HUGH HOLTON AWARD
Congratulations to the winners of the 2023 Hugh Holton award!
2023 Hugh Holton Winners
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THE DEEP AND FORGOTTEN LOW by Andy Boyle
Andy Boyle is a Chicago-based writer whose work has been in Esquire, NBC News, the Chicago Tribune and more. A longtime journalist, his work was cited in the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. His novel, The Deep and Forgotten Low, follows a disgraced former Chicago police detective as he reluctantly heads back to Nebraska to find his missing niece, stumbling into a web of corruption, drugs and politics, all while being hunted by a hitman fueled by revenge.
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THE PRICE YOU PAY by Sara Braas
Working late, Rae Dane witnesses the brutal kidnapping of her boss’s 30-year-old daughter Amanda. Rae thinks the only way to protect her own family is to stay silent against the kidnapper’s harrowing threats. But when the desperate kidnapper grabs Rae’s daughter too, she must fight back or she’ll lose everything that matters to her.
About Hugh Holton
Hugh Holton (1947-2001) was a Chicago native and a pioneering Black crime fiction writer. He wrote eight novels featuring Chicago Police Detective Larry Cole, all of which drew on Holton’s experiences as a police officer. Some were traditional thrillers while others blurred genre lines to play with science fiction and fantasy. He wrote monthly columns for Mystery Scene Magazine and was a long-time member of the Mystery Writers of America, Midwest chapter. At the time of his death, Hugh Holton was the highest-ranking active police officer writing novels in the United States. The Hugh Holton Award commemorates his contributions to the Midwestern mystery community.
about the award
Every October, we invite any unpublished writer living within MWA’s Midwest Chapter region to submit the first 25 pages of their novel or short story for consideration for the Hugh Holton Award.
Entries are $15 for MWA members and $25 for non-members. Anyone who participated in the Mystery Mentors program in the same submission year is eligible for a free entry. All submission materials, including payments, must be received by 11:59pm on October 31.
The winner of the member category will receive $500.
The winner of the non-member category will receive a year’s membership to MWA (a $115 value) and $250.
Official rules
Submitting writers must not have any novels commercially published (this includes self-published). Entrants can have published short stories or other short pieces.
Writers must reside in one of the following states: IA, IL, IN, KS, KY, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, OH, SD, or WI.
Only one entry per writer. Previous Holton grand prize winners are not eligible.
Submissions must follow standard manuscript formatting: 12-pt Times New Roman (or similar) font, 1” margins, double-spaced lines, and 0.5” paragraph indents.
One winner will be selected for each category. Non-member submissions and the preliminary round of member submissions are judged by a committee of published Midwest Chapter members; the finalist member submissions are sent on to a special guest judge, announced annually. The 2023 special guest judge was Hank Phillippi Ryan.
2022 Hugh Holton Winners
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THE BONE BRACELET by Margo Novotny
Margo Novotny is the pen name of Elaine Kub, a Chartered Financial Analyst whose nonfiction work centers on the economics of commodity markets. The Bone Bracelet is her first novel, a speculative time-travel mystery with an amateur sleuth investigating the murder of an archaeologist in South Dakota's Black Hills National Forest. It was inspired by thinking about the many possible ways society could have been structured before the agricultural revolution and asking how far back historical fiction needs to go to tell a woman's story without gender-based trauma. (Twitter @MargoNovotny)
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HIDDEN ROOMS by Kate Michaelson
Kate Michaelson grew up in rural Ohio where she simultaneously developed her love of the natural world and a strong desire to live closer to a mall. She has worked as an English teacher, technical writer, and curriculum developer. Her first novel, Hidden Rooms, follows a woman who returns to her Ohio hometown and works to clear her brother of a murder charge while also seeking answers to her own medical mystery.
2021 Hugh Holton Winners
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Keith Mulford
Winning entry: Smuggler's Ridge
Keith Mulford is the author of the yet-to-be-published Oak Cliff Mystery series that follows the exploits of a small-town police chief in rural Wisconsin. His novels are complex mysteries with intricate plots, laced with intriguing technology and touches of humor. Keith got hooked on mysteries when, as a young boy, he picked up an Ellery Queen novel. He’s been an avid mystery reader ever since and is now creating his own challenging whodunits.
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Keith Roysdon
Winning entry: Seven Angels
Keith Roysdon had a 40-year career as a newspaper reporter and editor before taking early retirement. He subsequently failed at retirement and is writing freelance for Indiana newspapers, CrimeReads, and PR clients. He writes fiction, and Seven Angels — about a woman who comes back to her small Tennessee town to find police corruption, crime, opioid addiction and human trafficking — was his first completed novel.