2021 Ladies of Horror Fiction Awards Nominees

Best Novel

• The Queen of the Cicadas, V. Castro (Flame Tree)
• Cackle, Rachel Harrison (Berkley)
• Good Neighbors, Sarah Langan (Atria)
• The Burning Girls, C.J. Tudor (Ballantine)
• The Last House on Needless Street, Catriona Ward (Nightfire)

Best Young Adult

• The Dead and the Dark, Courtney Gould (Wednesday)
• White Smoke, Tiffany D Jackson (Katherine Tegen)
• Bad Witch Burning, Jessica Lewis (Delacorte)
• Our Last Echoes, Kate Alice Marshall (Viking)
• Girl in the Walls, Katy Michelle Quinn (CLASH)

Best Middle Grade

• The Dollhouse, Charis Cotter (Tundra)
• The Collectors, Lorien Lawrence (Amulet)
• Ghost Girl, Ally Malinenko (Katherine Tegen)
• Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls, Kaela Rivera (HarperCollins)
• Root Magic, Eden Royce (Walden Pond)

Best Debut

• The Other Black Girl, Zakiya Dalila Harris (Atria)
• When the Reckoning Comes, LaTanya McQueen (Harper Perennial)
• Queen of Teeth, Hailey Piper (Strangehouse)
• The Forest, Lisa Quigley (Perpetual Motion Machine)
• Tidepool, Nicole Willson (The Parliament House)

Best Collection

• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories, Mariana Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell (Hogarth)
• Sometimes We’re Cruel, and Other Stories, J.A.W. McCarthy (Cemetery Gates)
• Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy, Hailey Piper (The Seventh Terrace)
• The Ghost Sequences, A.C. Wise (Undertow)
• SEEDS, Tabatha Wood (Wild Wood)
• Never Have I Ever, Isabel Yap (Small Beer)

Best Poetry Collection

• Strange Nests, Jessica McHugh ( Apokrupha)
• Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken, Angela Yuriko Smith, Lee Murray, Christina Sng, & Geneve Flynn (Yuriko)
• Exposed Nerves, Lucy A. Snyder (Raw Dog Screaming)
• The Smallest of Bones, Holly Walrath (CLASH)
• Monstrum Poetica, Jezzy Wolfe (Raw Dog Screaming)

Best Novella

• Goddess of Filth, V. Castro (Creature)
• Transmuted, Eve Harms (Unnerving)
• & This Is How to Stay Alive, Shingai Njeri Kagunda (Neon Hemlock)
• Waif, Samantha Kolesnik (Grindhouse)
• Salvation Spring, T.C. Parker (Self Published)

Best Short Fiction

• “Sister Glitter Blood,” Gwendoyln Kiste (Violent Vixens: An Homage to Grindhouse Horror)
• “A Cold Grip,” Christi Nogle (Boneyard Soup)
• “The Sharps,” Sonora Taylor (Someone to Share My Nightmares: Stories)
• “Eating Bitterness,” Hannah Yang (The Dark 7/21)
• “Syringe,” Isabel Yap (Never Have I Ever)
• “First Harvest,” April Yates (Blood & Bone: An Anthology of Body Horror by Women and Non-Binary Writers)

Winners will be announced on the Ladies of Horror Fiction (LOHF) website later this month. For more information about the nominees, visit the LOHF website.