Meet the International Thriller Writers

The seeds were sown in a meeting held during this year’s Bouchercon, but as begun by founding members Gayle Lynds and David Morrell, this new organization has been set up to recognize the achievements of thriller writers, who are often neglected by major mystery awards or even when there is a separate category (like the CWA’s Steel Dagger), the winners tend to be books that don’t really fit in the thriller category.

Now The International Thriller Writers, or ITW, is open for business. Membership is available (for $50.00 per year) in two tracks, Active and Associate, described below:

[An] “Active” member is a thriller author who is commercially published.  (For a more detailed description, please see the bylaws as described in the Executive Summary.)  An “Associate” member is a professional in the industry — for instance, an agent, editor, publisher, bookseller, reviewer, or publicist.

Further information about the bylaws is available here, while the application form for membership is located here. It should be very interesting to see this new group develop and gain a foothold within the mystery community as a whole.

And as for who should obtain Active membership, considering that the definition of a thriller writer is, shall we say, rather flexible (see Anderson, Patrick for demonstrations of such flexibility)? Take your cues from the current executive. Besides Morrell and Lynds, Tess Gerritsen, Lee Child, M.J. Rose and David Dun are on the steering committee.