DG Coutinho awarded CrimeFest’s 2025 bursary for a crime-fiction writer of colour

CrimeFest introduced the bursary in 2021 with the very first honor going to Saima Mir to attend the 2022 convention. Candidates for the bursary were reviewed by CWA chair and author Vaseem Khan, and self-employed crime-fiction doubter and CWA judge Ayo Onatade.

In 2015, the organisers introduced that this year’s convention will certainly be the last to be hosted in Bristol after 16 years, and will certainly feature a schedule of authors including Lee and Andrew Kid, Simon Brett, Lindsey Davis and Martin Edwards, to name a few.

Donna Moore, CrimeFest co-host, claimed: “CrimeFest is a hotbed for varied talent thanks to its democratic nature as a convention available to all released writers. We were conscious that more was required for events and conventions, usually, to proactively support authors of colour. We’re honored to have helped put bursaries on the agenda as a lasting tradition.”

Coutinho has likewise won the Bloody Scotland Harvill Secker Crime Composing Competitors for under-represented authors, and is the author of The Light and Shade of Ellen Swithin (Harvill Secker), a darkly comic thriller discovering harmful job culture.

Coutinho said: “Viewers satisfying Ellen discover she’s a complete geek that loves real-time music, and technology. She’s simply attempting to bag a promo, pay for her wedding celebration, and browse life as a Black lady in a white male-dominated career. She’s ambitious, smart, and a little bit of an outsider.”