British Fantasy Award Shortlist Announced

The British Fantasy Society has announced the shortlist of nominees for this year’s awards, to be presented as part of the 2026 Fantasycon. The BFAs are the longest running fantasy awards in the UK, celebrating the best in speculative fiction from the preceding calendar year. Nominees are selected by jurors after a process that includes an open suggestion period and public voting to narrow down the list of eligible titles.

BFS Chair Shona Kinsella says, “With so many exciting releases in 2025, our voters had a lot to choose from! Thank you to everyone who took the time to take part in the process in any way from adding to the suggestions list right through to volunteering as a juror. And thank you to our Awards Administrator Paul Yates, who takes on the mammoth task of making everything work. Congratulations to everyone whose work made it onto the shortlists and the best of luck to the jurors in the challenging task of selecting the winners.”

Yates allowed that the announcement took a little longer than usual this year because there were 25% more votes cast this year over last, and there’s an additional category in the mix for 2026. “We’ve also seen an increase in people wanting to be jurors, especially from BFS members, which is great to see.”

The first BFAs were awarded in 1972, the year the British Fantasy Society was established. There was one category, one winner: The Knight of the Swords by Michael Moorcock.

 

Best Anthology

• Lesbians In Space: Where No Man Has Gone Before, edited by J S Fields, William C Tracy, Heather Tracy (Space Wizard Science Fantasy)
• Blood in the Bricks, edited by Neil Williamson, NewCon Press
• This Way Lies Madness, edited Dave Jeffery, Lee Murray, Flame Tree Press
• Silk and Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora, Kristy Park Kulski (Bad Hand Books)

Best Artist

• Jenni Coutts
• Mina Ikemoto Ghosh
• Vincent Chong
• Ben Baldwin
• Kelly Chong

Best Audio (Fiction)

• The Shape of Monsters, CL Hellisen, Omari Douglas (Audible Originals)
• The Tiny Bookcase
• Podcastle
• Pseudopod

Best Audio (Non-Fiction)

• Breaking The Glass Slipper
• Fantasy Book Swap
• Uncanny
• The Folklore Podcast

Best Collection

• Dark Crescent, Lyndsey Croal (Luna Press)
• Call And Response, Christopher Caldwell (Neon Hemlock Press)
• Wolf’s Path, Joyce Chng (Atthis Arts)
• Who Will You Save, Gareth Powell (Titan Books)
• Into Wrack and Ruin, Benjamin Kurt Unsworth (Phantasmagoria Books)

Best Fantasy Novel (The Robert Holdstock Award)

• Daughters of Nicnevin, Shona Kinsella (Flame Tree Press)
• Magic, Maps, and Mischief, David Green (Independently Published)
• A Song of Legends Lost, M H Ayinde (Orbit)
• The Outcast Mage, Annabel Campbell (Orbit)
• Grave Empire, Richard Swan (Orbit)
• Upon a Starlit Tide, Kell Woods (Titan Books)

Best Horror Novel (The August Derleth Award)

• Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix (Tor Nightfire)
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Titan Books)
• Hungerstone, Kat Dunn (Manilla Press)
• The Needfire, MK Hardy (Solaris)
• Lionhearts, Dan Howarth (Northern Republic Press)
• Black Flame, Gretchen Felker-Martin (Titan Books)

Best Independent Press

• Flame Tree Press
• Luna Press
• Black Shuck Books
• Newcon Press

Best Magazine/Periodical

• Ginger Nuts of Horror
• Remains
• Phantasmagoria
• Strange Horizons
• Mythaxis Magazine

Best Newcomer

• M H Ayinde, A Song of Legends Lost (Orbit)
• Annabel Campbell, The Outcast Mage (Orbit)
• Ana Sun, Futures to Live By (NewCon Press)
• M K Hardy, The Needfire (Solaris)

Best Non-Fiction

• Writing The Magic: Essays on Crafting Fantasy Fiction, Dan Coxon & Richard V Hirst (Dead Ink Books)
• Spec Fic and the Politics of Identity: Finding the Self in Other, Eugen Bacon (Strange Horizons)
• Nigerian Speculative Fiction: Evolution, Chukwunonso Ezeiyoke (Routledge India)
• The Full Lid, Alasdair Stuart, edited by Marguerite Kenner
• Britain’s Folklore Year: A seasonal journey through our customs, celebrations and rituals, Mark Norman (National Trust Books)
• The Ecological Imaginary in Literature and Other Media: The Nature of Fantasy, Kevan Manwaring (Routledge)

Best Novella

• The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar (Arcadia)
• Walking A Wounded Land, Andrew Knighton (Wizard’s Tower Press)
• Fate’s Bane, C.L. Clark (TorDotCom)
• The Nga’phandileh Whisperer: A Sauútiverse Novella, Eugen Bacon (Stars and Sabres Publishing)

Best Short Story

• “Godzilla As A Young Man Named Mike”, E M Faulds (Podcastle)
• “Shadow Jack”, CL Hellisen (Giganotosaurus)
• “No One Knows the Old Ways Anymore and It Will Be The End of Everything”, LJ McMenemy (Hiding Under the Leaves anthology, The Slab Press)
• “Down Street, James Bennett” (Blood in the Bricks anthology, NewCon Press)

 

The list will be voted upon by members of the British Fantasy Society and ticket holders for this year’s Fantasycon in Glasgow, Scotland October 9 – 11, 2026.