Each year around this time I experience a fit of jealousy for those lucky few individuals who receive a Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association (HWA). Not only are there far fewer of them than Oscars or Emmys, but let’s be honest, they are far cooler to look at. Interestingly enough, you will never find one for sale or auction, as clearly horror writers at this level are never hard up enough for money to sell their trophies (believe me, I’ve looked). When you Google “replica Oscar statues for sale” you find nearly 2 million hits… but can you guess how many hits you get when you Google “replica Stoker awards for sale”?

Exactly zero.

That’s right – no cheesy dollar-store models of this little gem. No inflatable, larger-than-life Stokers, no Stoker costumes, no Stoker greeting cards. And why is that? Because it’s rare and amazing and too incredible for words, in spite of the fact I’d pay big bucks, even one made by those ceramic Christmas house people (if any of those are listening).

Nope. Only the best of the best, of the best, get to take home a Stoker. Back in January I gave you the list of lucky nominees. Little did I know we’d all end up with plenty of time to read each and every one. This week the HWA dashed the hopes of most writers on that list to arrive at 12 winners and the subsequent “finalist nominees” who do not get to go home with the coolest award ever created. In fact, this year they are at least spared the agony of having their pictures taken next to the winner, standing near to, but not being allowed to touch the coveted Stoker award.

Sigh.

So, without further pontificating, here are the talented winners, and the finalists…

[Click the images for Stoker-sized versions.]

Superior Achievement in a Novel: Goingback, Owl – Coyote Rage (Independent Legions Publishing)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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 #363) (Weird Tales Inc.)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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)

Also nominated:

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 200th 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)

Also nominated:

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)

See the complete list of 2020 nominees here, and last year’s nominees here.