__ __ _ _____ _ _ _
| \/ | ___| |_ __ _| ___(_) | |_ ___ _ __
| |\/| |/ _ \ __/ _` | |_ | | | __/ _ \ '__|
| | | | __/ || (_| | _| | | | || __/ |
|_| |_|\___|\__\__,_|_| |_|_|\__\___|_|
community weblog
Morbidly curious
The winners of the 2025 Bram Stoker Awards. The Horror Writers Association announced the winners on June 6th, 2026 at StokerCon in Pittsburgh.
Nominees and winners:
Superior Achievement in an Anthology
Day, Julie C.; Bissett, Carina; and Gidney, Craig Laurance, eds. — Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology (Essential Dreams Press)
Golden, Christopher and Keene, Brian, eds. — The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King's The Stand (Gallery Books)
WINNER: Kulski, Kristy Park, ed. — Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora (Bad Hand Books)
Murray, Lee and Jeffery, Dave, eds. — This Way Lies Madness: Stories from the Edge of Darkness (Flame Tree Publishing)
Ryan, Lindy and Wytovich, Stephanie M., eds. — HOWL: An Anthology of Werewolves from Women-in-Horror (Black Spot Books)
Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection
Chapman, Clay McLeod — Acquired Taste (Titan Books)
Files, Gemma — Little Horn: Stories (Shortwave)
WINNER: Langan, John — Lost in The Dark and Other Excursions (Word Horde)
Piper, Hailey — Teenage Girls Can Be Demons (Titan Books)
Tantlinger, Sara — Cyanide Constellations (Dark Matter INK)
Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Daly, Grace — The Scald-Crow (Creature Publishing)
Karella, Bitter — Moonflow (Run For It)
Pell, Tanya — Her Wicked Roots (Gallery Books)
Steel, Hester — The Faceless Thing We Adore (Page Street Horror)
Tennison, Kathryn — Molting (Uncomfortably Dark Horror)
Viel, Neena — Listen to Your Sister (St. Martin's Griffin / Titan Books)
WINNER: Wehunt, Michael — The October Film Haunt (St. Martin's Press)
Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel
Bunn, Cullen (writer) and Luckert, Danny (artist) – Jumpscare (Dark Horse Comics)
King, Sandy (editor) – John Carpenter's Tales for a HalloweeNight, Volume 11 (Storm King Comics)
Kraus, Daniel (writer) and Dani (artist) – Athanasia (VAULT Comics)
WINNER: Mignola, Mike – Bowling With Corpses and Other Tales from Lands Unknown (Dark Horse Comics)
Tynion IV, James (writer), Foxe, Steve (writer), and Kowalski, Piotr (artist) – Let This One Be a Devil – (Dark Horse Comics & Tiny Onion Studios)
Superior Achievement in Long Fiction (tie)
WINNER: Ballingrud, Nathan — Cathedral of the Drowned (Tor Nightfire / Titan Books)
Ha, Thomas — "Uncertain Sons" (Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, Undertow Publications)
Langan, Sarah — "Squid Teeth"(Reactor)
Langan, Sarah — Pam Kowolski is a Monster! (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
WINNER: Wise, A.C. — "Wolf Moon, Antler Moon" (Reactor)
Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction
Borwein, Naomi Simone, ed. — Global Indigenous Horror (University Press of Mississippi)
Grafius, Brandon R. and Morehead, John W., eds. — The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Monsters (Oxford University Press)
Hieber, Leanna Renee and Janes, Andrea — America's Most Gothic (Kensington Publishing)
Scrivner, Coltan — Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can't Look Away (Penguin Random House)
WINNER: Spratford, Becky Siegel, ed. — Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction (Saga Press)
Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel
WINNER: Dawson, Delilah S. — Ride or Die (Delacorte Press)
Kuyatt, Meg Eden — The Girl in the Walls (Scholastic Press)
Malinenko, Ally — Broken Dolls (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Oh, Ellen — The House Next Door (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Russell, Ally — Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave (Delacorte Press)
Superior Achievement in a Novel
Hendrix, Grady — Witchcraft for Wayward Girls (Berkley)
Hill, Joe — King Sorrow (William Morrow)
WINNER: Jones, Stephen Graham — The Buffalo Hunter Hunter (Saga Press / Titan Books)
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia — The Bewitching (Del Rey)
Wagner, Wendy N. — Girl in the Creek (Tor Nightfire)
Superior Achievement in Poetry (Collection and Long Form)
WINNER: Addison, Linda D. and Hodge, Jamal — Everything Endless (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Gold, Maxwell I. — Songs of Enough: An Inferno All My Own (Hippocampus Press)
Kearns, Shannon — The Uterus is an Impossible Forest (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Peebles, Cate — The Haunting (Tupelo Press)
Raguso, MarieAnn C, PhD — Allegories of Beauty & Violence: a collection of Gothic Romance Poems (Analyze This)
Superior Achievement in a Screenplay
WINNER: Coogler, Ryan — Sinners (Warner Bros. / Domain / Proximity)
Cregger, Zach — Weapons (New Line Cinema / Domain / Subconscious)
Garland, Alex — 28 Years Later (Sony / Columbia Pictures / TSG Entertainment)
Hancock, Drew — Companion (New Line Cinema / BoulderLight Pictures / Vertigo Entertainment)
Philippou, Danny and Hinzman, Bill — Bring Her Back (Causeway Films / Salmira Productions / The South Australian Film Corporation)
Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
Daniels, L.E. — "Stomata" (Darkness Most Fowl, The Godmother of Horror Press)
WINNER: Joseph, RJ – "Inheritance" (Full Throttle: A Dark Dozen Anthology, Uncomfortably Dark Publishing)
Szczepaniak-Gillece, Jocelyn — "Saint Dymphna's School for Borderland Girls" (Weird Horror #10, Undertow Publications)
Taborska, Anna — "[Ir]reversible" (Witches and Witchcraft: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Essays, Hippocampus Press)
Wongsatayanont, Champ – "Autogas Ferryman" (Nightmare Magazine #156, Adamant Press)
Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction
Barb, Patrick — "Deathwish Wolf Man: The Tragic Hero at the Heart of the Universal Monster" (Interstellar Flight Magazine) (Interstellar Flight Press)
WINNER: Due, Tananarive — "My Long Road to Horror" (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press)
Jones, Stephen Graham — "Why Horror" (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press)
Moshaty, Mo — "Haunted Thresholds: Liminal Horror and the Psychological Disintegration of Women from Post-Partum, Grief, Trauma and Religious Fanaticism" (Darkest Margins: 24 Essays on Liminality and Liminal Spaces in the Horror Genre) (1428 Publishing Ltd)
Pelayo, Cynthia — "My Mother Was Margaret White" (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Saga Press)
Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel
WINNER: Chapman, Clay McLeod – Shiny Happy People (Delacorte Press)
Cheng, Linda —Beautiful Brutal Bodies (Roaring Brook Press)
Chupeco, Rin — We're Not Safe Here (Sourcebooks)
Rodriguez Wallach, Diana — The Silenced (Delacorte Press)
Roux, Madeleine — A Girl Walks Into The Forest (Quill Tree Books)
SPECIALTY AWARDS
Specialty Press Award: Bad Hand Books
Richard Laymon President's Award: Marc L. Abbott
Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award: Sarah Read
Mentor of the Year Award: Eric Guignard
Lifetime Achievement Award Winners: Lisa Morton, Jonathan Maberry
posted by doctornemo on Jun 08, 2026 at 6:36 PM
---------------------------
Wow, two wins and two additional nominations for a book mentioned prominently in Kitteh's thread last week that inspired a lot of good discussion: Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Literature, edited by Becky Siegel Spratford. Interview with the editor. Excerpt: "How Grady Hendrix Came to Love Horror" [which is a pretty rough read TBH].
posted by Wobbuffet at 6:54 PM
---------------------------
"Buffalo Hunter Hunter" and "Sinners" win. I can go to bed with a warm feeling,
and dig into everything else nominated starting tomorrow.
Also - I need to think a bit about "Sinners" being recognized by a literary award when the Oscars didn't show much appreciation. I had one of those "makes sense!" moments but can't put my finger on why.
posted by Silvery Fish at 7:19 PM
---------------------------
Also - I need to think a bit about "Sinners" being recognized by a literary award when the Oscars didn't show much appreciation. I had one of those "makes sense!" moments but can't put my finger on why.
Because it made the (white) audience legitimately uncomfortable. Not just in a "identifying with characters in uncomfortable situations" kind of way, but by taking the audience to a place where they have cognitive dissonance around their identity as producers and participants in culture -- and then leaves them there, without providing an easy exit from that place of discomfort. Judges in a literary forum have a contextual framework that allows them to inhabit that space. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences... less so.
posted by Smedly, Butlerian jihadi at 4:12 AM
---------------------------
The Grady Hendrix essay is some wild shit.
Why I Love Horror is well worth checking out at your local library. I absolutely loved it; the book articulated so much about why I myself love horror and it gave me a chance to write down some authors I didn't know about before!
posted by Kitteh at 5:05 AM
---------------------------
Love these lists, added quite a few to my holds.
Sinners was wonderful. Holding a mirror right up to white people and showing just how ugly they are. But the crowning glory was the indigenous folks riding up to the whites and offering a sincere warning and being brushed off -- and never returning to the movie, like, okay, we tried, not our circus, not our monkeys, good fukken luck you dumb bastards. it's radiant with indictment for multitudes of white sin.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:11 AM
---------------------------