For the best Australian women’s crime and mystery books of 2024
Note: contact details have changed. All enquiries should be sent to the judge co-ordinator Ruth Wykes.
ENTRY FEES
Save 33% with EarlyBird entries from 1-30 November 2024. Full fee entries from 1 December 2024 to 31 January 2025.
Entry fees are: $20 per book EarlyBird. $30 per book thereafter.
Entries close at midnight on Friday 31 January 2025.
Six Davitt Awards will be presented at a gala dinner and awards ceremony in Melbourne in August or September 2025.
CATEGORIES
Books will be judged in the following categories:
- Best Adult Novel
- Best Young Adult Novel
- Best Children’s Novel
- Best Non-Fiction Book
- Best Debut Book
- Readers’ Choice (voted by the members of Sisters in Crime Australia)
Sisters in Crime would like to encourage the submission of more young adult and childrens books.
THE TIMELINE
Judging will take place from January to July in 2025 by a panel of seven judges. The judges are chosen for their experience and expertise in the industry and hail from Victoria, ACT, NSW and Queensland.
These are the key dates:
- 1 November 2024 – 31st January 2025: entries are open for the 25th Davitt Awards
- January 2025 – June 2025: Judging is underway
- Early June 2025: the longlist is announced
- Mid July 2025: the shortlist is announced
- August/September 2025: The 25th Davitt Awards Gala Ceremony
The winners are notified approximately a month before the awards ceremony and invited to attend as guests of Sisters in Crime Australia. The awards ceremony is always in Melbourne.
With so many books now being published, we would appreciate it if you entered as soon as possible. Don’t leave it to the last minute!
HOW TO ENTER
- Confirm your book meets the conditions of entry. See below.
- Register and pay the entry fee per book through Eventbrite by no later than midnight on Friday 31 January 2025. Note: if you are entering more than one book, you will need to enter each separately.
- Email to us a list of books you have entered asap. Make sure to specify the relevant categories in which the books are being entered and include whether the entry is a debut book. Closing date is 31 January 2025 but please send the list once you’ve paid on Eventbrite.
- If you are sending hard copies then mail one to each of the judges. You will receive an automatic email from Eventbrite with the details of where to send paper books.
- If you are sending eBooks, they must be in ePub format. Email them to the co-ordinator and do not send them in packages with expiry dates. Sisters in Crime’s Davitt Awards Coordinator will only distribute the ebooks to the judges. Please note: PDFs and Advanced Reader Copies ARCs) of books will not be accepted.
CONDITIONS OF ENTRY
- The author/s must be women, including intersex and transgender, and be an Australian citizen or permanent resident.
- Books co-written with men or including chapters written by men will not be eligible.
- The book must be an original work and not previously published anywhere in the world.
- The book must have been first published in 2024. This includes international releases.
- Self-published and hybrid authors are encouraged to submit their books.
- The book must have crime or mystery as its central theme. Davitt judges reserve the right to exclude any book from consideration if they believe it does not fall within the crime and mystery genre. Books will not be considered if the entry fee hasn’t been paid or if books haven’t been distributed to judges within seven days of the closing date.
- Any book that has been written, either as a whole or in part, using Artificial Intelligence, will not be eligible for entry. The only exception to this is if a book’s cover has been generated by AI, the book will still be eligible if the story is original work by the author/s.
- The judges’ decisions will be final, and no discussion will be entered into with authors about individual entries.
- Books are considered debut if this is the author’s first published novel in any genre, not just their first crime novel. For non-fiction, this means the author has not previously published any non-fiction work.
Any questions, please contact the Judges’ Coordinator Ruth Wykes.