Announcing the Winners of the 2024 MWA-NY/Leon Burstein Award (for a first crime novel)

On Dec 2 at the annual MWA-NY Revels holiday gathering in New York City, longstanding MWA member Dan Burstein presented the Leon Burstein award, named for his father, to two happy winners.

Open to members of the New York chapter of Mystery Writers of America, the new contest encourages aspiring authors and rewards efforts toward their publication-ready novels.

This year Pamela Ruth Meyer’s manuscript “Death in Miniature” won first place with Christal Roberts’s “A Killing in Black Newport” taking runner-up.

Meyers said, “As an unpublished author, I often felt lost and alone, struggling around in the dark, picking myself up and cheering myself on to get better and try again after being toppled again and again and again by rejections. It would be so easy to give up. But an award like this is a ginormous vote of confidence. With it, the dreamer in me is inspired to dream on.”

“This award—it’s like uncovering a plot twist I never saw coming. This recognition inspires me to continue to craft stories that keep readers guessing until the very last page” said Roberts.

Our chapter congratulates these upcoming authors! Details of the 2025 contest will be posted at www.mwany.org.

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