2019 Bram Stoker Awards Announced

The Horror Writers Association has announced the winners of the 2019 Bram Stoker Awards. Named for the author of Dracula, probably the premiere horror novel, the awards recognize superior writing in eleven categories for fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and screenplays.

“This year’s winners reflect a great showing of impressive works from a wide range of competitive finalists,” said John Palisano, HWA President. “This year’s winners truly represent a broad spectrum of titles in the horror and dark fantasy. HWA members and awards juries have again shown objectivity and dedication to the selection process for outstanding works of literature, cinema, non-fiction, and poetry.”

Winners are designated in red.

Superior Achievement in a Novel

• Goingback, Owl – Coyote Rage (Independent Legions Publishing)
• Malerman, Josh – Inspection (Del Rey)
• Miskowski, S.P. – The Worst is Yet to Come (Trepidatio Publishing)
• Murray, Lee – Into the Ashes (Severed Press)
• Wendig, Chuck – Wanderers (Del Rey)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• Read, Sarah – The Bone Weaver’s Orchard (Trepidatio Publishing)
• Amor, Gemma – Dear Laura (Independently Published)
• Guignard, Eric J. – Doorways to the Deadeye (JournalStone)
• Lane, Michelle Renee – Invisible Chains (Haverhill House Publishing)
• Starling, Caitlin – The Luminous Dead (Harper Voyager)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• Nzondi – Oware Mosaic (Omnium Gatherum)
• Bérubé, Amelinda – Here There Are Monsters (Sourcebooks Fire)
• Dávila Cardinal, Ann – Five Midnights (Tor Teen)
• Gardner, Liana – Speak No Evil (Vesuvian Books)
• Marshall, Kate Alice – Rules for Vanishing (Viking Books for Young Readers)
• Salomon, Peter Adam – Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds (PseudoPsalms Press)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• Doran, Colleen & Gaiman, Neil – Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples (Dark Horse Books)
• Bunn, Cullen – Bone Parish Vol. 2 (BOOM! Studios)
• Liu, Marjorie – Monstress Volume 4: The Chosen (Image Comics)
• Manzetti, Alessandro – Calcutta Horror (Independent Legions Publishing)
• Tanabe, Gou – H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness Volume 1 (Dark Horse Manga)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• LaValle, Victor – Up from Slavery (Weird Tales Magazine#363) (Weird Tales Inc.)
• Manzetti, Alessandro – The Keeper of Chernobyl (Omnium Gatherum)
• Taborska, Anna – The Cat Sitter (Shadowcats) (Black Shuck Books)
• Tantlinger, Sara – To Be Devoured (Unnerving)
• Warren, Kaaron – Into Bones Like Oil (Meerkat Shorts)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• Kiste, Gwendolyn – “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)” (Nightmare Magazine Nov. 2019, Issue 86)
• Chapman, Greg – “The Book of Last Words” (This Sublime Darkness and Other Dark Stories) (Things in the Well Publishing)
• Landry, Jess – “Bury Me in Tar and Twine” (Tales of the Lost Volume 1: We All Lose Something!) (Things in the Well Publishing)
• O’Quinn, Cindy – “Lydia” (The Twisted Book of Shadows) (Twisted Publishing)
• Waggoner, Tim – “A Touch of Madness”(The Pulp Horror Book of Phobias) (LVP Publications)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• Tremblay, Paul – Growing Things and Other Stories (William Morrow)
• Chiang, Ted – Exhalation: Stories (Knopf)
• Jonez, Kate – Lady Bits (Trepidatio Publishing)
• Langan, John – Sefira and Other Betrayals (Hippocampus Press)
• Read, Sarah – Out of Water (Trepidatio Publishing)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• Peele, Jordan – Us (Monkeypaw Productions, Perfect World Pictures, Dentsu, Fuji Television Network, Universal Pictures)
• Aster, Ari – Midsommar (B-Reel Films, Square Peg)
• Duffer Brothers, The – Stranger Things (Season 3, Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt) (Netflix)
• Eggers, Robert and Eggers, Max – The Lighthouse (A24, New Regency Pictures, RT Features)
• Flanagan, Mike – Doctor Sleep (Warner Bros., Intrepid Pictures/Vertigo Entertainment)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• Datlow, Ellen – Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories (Gallery/Saga Press)
• Brozek, Jennifer – A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods (Pulse Publishing)
• Golden, Christopher and Moore, James A. – The Twisted Book of Shadows (Twisted Publishing)
• Guignard, Eric J. – Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror (Dark Moon Books)
• Wilson, Robert S. – Nox Pareidolia (Nightscape Press)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

• Kröger, Lisa and Anderson, Melanie R. – Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction (Quirk Books)
• Beal, Eleanor and Greenaway, Jonathan – Horror and Religion: New Literary Approaches to Theology, Race, and Sexuality (University of Wales Press)
• Earle, Harriet E.H. – Gender, Sexuality, and Queerness in American Horror Story: Critical Essays (McFarland)
• Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra – Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces (University of Wales Press)
• Kachuba, John B. – Shapeshifters: A History (Reaktion Books)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

• Kiste, Gwendolyn – “Magic, Madness, and Women Who Creep: The Power of Individuality in the Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman” (Vastarien: A Literary Journal Vol. 2, Issue 1)
• Liaguno, Vince A. – “Slasher Films Made Me Gay: The Queer Appeal and Subtext of the Genre” (LGBTQ+ Horror Month: 9/1/2019, Ginger Nuts of Horror)
• Renner, Karen J. – “The Evil Aging Women of American Horror Story” (Elder Horror: Essays on Film’s Frightening Images of Aging) (McFarland)
• Robinson, Kelly – “Film’s First Lycanthrope: 1913’s The Werewolf” (Scary Monsters Magazine #114)
• Weich, Valerie E. – “Lord Byron’s Whipping Boy: Dr. John William Polidori and the 200^th Anniversary of The Vampyre” (Famous Monsters of Filmland, Issue #291)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• Addison, Linda D. and Manzetti, Alessandro – The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing)
• Cade, Octavia – Mary Shelley Makes a Monster (Aqueduct Press)
• Lynch, Donna – Choking Back the Devil (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
• Scalise, Michelle – Dragonfly and Other Songs of Mourning (LVP Publications)
• Simon, Marge and Dietrich, Bryan D. – The Demeter Diaries (Independent Legions Publishing)
• Wytovich, Stephanie M. – The Apocalyptic Mannequin (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

The winners are decided by a vote of active and lifetime members of the organization.

The awards were originally to be presented during the annual StokerCon to be held April 16th – 19th in Scarborough, United Kingdom. However, the event had to be cancelled due to the quarantine and lockdown conditions caused by the pandemic.