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The 2024 Bram Stoker Award® Winners

The Horror Writers Association is proud to announce the winners of the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards®. The winners were announced on Saturday, June 14, 2025 during the gala awards banquet at StokerCon in Stamford, Connecticut, and were livestreamed on the organization’s YouTube channel.

The 2024 Bram Stoker Award Winners

Superior Achievement in a Novel

WINNERThe Haunting of Velkwood, Gwendolyn Kiste (Saga)

House of Bone and Rain, Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland)

I Was a Teenage Slasher, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga)

Incidents Around the House, Josh Malerman (Del Rey)

Horror Movie, Paul Tremblay (William Morrow)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

WINNER: The Eyes Are the Best Part, Monika Kim (Erewhon)

Midnight Rooms, Donyae Coles (Amistad)

Hollow Girls, Jessica Drake-Thomas (Cemetery Dance)

This Wretched Valley, Jenny Kiefer (Quirk)

Bless Your Heart, Lindy Ryan (Minotaur Books)

Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel

WINNER (TIE): There’s Something Sinister in Center Field, Robert P. Ottone (Cemetery Gates)

WINNER (TIE): The Creepening of Dogwood House, Eden Royce (Walden Pond)

The Curse of Eelgrass Bog, Mary Averling (Razorbill)

The Witch in the Woods, Michaelbrent Collings (Shadow Mountain)

The No-Brainer’s Guide to Decomposition, Adrianna Cuevas (HarperCollins Children’s)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

WINNER: Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo, Adam Cesare (HarperCollins Children’s)

A Place for Vanishing, Ann Fraistat (Delacorte)

Come Out, Come Out, Natalie C. Parker (G.P. Putnam Son’s)

The Losting Fountain, Lora Senf (Union Square)

The Blonde Dies First, Joelle Wellington (Simon & Schuster)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

WINNER: Coup de Grâce, Sofia Ajram (Titan)

Rest Stop, Nat Cassidy (Shortwave)

Kill Your Darling, Clay McLeod Chapman (Bad Hand)

“All The Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn”, Eric LaRocca (This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances)

Hollow Tongue, Eden Royce (Raw Dog Screaming)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

WINNER: “Versus Versus”, Laird Barron (Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners)

“And She Had Been So Reasonable”, Rachel Bolton (Apex , Nov. 2024)

“To the Wolves”, Sasha Brown (Weird Horror, Fall 2024)

“Ten Thousand Crawling Children”, R. A. Busby (Nightmare Magazine, January 2024)

“She Sheds Her Skin”, Raven Jabukowski (Nightmare Magazine November 2024)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

WINNERLove is a Crematorium and Other Tales, Mercedes M. Yardley (Cemetery Dance)

Not a Speck of Light, Laird Barron (Bad Hand)

A Sunny Place for Shady People, Mariana Enriquez (Penguin)

The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls, Angela Sylvaine (Dark Matter Ink)

Old Monsters Never Die, Tim Waggoner (Winding Road Stories)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

WINNERDiscontinue If Death Ensues: Tales from the Tipping Point, Carol Gyzander & Anna Taborska (Flame Tree)

Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror, Sofia Ajram (Ghoulish Books)

We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures, Rob Costello (Running Press)

Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse and Bad Manners, Doug Murano & Michael Bailey (Bad Hand)

Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror: A Women in Horror Anthology, Lindy Ryan (Black Spot)

Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction

WINNERHorror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You’re Too Scared to Watch, Emily C. Hughes (Quirk)

Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold on Us, Anna Bogutskaya (Faber & Faber)

American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond, Jeremy Dauber (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)

I Spit on Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies, Heidi Honeycutt (HeadPress)

No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction that Transcends the Tropes, Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar, ed. (Vernon)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

WINNER: “Blacks in Film and Cultivated Bias”, Lisa Wood (No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction that Transcends the Tropes)

“Screamin’ in the Rain: The Orchestration of Catharsis in William Castle’s The Tingler”, Michael Arnzen (What Sleeps Beneath)

“The Horror of Donna Berzatto and Her Feast of the Seven Fishes”, Vince Liaguno (You’re Not Alone in the Dark)

“Hidden Histories: The Many Ghosts of Disney’s Haunted Mansion”, Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (Disney Gothic: Dark Shadows in the House of Mouse)

“Jackson and Haunting of the Stage”, Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. (Journal of Shirley Jackson Studies, Vol. 2 No. 1)

Superior Achievement in Poetry

WINNERMexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future, Pedro Iniguez (Space Cowboy)

The Dark Between the Twilight, Jamal Hodge (Crystal Lake)

Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud, Lee Murray (The Cuba Press)

Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry, Sumiko Saulson (Bludgeoned Girls)

Imitation of Life, L. Marie Wood (Falstaff)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

WINNERH. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu, Gou Tanabe (Dark Horse)

The Fox Maidens, Robin Ha (HarperCollins Children’s)

Tender, Beth Hetland (Fantagraphics)

Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, Patrick Horvath (Penguin Random House)

Chrysanthemum Under The Waves, Maggie Umber (Maggie Umber)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

WINNERThe Substance, Coralie Fargeat (Working Title Film, Good Story, Blacksmith)

Heretic, Scott Beck & Bryan Woods (A24, Shiny Penny, Beck/Woods)

Nosferatu, Robert Eggers, Henrik Galeen, & Bram Stoker (Focus Features, Maiden Voyage Pictures, Studio 8)

Longlegs, Osgood Perkins (C2 Motion Picture Group, Creature Features, Oddfellow Entertainment)

I Saw the TV Glow, Jane Schoenbrun (A24, Fruit Tree, Smudge Films)

SPECIALTY AWARDS

Specialty Press Award: Mocha Memoirs Press

Richard Laymon President’s Award: Maxwell I. Gold

Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award: Jonathan Lees

Mentor of the Year Award: Gretchen McNeil

Lifetime Achievement Award Winners: David Cronenberg, Del & Sue Howison and Dame Susan Elizabeth Hill

Final Frame 2025 Finalists Announced

We are excited to finally announce the FINAL FRAME Short Horror Film Competition 2025 Finalists! Winner will be announce next week at the 2025 StokerCon convention.

                            **Still from the movie “Izzy”.**


Vote for Wyrm

Director: Benjamin Percy

Writer: Benjamin Percy

UNITED STATES / 2025 / 5:00

A political attack ad for a small-town mayoral race descends into horror.

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Izzy

Director: Yfke van Berckelaer

Writer: Yfke van Berckelaer

NETHERLANDS / 2024 / 9:18

Izzy is constantly stuck in the same cycle: mocked, dismissed, ignored, forgotten. How can she get out of it?

 

Cruelty

Director: Sam Das

Writer: Sam Das

UNITED STATES / 2024 / 9:18

A young trans woman is chased into a junkyard while being followed home late at night. Trapped among the heaps of scrap she must outwit her predator and summon the strength of a goddessmin her desperate fight for survival.

 

Vermin

Director: Kristen Semedo

Writer: Kristen Semedo

UNITED STATES / 2025 / 8:47

Struggling with his impending divorce, a man discovers he’s not as alone as he thinks.

 

The Last Thing She Saw

Directors: Anthony Cousins, Rebecca Daugherty

Writer: Brady Richards

UNITED STATES / 2024 / 8:35

After being attacked by two burglars, Emmy must see if she can escape her desperate situation.

Starver

Director: Parsa Zahedi

Writer: Parsa Zahedi

IRAN / 2025 / 7:00

An empty stomach will change a man.

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Skeeter

Director: Chris McInroy

Writer: Chris McInroy

UNITED STATES / 2024 / 3:55

Every party has a buzz kill.

Nervous Ellie

Director: David Yorke

Writer: David Yorke

UNITED KINGDOM / 2024 / 6:40

Ellie, new to dating and painfully shy, struggles to control her nerves during a date with Danni, culminating in some unexpected results.

 

Speak With The Dead

Director: Stephanie Paris

Writer: Stephanie Paris

UNITED STATES / 2024 / 10:10

In 1850, The Fox sisters hold a seance for a wealthy couple who want to call on their

deceased son’s spirit to give them closure.

 

Umbra

Director: Pablo Otero

Writer: Juanjo Palomeque

SPAIN / 2024 / 10:10

Adriana, a twelve-year-old girl, waits while her mother recovers after giving birth but the night

is long and a hospital holds many secrets and countless doors to open.

 

Eldritch Karaoke

Director/Animator: Joe Loftus

Writer: Joe Loftus

IRELAND / 2024 / 5:00

A young woman on the road to escape her past is hit by a car and descends into a chaotic

musical after-life. She must decide whether to join the song or die.

Dormant

Director: Niels Bourgonje

Writers: Niels Bourgonje

UNITED KINGDOM / 2024 / 8:51

A man cares for his comatose wife at home. After a transgression, he fears something

sinister has awakened in her.

 

Outside Noise

Director: Ethan Evans

Writers: Ethan Evans, Jess Bartlett

UNITED KINGDOM / 2024 / 7:45

An overwhelmed woman listens to a sleep ambience app to unwind before bed, but when

the sounds eerily begin to blend with reality, she suspects it has conjured something frightening into her room…

 

Losing Season

Director: Gus Reed

Writers: Gus Reed

UNITED STATES / 2025 / 7:17

A woman left alone at her boyfriend’s house one morning after he’s left for work has a life-altering encounter with a younger woman who shows up at the door and claims to have grown up there.

McNeil, Gretchen

Awards:

Mentor of the Year Award, 2024

BIO: Gretchen McNeil is the author of thirteen young adult novels for Disney*Hyperion and HarperCollins including the horror/comedy #MURDERTRENDING—the #1 YALSA Teens’ Top Ten pick for 2019—TEN, which was adapted as the film Ten: Murder Island for Lifetime, and the Get Even series which was adapted as the series Get Even and Rebel Cheer Squad: a Get Even series for the BBC and Netflix. Gretchen’s adult horror debut THEY FEAR NOT MEN IN THE WOODS hits shelves on September 9, 2025 from DAW Books.  

Lees, Jonathan

Awards:

Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award, 2024

BIO: In addition to creating strategies and video series for media outlets, ranging from Complex Media to TIDAL, Jonathan Lees has spent decades championing independent cinema and filmmakers through his work with the New York Underground Film Festival, Troma, Tribeca Film, Anthology Film Archives, and now with the Final Frame Horror Short Film Competition at StokerCon. After twenty-five years working in NYC, he has apparated to the Hudson Valley to explore more personal rituals by inscribing arcane texts for grimoires such as Long Division [Bad Hand Books], Fear of Clowns [Kangas Kahn Publishing], Even In The Grave [eSpec Books], The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors [Bad Hand Books],and Other Terrors [Harper Collins].

Denning, Lila

Awards:

Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award, 2023

BIO: Lila Denning is the acquisitions coordinator for the seven libraries of the St. Petersburg (FL) Library System. Lila has worked in circulation and reference and has done programming for children, teens, and adults. Beyond her current role in her library, she trains librarians nationwide on passive reader advisory. Her long, rambling road to the library included stops as a manager of a comic book store, a manager at Barnes and Noble, and a stint at a brokerage firm, among other adventures. In addition to her MLIS, Lila has an MA in Religious Studies with a focus on Holocaust Studies. 

Goblirsch, Paul

Awards:

Specialty Press Award, 2023

BIO: Paul Goblirsch established Thunderstorm Books in 2008. Specializing in collectible signed limited edition hardcover books, our goal is to showcase authors’ works in beautiful limited editions. From both new, up-and-coming authors to veterans of the genre, we publish some of the best in the field including: Brian Keene, Joe Lansdale, Christopher Golden, Philip Fracassi, Tyler Jones, Ross Jeffery, Chad Lutzke, Cynthia Pelayo, Jeff Strand, Hailey Piper, Paul Tremblay, Edward Lee, Kealan Patrick Burke, Jonathan Janz, Samantha Kolesnik, Gabino Iglesias, Adam Cesare, Kristopher Triana, Richard Chizmar, Gwendolyn Kiste, Wrath James White, and Ronald Kelly.   With approximately 40 titles released per year, we fulfill the desires of both hardcore book collectors and those who want to pick up the occasional special edition.