Announcing THE LOUIE AWARD 2025
The winner of the 2025 The Louie Award for fast fiction crime writing is
KT Major for her story Bitter.
Congratulations KT!
The Louie Award is Australia’s fast fiction crime writing award. It is for stories of up to 500 words. The award is sponsored by Dr Antonio Di Dio in celebration of his late father Luigi.
This year’s competition theme was “the photograph” and once again the judges were amazed to read such a wide range of interpretations.
“From old photographs, to torn, to developing, overexposed, lost, faded the stories were extremely inventive and evocative,” the judging panel said. “Despite having to tell a whole story in less than 500 words, such few words produced some incredibly vivid and strong images.”
The judges also nominated two highly commended writers:
Simon Rowe for his story - Taut.
Heidi Catherine for her story - Exposed.
All three stories are now available to read on the Australian Crime Writers Association website.
The winner receives $500 cash and the two highly commended writers receive $125 each. All three writers receive an award certificate.
About the winner:
KT Major is an emerging writer based in NSW, She writes crime and literary fiction and essays with an Asian-Australian perspective. Her short stories have won several accolades and have been published in anthologies, magazines and journals. KT is also working on a crime thriller novel titled Dark Opera.
“I live and breath crime fiction. From the moment I heard about The Louie Award I knew I had to give it a go. My ultimate goal is to win a Ned Kelly Award, some day,” KT said.
About the highly commended writers:
Heidi Catherine is the author or more than 30 fantasy and dystopian novels. The Victorian writer is currently writingdomestic suspense. “These awards are a great opportunity to create a fully formed and engaging crime story in only a short number of words. I’m thrilled to have been selected as a finalist,” Heidi said.
Simon Rowe is a Melbourne writer and teacher currently based in Japan. His cosy mystery, Mami Suzuki: Private Eye was nominated for Best First Novel in the 2024 Ngaio Marsh Awards. “The inspiration for Taut came as I was commuting to work by train one day while listening to the 1980s hit Skin Deep by The Stranglers and trying to think up a story with irony, wry humour, and a good dose of revenge,” Simon said.
The Louie Award complements the Australian Crime Writers Association’s long standing and internationally recognised Ned Kelly Awards, Australia’s premier awards for crime books.
The Australian Crime Writers Association is dedicated to promoting Australian crime, thriller and mystery writing. The Louie Award for fast fiction helps raise awareness about the strength of the Australian crime writing scene and brings a new audience of short story readers and writers to the crime genre.