

     • Translations from English to French or from French to English that have been previously published in the other official language.

     •  New editions or revisions that are substantially the same (60% or greater) as the previously published version.

There is a $35 processing fee per title for books and a $15 processing fee per title for short stories; the processing fee for an anthology with more than two eligible stories is $35. Please make out your cheque or money order in Canadian funds for the appropriate amount to Crime Writers of Canada.

If a category has fewer than six (6) submissions in a given year, all books or stories will be held over to be judged in the Arthur Ellis Awards of the following year.

For short stories, please include a photocopy of the original published version or of the table of contents of the magazine or book in which the story appeared. Short stories may be submitted as photocopies of the published work or in manuscript form. If more than one eligible short stories appear in an anthology, publishers may find it convenient to submit the anthology. Up to but no more than three (3) short stories per author may be submitted.

Four (4) copies of any work submitted for an Arthur Ellis Award must be postmarked no later than the close of the business day on

December 18, 2009.

For each submission please include:

  1) Four (4) copies of any work

  2) A cover letter indicating the category, the name of the publisher's imprint and contact information for the author of the work (email, address, and phone number).

  3) A cheque or money order in Canadian funds, made out to Crime Writers of Canada, for the processing fee ($35 per book title, $15 per short story title, $35 for an anthology containing more than 2 short stories)

The shortlists will be announced in April 2010.

The winners will be announced at the Arthur Ellis Awards Banquet

in Toronto on Thursday, May 27, 2010. More details to follow.

Please send all submissions and correspondence to:

Crime Writers of Canada – 2010 Arthur Ellis Awards

3007 Kingston Road, Box 113

Toronto, ON  M1M 1P1

Please notify us at info@crimewriterscanada.com

as soon as your submission(s) are in the mail

so that we can watch for them.

Liz Brady

Executive Director

Crime Writers of Canada

www.crimewriterscanada.com