James Chambers To Receive The Richard Laymon President’s Award From Horror Writers Association
The Richard Laymon President’s Award for Service was instituted in 2000 and is named in honor of Richard Laymon, who died in 2000 while serving as the Horror Writer’s Association’s President. As its name implies, it is given by the HWA’s sitting President. The Award is presented to a volunteer who has served HWA in an especially exemplary manner and has shown extraordinary dedication to the organization.
HWA’s President Rocky Wood has chosen James Chambers to receive the 2012 Richard Laymon Award. “Jim stepped up a couple of years ago to Chair the Membership Committee. Since then he has completely revamped the Committee, bringing in and documenting processes, training people to assist, overviewing our Outreach program and welcoming hundreds of new members. In addition he conceived of and implemented the Halloween Haunts blog program, which has become a staple of our public blog each October,” Wood said. “It is contributors like Jim who represent all that is good about HWA’s all-volunteer structure.”
James Chambers’ tales of horror, crime, fantasy and science fiction have been published in numerous anthologies and magazines. Dark Regions Press published his collection of four Lovecraftian-inspired novellas, The Engines of Sacrifice in 2011. Publishers Weekly described it as “chillingly evocative.” Most recently, Dark Quest Books has published his zombie novellas, The Dead Bear Witness and Tears of Blood, the first two volumes in the Corpse Fauna novella series. Chambers is also the author of the short story collections Resurrection House and The Midnight Hour: Saint Lawn Hill and Other Tales with illustrator Jason Whitley. His stories have appeared in Allen K’s Inhuman, Bare Bone, Deep Cuts, The Green Hornet Chronicles, Hardboiled Cthulhu, Walrus Tales, and many other anthologies and magazines. He has also written numerous comic books, including Leonard Nimoy’s Primortals, the critically acclaimed “The Revenant” in Shadow House, and The Midnight Hour.
James will receive the Award at the Bram Stoker Awards® Banquet in New Orleans on 15 June 2013.
Charles Day To Receive The Hammer Award From HWA
The Horror Writers Association periodically gives The Hammer Award (also known as the Silver Hammer Award) to an HWA volunteer who has done a truly massive amount of work for our organization, often unsung and behind the scenes. It was instituted in 1996, and is decided by a vote of HWA’s Board.
The award is so named because it represents the careful, steady, continuous work of building HWA’s “house” – the many institutional systems that keep the organization functioning on a day-to-day basis. The award itself is a chrome-plated hammer with an engraved plaque on the handle. The chrome hammer is also a satisfying allusion to The Beatles’ song, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” a miniature horror story in itself.
The Board has voted to give the 2012 Award to Charles Day, the Chair of our Mentor Committee. Charles has done an outstanding job relaunching that program, so that it now has a record number of both mentors and mentees. He has done so with his trademark commitment and good humor.
HWA’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Marge Simon, commented, “The HWA is a success because of the tremendous workload carried by our many volunteers, mostly unnoticed. Charles is an exemplar of these efforts and the Board is pleased to recognize him.”
Charles will receive The Hammer Award at the Bram Stoker Awards® Banquet in New Orleans on 15 June 2013.
