PAST AWARDS
First Chapters Competition
2024
The HNS First Chapters Competition is run in conjunction with the HNS Ireland and UK Conference. It recognizes excellence and storytelling in craft in historical fiction and its subgenres. There are 9 categories winners, from which is chosen the overall winner:
- 2024 | Lenore Hart for The Alchemy of Light. See the category winners here.
HNSNA Short Story Contest
2025
The HNS North American Conference has held a short story content which chose 11 finalists plus the overall winner:
- 2025 | Kurt Larsen for "A Hardboiled Day's Night". The winning short story plus the 11 finalists were compiled and published as Desert of Dreams.
ARA HISTORICAL NOVEL PRIZE
2020-2024
The HNS Australasian Chapter holds an annual prize contest of $150,000. Past winners can be found at the link below.
Saudi Historical Fiction Award
2021
The HNS and The King Abdulaziz Foundation for Research and Archives (DARAH) partnered to form an annual Saudi Historical Fiction Award, one for a novel and another for a short story. The Award focused on writers of English language historical fiction with Saudi settings:
- 2021 | Short Story Award: the Award ran for one year, with no entry deemed by the judges to be outstanding, but awarding 5 prizes of £1,000 each. The prize judges were Dr Ibrahim Azizi and David Rundell. The winners were: "A Deep Stillness" by I.Z. Boucheloukh, "Hedjaz" by Graham Steed, "In Search of Me" by Rebeca Maynart, "Photo Finish" by Edward James, "The Kraytor" by Ciaran Doran
- 2021 | Historical Novel Award: the Award also ran for one year, with no entry deemed by the judges to be outstanding, but awarding 2 prizes of £2,000 and one prize of £1,000. The judges were Dr Ibrahim Azizi and Katherine Clements.
New Novel Award
2013-2018
The HNS New Novel Award was given to a previously unpublished and currently un-agented historical novel. The Society is currently seeking a sponsor to revitalize the award. Past winners include:
- 2013 | Martin Sutton for Lost Paradise. He subsequently won the 2016 Winston Graham Prize 2016 after the novel was published by the Historical Novel Society.
- 2015-16 | Cam Terwilliger for Yet Wilderness Grew in My Heart. One of our runners up, Kelleigh Greenberg-Jephcott, subsequently signed a 6-figure deal with Hutchinson to publish her debut Swan Song, which went on to be long-listed for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction.
- 2018 | Warwick Cairns for The Master Thief. One of the shortlisted titles, The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Nacneal, was published by Picador after a 14-way bidding war.
Indie Award
2014-2017
The HNS Indie Award was given to an independently-published novel.
- 2014 | Virginia Cox for The Subtlest Soul.
- 2015 | Anna Belfrage for Revenge and Retribution.
- 2016 | Lucienne Boyce for Bloodie Bones and Barbara Sjoholm for Fossil Island.
- 2017 | A longlist was produced, but the award was cancelled before an overall winner was selected. The longlist can be viewed here.
Short Story Award
2014
The HNS Short Story Award was given to a historical fiction short story.
- 2014 | Anne Aylor for "The House of Wild Beasts"
