The World Fantasy Convention 2011 was held in San Diego, California last weekend, where the winners were announced at the Awards Banquet. The judges this year were Andrew Hook, Sascha Mamczak, Mark Rich, Sean Wallace, and Kim Wilkins. And the winners were…

Life Achievement

Peter S. Beagle
Angélica Gorodischer

Novel

Nnedi Okorafor, Who Fears Death (DAW)

Novella

Elizabeth Hand, “The Maiden Flight of McCauley’s Bellerophon” (Stories: All-New Tales)

Short Story

Joyce Carol Oates, “Fossil-Figures” (Stories: All-New Tales)

Anthology

Kate Bernheimer, ed., My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me (Penguin)

Collection

Karen Joy Fowler, What I Didn’t See and Other Stories (Small Beer Press)

Artist

Kinuko Y. Craft

Special Award—Professional

Marc Gascoigne, for Angry Robot

Special Award—Non-professional

Alisa Krasnostein, for Twelfth Planet Press

The Horror Writers Association is looking for submissions for screenplays in the horror genre that came out or will come out in 2011. This is a new category for the Stoker Awards this year. Here are the general award submission guidelines:

Categories: Novel, First Novel, Graphic Novel, Young Adult Novel, Long Fiction, Short Fiction, Fiction Collection, Screenplay, Poetry Collection, Anthology, Nonfiction

Each year, for the past twenty-four years, the Horror Writers Association (HWA) has presented the Bram Stoker Awards for Superior Achievement within the Horror Genre. The Awards are named in honor of Bram Stoker, the famous author of the seminal work of horror, Dracula. The Bram Stoker Awards were instituted immediately after the HWA’s incorporation in 1987.

In a bold move, this year the Twenty-Fifth Annual Bram Stoker Awards will now be partly Juried with one half of the shortlist being selected by a Jury for each of the categories, as opposed to the prior method of all nominees being selected by recommendation of the general membership. The HWA has also added new categories for Screenplay, Graphic Novel and Young Adult.

Half the Bram Stoker Awards nominees in each category will come from a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics within each category, and the remaining half by recommendations from the general HWA membership, which exceeds 550 members. The “Active” class of members (the HWA’s highest professional category of membership) then vote to determine the final award recipients. The awards are for “Superior Achievement” in works published in the preceding calendar year for each of the eleven categories listed above.

Fiction: To be eligible for the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement, a work of fiction must exhibit intrinsic story values that by general agreement identify it as a work of dark fantasy, horror, or the occult. A work need not contain any supernatural element to be considered horror.

Nonfiction: To be eligible, a work of nonfiction – including but not limited to criticism, biography, autobiography, scholarly analysis, and reference – must be related to one or more of the above-mentioned three facets of the horror field.
Publishers and authors wishing to promote their works to a specific Jury are requested do so by first emailing the relevant Jury chair (listed below) with a query on how to submit works to that Jury (it is possible that your work is already under consideration).

Do NOT send hard copy books to HWA’s Post Office box or directly to Jurors without prior permission, as this will likely put you in breach of the anti-spamming rules and may disqualify your work.

To send in material, please contact the appropriate Jury Chair for each category listed below:

Novel – stokernovel@horror.org
First Novel – stokerfirstnovel@horror.org
Collection – stokercollection@horror.org
Anthology – stokerantho@horror.org
Graphic Novels – stokergraphicnovel@horror.org
Young Adult – stokeryanovel@horror.org
Long Fiction – stokerlongfic@horror.org
Short Fiction – stokershortfic@horror.org
Screenplays – stokerscreenplay@horror.org
Nonfiction – stokernonfic@horror.org
Poetry – stokerpoetry@horror.org

For comprehensive details about the rules and process for submissions, please visit: Stoker Rules

The British Fantasy Society has announced the winners of 2011 British Fantasy Awards and here they are…

Best Novel (The August Derleth Fantasy Award)

• Demon Dance, Sam Stone (The House of Murky Depths)

Best Novella

• Humpty’s Bones, Simon Clark (Telos)

Best Short Story

• “Fool’s Gold,” Sam Stone (The Bitten Word)

Best Collection

• Full Dark, No Stars, Stephen King (Hodder & Stoughton)

Best Anthology

• Back From the Dead: The Legacy of the Pan Book of Horror Stories, Johnny Mains, ed. (Noose & Gibbet)

Best Non-Fiction

• Vincent Chong, Altered Visions: The Art of Vincent Chong (Telos)

Best Artist

• Vincent Chong

Best Small Press

• Telos Publishing; David J. Howe & Stephen James Walker

Best Magazine

• Black Static

Best Graphic Novel

• At the Mountains of Madness, I.N.J. Culbard (SelfMadeHero)

Karl Edward Wagner Special Award: Terry Pratchett

Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer: Robert Jackson Bennett, for Mr Shivers (Orbit)

There are also nominees and winners in film and television categories. Voting was open to all current members of the BFS, plus members of FantasyCon 2010 and FantasyCon 2011. Winners were announced at this year’s British Fantasy Convention, FantasyCon 2011, held September 30 – October 2 2011 at the Royal Albion Hotel in Brighton, UK.

The Electronic Publishing Industry Coalition has announced the nominees for the 2012 Epic Awards for e-published books. Categories with nominees of genre interest are listed below. The winners will be announced at EPICon in March, 2012.

Anthology

• Dame Topaz Treasures, by Carrie S. Masek
• Dragon’s Lure, edited by Neal Levin
• Winter Wishes, edited by Angela James

Fantasy

• Psyche’s Prophecy, by Ann Gimpel
• The Sevenfold Spell, by Tia Nevitt
• Thief of Hope, by Cindy Young-Turner

Horror

• Pillar’s Fall, by Ben Larken
• The Death of Lou Grant, by David Halliday
• The Last Vampire, by Kathryn Meyer Griffith

Paranormal

• Healey’s Cave, by Aaron Paul Lazar
• One Blood, by E.F. Watkins
• Piper’s Fury, by Rachel Firasek
• Revelations, by Carrie Lynn Barker

Science Fiction

• Crewkin, by Rhobin L. Courtright
• The Crystal Desert, by Catherine Wells
• The Immortality Virus, by Christine Amsden

Novella

• “Almost Heaven,” by Kimberly Gardner
• “Do Over,” by Mari Carr
• “Eagle’s Redemption,” by Cindy Spencer Pape
• “Hearts in Darkness,” by Laura Kaye
• “Jaq’s Harp,” by Ella Drake
• “Song from the Abyss,” by Margaret L. Carter
• “Stormy Wedding,” by Kelli Scott

Fantasy Romance

• Bound: A Faery Story, by Sophie Oak
• Knightfall, by Berinn Rae
• One Thousand Kisses, by Jody Wallace
• The Sleigh Maker, by Candace Sams

Horror Romance

• A Demon Inside, by Rick R. Reed
• Demon’s Dance, by Evey Brett
• Devil Music, by E.C. Stacy and Thia Myles
• Endless Lust, by Lexxie Couper

Paranormal Romance

• Blacque/Bleu, by Belinda McBride
• Capricorn: Forgotten Faces, by Vivien Dean
• Dead Sexy, by Paige Tyler
• Key of Solomon, by Cassiel Knight
• Mask of Ice, by Elaine Lowe

Science Fiction Romance

• Outcast Mine, by Jamie Craig
• Silver Bound, by Ella Drake
• Steam and Sorcery, by Cindy Spencer Pape
• To Kiss Or To Kill, by Jean Lorrah

The Hugo Awards are awarded by the annual World Science Fiction Convention (the “Worldcon”). Finalists are nominated by members of the previous and impending members of Worldcon, while the winners are selected only by memebers of the upcoming Worldcon.

This year the World Science Fiction Convention, with the Hugo Awards Cermony, was held on August 21st. Here are the winners:

Best Fan Artist

Brad W. Foster

Best Fanzine

The Drink Tank, edited by Christopher J. Garcia and James Bacon

Best Fan Writer

Claire Brialey

Best Semiprozine

Clarkesworld, edited by Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan, Sean Wallace; podcast directed by Kate Baker

Best Professional Artist

Shaun Tan

Best Editor, Short Form

Sheila Williams

Best Editor, Long Form

Lou Anders

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form

Doctor Who: “The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang,” written by Steven Moffat; directed by Toby Haynes (BBC Wales)

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form

Inception, written and directed by Christopher Nolan (Warner)

Best Graphic Story

Girl Genius, Volume 10: Agatha Heterodyne and the Guardian Muse, written by Phil and Kaja Foglio; art by Phil Foglio; colors by Cheyenne Wright (Airship Entertainment)

Best Related Book

Chicks Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the Women Who Love It, edited by Lynne M. Thomas and Tara O’Shea (Mad Norwegian)

Best Short Story

“For Want of a Nail” by Mary Robinette Kowal (Asimov’s, September 2010)

Best Novelette

“The Emperor of Mars” by Allen M. Steele (Asimov’s, June 2010)

Best Novella

“The Lifecycle of Software Objects” by Ted Chiang (Subterranean)

Best Novel

Blackout/All Clear by Connie Willis (Ballantine Spectra)

The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer
Award for the best new professional science fiction or fantasy writer of 2009 or 2010, sponsored by Dell Magazines (not a Hugo Award).

Lev Grossman

This year’s Hugo Awards trophy was designed by Marina Gelineau. Congratulatons to all the winners.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced that it will present the Bram Stoker Vampire Novel of the Century Award at the Bram Stoker Awards Banquet in 2012. The Banquet will be held at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City on March 31st next year.

The Award will mark the Centenary of Bram Stoker’s passing in 1912. Stoker was the author of the iconic novel Dracula and HWA is giving this special Award in conjunction with the Bram Stoker family estate.

A jury, chaired by Leslie S. Klinger, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Dracula, has been appointed, including Jo Fletcher, Ron Breznay, James Dorr and Linda Addison. The jury will shortly call for recommendations for possible nominees from members of the Horror Writers Association.

HWA President Rocky Wood said, “HWA is proud to present our iconic Award on the centenary of Bram Stoker’s passing and pleased to be doing so in conjunction with the Bram Stoker family estate. While Stoker’s novel is undoubtedly the most influential of all vampire fiction, we look forward to recognizing the vampire novel that has had the greatest impact since publication of Dracula.”

The jury will determine six nominees for the Award and select the overall winner. The nominees will be announced in late January 2012. To qualify, a work must have been originally published in any language during the years 1912-2011, but must have been published in English as well. Although there are numerous excellent series of vampire fiction, the jury will select a single book, not a body of work.

Works originally published in serialized form and later collectedin book form will be considered as well as those published originally in periodicals or as books. There is no minimum word count for qualification, although short stories will not be considered.

Jury Bios

Chair Leslie S. Klinger is considered to be one of the world’s foremost authorities on Dracula. He is the editor of The New Annotated Dracula, published by W. W. Norton in 2008 to critical acclaim. He has also edited In the Shadow of Dracula: Classic Vampire Tales, 1819-1910, an annotated collection to be published shortly by IDW Books, and wrote “Vampire Love” for Playboy Magazine. He teaches a course on Dracula at UCLA Extension and has lectured extensively on vampires and supernatural fiction. His introductions and essays have appeared in numerous books, graphic novels, academic journals, newspapers, and magazines; he also reviews books for the Los Angeles Times. He is Treasurer-Elect of the Horror Writers Association and a member of the Transylvanian Society of Dracula, the Vampire Empire, and the Dracula Society.

James Dorr is a short story writer and poet with three to four hundred publications from Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine to Xenophilia. An active member of HWA and the Science Fiction Writers of America, Dorr’s latest book is a collection of vampire poetry, Vamps (A Retrospective), published in August 2011 by Sam’s Dot Publishing.

Linda Addison grew up in Philadelphia and moved to New York after college and has published over 200 poems, stories and articles in a variety of media. She has always loved the concept of the undead, subsisting off the blood of the living. Who wouldn’t want to transform into a bat or mist and be irresistible to others? Linda is an HWA Trustee, a Bram Stoker Award winner, and looks forward to (re)reading books about one of her favorite subjects.

Ron Breznay is a writer from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., USA, and was introduced to the horror genre by reading a vampire novel. He’s read quite a few since and looks forward to reading even more now. Ron serves as HWA Trustee and has published dozens of articles in the genre. He has researched and written about many classic horror writers.

Jo Fletcher is publisher and director of Jo Fletcher Books, the sf/fantasy/horror imprint of Quercus Publishing Plc. She is also an award-winning poet and writer, and spent many years as a Fleet Street journalist. She was won both the World Fantasy Award and the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award. She lives and works in London.

This is a little outside the horror genre, but close enough that we thought it might be of interest. The International Thriller Writers have announced the winners of the 2011 Thriller Awards. They are:

Best Hard Cover Novel
Bad Blood, John Sandford

Best Paperback Original Novel
The Cold Room, J.T. Ellison

Best First Novel
Still Missing, Chevy Stevens

Best Short Story
The Gods For Vengeance Cry, Richard Helms

Also receiving special recognition during the ThrillerFest VI Awards:

R.L. Stine, ThrillerMaster
In recognition of his legendary career and outstanding contributions to the thriller genre

Joe McGinniss, True Thriller Award

Karin Slaughter, Silver Bullet Award

The board of directors and members of the International Thriller Writers wish to congratulate all the winners and nominees of the 2011 Thriller Awards.