Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society to sponsor non-fiction Dagger

The Crime Writers’ Association has today (NZT) announced the new sponsors for its prestigious Dagger for Non-Fiction. The new sponsors for the annual award are The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS). ALCS is a membership organisation for writers and seeks to protect and promote the rights of authors writing in all disciplines and ensure they receive fair payment for their work. The Dagger for Non-Fiction is awarded in July each year.

Barbara Hayes, Chief Executive of ALCS, said: “ALCS is delighted to offer its support in sponsoring the prestigious Crime Writers’ Association’s Non-Fiction Dagger. It is part of ALCS’ remit to promote the work of all types of writers and we are delighted to be involved with the Crime Writers’ Association in promoting a genre that has captured the hearts and imaginations of British authors and readers for so long.”

Peter James, CWA Chair, said: “This is terrific news. The ALCS is an important organisation and we are delighted that they will be sponsoring next year’s award. Much is said and written about crime fiction but non-fiction is also important and needs to be recognised. This award has always sought to do that.”

This year’s winner Doug Starr, a writer from Boston in the United States (pictured, photo: Stephen B Soumerai), who won with THE KILLER OF LITTLE SHEPHERDS, published by Simon & Schuster, said: “Winning is an enormous honour, especially coming from an organisation of British writers who represent such a rich and respected tradition in the genre.”

ALCS collects fees on behalf of the whole spectrum of UK writers: novelists, film & TV script writers, poets and playwrights, freelance journalists, translators and adaptors. All writers are eligible to join ALCS.

Set up in 1977 in the wake of the original campaign for Public Lending Right (led by ALCS Honorary President – Maureen Duffy, Brigid Brophy and Lord Ted Willis among others) the Society collects fees that are difficult, time-consuming or legally impossible for writers and their representatives to claim on an individual basis: money that is nonetheless due to them. Fees collected are distributed to writers twice a year in February and August. ALCS currently has over 82,000 Members in the UK and worldwide. It has agreements with over 55 countries worldwide and has paid out over £275 million in its 34 year history. Further details on ALCS can be found at www.alcs.co.uk Contact information: ALCS, The Writers’ House, 13 Haydon Street, London, EC3N 1DB. Tel: 020 7264 5700; email: alcs@alcs.co.uk.

For more information on the CWA or the Dagger awards, please visit the website, http://www.thecwa.co.uk/ or contact media.enquiries@thecwa.co.uk.