2021 Stoker Awards Winners

Superior Achievement in a Novel

• WINNER: My Heart Is a Chainsaw, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga)

• The Queen of the Cicadas, V. Castro (Flame Tree)
• The Final Girl Support Group, Grady Hendrix (Berkley)
• Children of Chicago, Cynthia Pelayo (Agora)
• The Book of Accidents, Chuck Wendig (Del Rey)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• WINNER: Queen of Teeth, Hailey Piper (Strangehouse)

• Helminth, S. Alessandro Martinez (Omnium Gatherum)
• When the Reckoning Comes, LaTanya McQueen (Harper Perennial)
• Rabbits, Terry Miles (Del Rey)
• The Forest, Lisa Quigley (Perpetual Motion Machine)
• Tidepool, Nicole Willson (The Parliament House)

Due to a tie in fifth place, there are six nominees in this category.

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• WINNER: The River Has Teeth, Erica Waters (HarperTeen)

• All These Bodies, Kendare Blake (Quill Tree)
• The Book of the Baku, R.L. Boyle (Titan)
• Bad Witch Burning, Jessica Lewis (Delacorte)
• House of Hollow, Krystal Sutherland (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• WINNER: “Twentieth Anniversary Screening”, Jeff Strand (Slice and Dice)

• Goddess of Filth, V. Castro (Creature)
• Nothing But Blackened Teeth, Cassandra Khaw (Tor Nightfire)
• Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, Eric LaRocca (Weirdpunk)
• “Recitation of the First Feeding”, Hailey Piper (Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• WINNER: “Permanent Damage”, Lee Murray (Attack From the ‘80s)

• “The Yellow Crown”, Carol Gyzander (Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign)
• “A Gathering at the Mountain”, Cindy O’Quinn (The Bad Book)
• “Two Shakes Of A Dead Lamb’s Tail”, Anna Taborska (Terror Tales of the Scottish Lowlands)
• “A Whisper in the Death Pit”, Kyla Lee Ward (Weirdbook #44)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• WINNER: In That Endlessness, Our End, Gemma Files (Grimscribe)

• Beneath a Pale Sky, Philip Fracassi (Lethe)
• Empty Graves: Tales of the Living Dead, Jonathan Maberry (WordFire)
• The Dead Hours of Night, Lisa Tuttle (Valancourt)
• The Ghost Sequences, A.C. Wise (Undertow)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• WINNER: When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Titan)

• Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign, James Chambers, ed. (Hippocampus)
• There is No Death, There are No Dead, Aaron J. French & Jess Landry, eds. (Crystal Lake)
• Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World, Eric J. Guignard, ed. (Dark Moon)
• Attack From the ’80s, Eugene Johnson, ed. (Raw Dog Screaming)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

• WINNER: Writers Workshop of Horror 2, Michael Knost, ed. (Hydra)

• 9/11 Gothic: Decrypting Ghosts and Trauma in New York City’s Terrorism Novels, Danel Olson (Lexington)
• Giving the Devil His Due: Satan and Cinema, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock & Regina M. Hansen (Fordham University Press)
• Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Reaktion)
• Shirley Jackson: A Companion, Kristopher Woofter (Peter Lang)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

• WINNER: “Horror Writers: Architects of Hope”, Angela Yuriko Smith (The Sirens Call #55)

• “The Three Paradigms of Horror”, Dejan Ognjanović (Vastarien Vol. 4, #2)
• “One and Done”, Cindy O’Quinn (Were Tales: A Shapeshifter Anthology)
• “A Horror Fan’s Guide to Surviving Womanhood”, Emily Ruth Verona (thefinalgirls.co.uk)
• Devil’s Advocates: The Conjuring, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Auteur/Liverpool University Press

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• WINNER: Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken., Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray & Geneve Flynn (Yuriko)

• Apache Witch and Other Poetic Observations, Joe R. Lansdale (Independent Legions)
• Strange Nests, Jessica McHugh (Apokrupha)
• Victims, Marge Simon & Mary Turzillo (Weasel)
• Exposed Nerves, Lucy A. Snyder (Raw Dog Screaming)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• WINNER: The Inhabitant of the Lake, Alessandro Manzetti & Stefano Cardoselli (Independent Legions)

• Abbott 1973, Saladin Ahmed & Sami Kivelä (BOOM! Studios)
• Joker/Harley: Criminal Sanity, Kami Garcia, Mico Suayan, Jason Badower, and Mike Mayhew (DC Comics)
• Proctor Valley Road, Grant Morrison, Alex Child, and Naomi Franquiz (BOOM! Studios)
• An Unkindness of Ravens, Dan Panosian and Marianna Ignazzi (BOOM! Studios)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• WINNER: Midnight Mass, “Book VI: Acts of the Apostles”
• Antlers
• Candyman
• Fear Street: Part One – 1994
• Squid Game, “Red Light, Green Light”

The Seventh Annual Final Frame Horror Short Competition

• Grand Prize Winner: Inheritance, written and directed by Annalise Lockhart
• First runner up: The Thing That Ate The Birds, written and directed by Sophie Mair and Dan Gitsham
• Second runner up: Every Time We Meet For Ice Cream Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes, written and directed by Anthony Cousins, based on a short story by Carlton Mellick III
• Best Writing in a Short Film: Becoming Emma Braintree, written and directed by Joshua Koske, based on a short story by Aaron Dries