Author Therese Greenwood , Facebook Image
Fort McMurray author wins national crime writing award
FORT McMURRAY, AB. — A Fort McMurray writer is receiving national recognition for her short fiction. Therese Greenwood has won the 2025 Award of Excellence for Best Short Story from the Crime Writers of Canada for Hatchcheck Bingo, a tale of resourceful women navigating life in the Prohibition era.
Judges praised the story as “fresh and original with deeply Canadian historical roots,” citing its wit, layered themes, and portrayal of postwar trauma, gender discrimination, and cross-border booze trafficking.
“It’s a story about clever women stuck in a dead-end job,” said Greenwood. “It also explores my favourite themes of resilience and survival.”
The story appears in The Thirteenth Letter, a 2024 crime anthology from Carrick Publishing and the Mesdames of Mayhem writing collective. The collection was also nominated for a 2025 Derringer Award for Best Anthology, which is a new category from the Short Mystery Fiction Society.
Greenwood has previously won the Spur Award from the Western Writers of America and was a finalist for both the Alberta Book Publishing Awards and Alberta Reads Book Club. Her memoir What You Take With You explores her family’s experience with wildfire evacuation during the 2016 Horse River wildfire that forced the evacuation of the entire cty of Fort McMurray.
Her work has appeared across Canada and in the U.S., including in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. She has also co-edited two crime fiction anthologies and received recognition from Arts Council Wood Buffalo for literary excellence.
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