BIO: Dave Jeffery is the author of 18 novels, two collections, and numerous short stories. His Necropolis Rising series and yeti adventure Frostbite have both featured on the Amazon #1 bestseller list. His YA work features the critically acclaimed Beatrice Beecham supernatural mystery and A Quiet Apocalypse series. His screenwriting credits include award-winning short films ASCENSION and DERELICT.
Dave is a former registered mental health professional who specialized in the field of mental health nursing and risk management. His novel Finding Jericho is based on his experiences working with service users who have experienced stigma and social exclusion due to their mental illness. Dave is a member of the Society of Authors and British Fantasy Society, and is both a mentor and the co-chair of the Wellness Committee for the HWA. An avid reader and book reviewer, he resides in Worcestershire, UK.
The HWA is pleased to announce the winner of the Richard Laymon President’s Award for Service: Sumiko Saulson.
The Richard Laymon President’s Award for Service was instituted in 2001 and is named in honor of Richard Laymon, who died in 2001 while serving as HWA’s President. As its name implies, it is given by 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.
Congratulations to Sumiko!
Sumiko Saulson
Sumiko Saulson (they/them), Social Media Manager for the Horror Writers Association, is an award-winning author of Afrosurrealist and multicultural sci-fi and horror whose latest novel Happiness and Other Diseases (book one of the Metamorphoses of Flynn Keahi) is available on Mocha Memoirs Press. Other works include the non-fiction title 100+ Black Women in Horror Fiction, novels Solitude, Warmth, and Moon Cried Blood. Their short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies including Tales For The Campfire, Clockwork Wonderland, Tales From the Lake Vol 3, Beasts and Babes, Scierogenous 2, Colors In Darkness: Forever Vacancy, and Slay: Tales of the Vampire Noire. Their poetry has appeared in Infectious Hope, Siren’s Call Magazine, and HWA Poetry Showcase VII and VIII. They are the editor of the anthologies Black Magic Women (2018), Scry of Lust (2019), Wickedly Abled (2020) and Scry of Lust 2 (2021), and the collection Black Celebration. They are a comic zine maker and author/illustrator of the graphic novels/comic books Agrippa (2013), Dreamworlds (2016), and The Complete Mauskaveli (2020). They are the illustrator of Living a Lie (2015).
Winner of the Afrosurrealist Writers Award (2018), Grand Prize 2017 BCC Voice “Reframing the Other” contest, 2nd Place Carry The Light Sci-fi/Fantasy Award (2016), 2017 Mixy Award, 6th Place in the Next Great Horror Writers Contest (2017). They are the recipient of the 2002 STAND Grant for First Time Directors, 2016 HWA StokerCon “Scholarship from Hell”, 2018 Ara Joe Grant for Zinemakers, 2020 HWA Diversity Grant recipient, and 2021 Ladies in Horror Fiction grant.
Sumiko has an AA in English from Berkeley City College, writes a column called “Writing While Black” for a national Black Newspaper, the San Francisco BayView, writes for Search Magazine, is the host of the SOMA Leather and LGBT Cultural District’s “Erotic Storytelling Hour,” and teaches courses at the Speculative Fiction Academy.
THE SILVER HAMMER AWARD
The HWA is pleased to announce the winner of the Silver Hammer Award: Kevin J. Wetmore.
The HWA periodically gives the Silver Hammer Award to an HWA volunteer who has done a truly massive amount of work for the organization, often unsung and behind the scenes. It was instituted in 1996, and is decided by a vote of HWA’s Board of Trustees.
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.
Congratulations to Kevin!
Kevin J. Wetmore
Kevin J. Wetmore, Jr. is the author, editor or co-editor of twenty-seven books, including Bram Stoker Award nominees Uncovering Stranger Things, The Streaming of Hill House, Devil’s Advocates: The Conjuring, and Eaters of the Dead: Myths and Realities of Cannibal Monsters. He is also the author of over a hundred articles and three dozen short stories found in magazines and anthologies such as Cemetery Dance, Mothership Zeta, Nonbinary Review, Midian Unmade and The Cackle of Cthulhu. He is the co-chair of HWA’s Los Angeles Chapter, has twice co- chaired StokerCon and served as StokerCon’s volunteer coordinator, in addition to serving as curator for the HWA blog Halloween Haunts and chair of the Lifetime Achievement Award committee. In his other life he is a professor of Theatre Arts at Loyola Marymount University where he teaches horror theatre, horror cinema, Japanese theatre, African theatre, Shakespeare and stage combat.
MENTOR OF THE YEAR
The HWA is pleased to announce the winner of the Mentor of the Year Award: Michael Knost.
The HWA’s Mentor Program is available to all members of the organization. This popular program pairs a newer writer with an established professional for an intensive four-month long partnership. For new writers, the Program offers mentees a personal, one-on-one experience with a professional writer, tailor-made to help them grow in their writing and teach them how to better market their work. For experienced writers, the Program allows mentors a chance to pay forward the experience and encouragement other writers gave them when they were starting out. In addition, there is the added benefit of growing as a writer oneself through the act of teaching others. In short, the Program benefits all who participate, regardless of their roles.
Inaugurated in 2014, the Mentor of the Year Award recognizes one mentor in the Mentor Program who has done an outstanding job of helping newer writers. The award is chosen by the current chair of the Mentor Program.
Congratulations to Michael!
Michael Knost
“Michael Knost epitomizes what a mentor should be. He is always willing to help writers improve their craft, as both an HWA mentor and outside of the program, as both a teacher and an editor. Writers who have worked with him, or trained under him, universally praise Michael for his honesty, knowledge, and encouragement. This is probably recognition that is long overdue, but Michael’s contributions to the HWA, and the horror genre’s up-and-coming writers, has always been recognized and appreciated.” – JG Faherty, HWA Mentorship Program Manager.
Michael Knost is a Bram Stoker Award®-winning editor and author of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and supernatural thrillers. He has written in various genres and helmed multiple anthologies. He received the Horror Writers Association’s Silver Hammer Award in 2015 for his work as the organization’s mentorship chair. He also received the prestigious J.U.G. (Just Uncommonly Good) Award from West Virginia Writer’s Inc. His Return of the Mothman is currently being filmed as a movie adaption. He has taught writing classes and workshops at several colleges, conventions, online, and currently resides in Chapmanville, West Virginia with his wife, daughter, and a zombie goldfish.
The 2020 Richard Laymon President’s Award winner is Becky Spratford.
Becky Spratford currently serves as HWA’s Secretary and Library Liaison. She has overseen Librarians’ Day during StokerCon from its inception, and also supervises HWA’s Summer Scares program. She also writes the RA for All: Horror blog and wrote the American Library Association’s Readers Advisory Guide to Horror.
“I am very honored to be awarded the Richard Laymon President’s Award. Ironically, in my work on Summer Scares for the HWA, I am usually the one giving others this type of recognition and honestly, I am not sure how to react. Now that the roles are reversed, the work I have done to grow the HWA’s outreach to Libraries, including recruiting library workers to join the organization, growing the reach and scope of Librarians’ Day, and coordinating the Summer Scares Reading Program have given me some of the greatest professional satisfaction of my life. I have also had a lot of fun amidst all the work and made some lifelong friends along the way. Connecting libraries with horror books and authors is fulfilling but seeing how well both the library workers and authors have taken to each other has been inspiring. I am proud to serve the HWA in this way and very humbled to be recognized for it.”
Becky Spratford
SILVER HAMMER AWARD
HWA’s Board of Trustees has voted the 2020 Silver Hammer Award to Carina Bissett and Brian W. Matthews.
Carina Bissett has worked extensively in Colorado to bring to life a new Colorado Springs chapter and has been a tireless supporter of our members. In addition, she’s taken on the responsibility of heading up our HWA Membership Committee and has done an outstanding job.
“I stumbled across the HWA during one of the darkest times in my life. I was on the precipice of succumbing to absolute despair when I received notification that I’d won the HWA Scholarship. That phone call connected on a Wednesday, a long summer night in 2016. I’ll never forget that moment, but it’s what came afterwards that was the real surprise. Not only did the HWA offer me hope, but is also gave me purpose. In my attempt to return a small measure of goodwill, I started volunteering as a jury member, first for the scholarships and then for the Stokers. Later, I added other responsibilities. I took a position on the HWA Membership Committee and another as co-chair of the local chapter in Colorado Springs. I reviewed poetry submissions, supported women writers, and moderated conference panels. And I loved it all. Every single minute I’ve spent volunteering for the HWA has been a minute well spent. It is rewarding work, and I find great joy in contributing to an organization dedicated to providing a safe and creative and compassionate community. There isn’t a day that goes by when I’m not involved in one volunteer task or another. This is a blessing. It is a light that continues to shine in my life, and I don’t need anything more than that.”
Carina Bissett
Brian W. Matthews has risen to the occasion not once, not twice, but three times as a co-chair of HWA’s StokerCons. First, in Grand Rapids and now for both the virtual and in-person conventions celebrating Denver. He has served on the Lifetime Achievement Award Committee, currently serves as a jurist for the Bram Stoker Awards, and for the past several years has organized and run the pitch sessions for StokerCon. In addition to his role as convention co-chair, he also serves as the Bram Stoker Awards Show Coordinator. We would not have been anywhere near as successful without him.
“A friend once told me the HWA is like a family; she called it a fellowship. We pull together to help one another, committing our time and our hearts to making the organization a better place for everyone. That’s the spirit of volunteering. To be recognized with the Silver Hammer Award for outstanding volunteerism is an honor I will cherish forever.”
The 2019 Richard Laymon President’s Award winner is Rena Mason.
Rena Mason is an American author of horror fiction and a three-time winner of the Bram Stoker Award . Her literary debut, The Evolutionist, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel in 2013, while her novella East End Girls was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction. She has also been awarded HWA’s Silver Hammer Award.
Leslie S. Klinger is the New York Times-best-selling editor of the Edgar®-winning New Annotated Sherlock Holmes and the critically-acclaimed New Annotated Dracula and New Annotated Frankenstein, as well as numerous other books and articles on Sherlock Holmes, Dracula, horror, vampires, and the Victorian age. He also edited or co-edited eight anthologies of mysteries, horror, and vampire fiction. His books include the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated four-volume The Annotated Sandman with Neil Gaiman (Vertigo) and The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, as well as the highly-regarded Watchmen: The Annotated Edition. Klinger currently serves as Treasurer of the Horror Writers Association.
Lee Murray is a multi-award-winning writer and editor of
science fiction, fantasy, and horror (Sir Julius Vogel, Australian Shadows) and
a two-time Bram Stoker Award® nominee. Her works include the Taine McKenna
military thrillers, and supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra,
co-written with Dan Rabarts, as well as several books for children. She is
proud to have edited thirteen speculative works, including award-winning titles
Baby Teeth: Bite Sized Tales of Terror and At the Edge (with Dan Rabarts), Te
Kōrero Ahi Kā (with Grace Bridges and Aaron Compton) and Hellhole: An Anthology
of Subterranean Terror. She is the co-founder of Young New Zealand Writers, an organisation
providing development and publishing opportunities for New Zealand school
students, and co-founder of the Wright-Murray Residency for Speculative Fiction
Writers. In February 2020, Lee was made an Honorary Literary Fellow in the New
Zealand Society of Authors Waitangi Day Honours. Lee lives over the hill from
Hobbiton in New Zealand’s sunny Bay of Plenty where she dreams up stories from
her office overlooking a cow paddock. Read more at www.leemurray.info. She
tweets @leemurraywriter
From Lee:
“I’m so grateful for this unexpected honour from my friends at the Horror Writers Association. To be included on a list with previous Mentor of the Year winners such as Tim Waggoner, Linda Addison, and Greg Faherty, people I admire and adore, well, as the kids say, ‘I can’t even!’ Special thanks must go to my own writing mentors—Jenny Argante, Graeme Lay, Jonathan Maberry, my dad—folk whose quiet belief in me has been both uplifting and humbling. But the truth is, I’ve never escaped a mentorship without learning something, so I’m thankful for the wonderful lessons my HWA colleagues have offered me, for giving me a sneak-peek into their writing processes and the deliciously dark stories they’re conjuring in the twisted shadows of their minds. Mostly, I’m grateful for their fellowship and the lifelong friendships forged through our mentoring partnerships. Because, ultimately, we all get by with a little help from our friends.”
“Dead End Town” (Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2) (IFWG Publishing International), Short Fiction, 2018
Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror (Adrenaline Press), Anthology, 2018
BIO: Lee Murray is a writer, editor, poet, essayist, and screenwriter from Aotearoa, and a New Zealand Prime Minister’s Award winner for Literary Achievement in Fiction. A USA Today bestselling author and multiple award-winner (including Sir Julius Vogel, Australian Shadows, Shirley Jackson, and Bram Stoker awards), Lee’s works include the Taine McKenna military thrillers, supernatural crime-noir series The Path of Ra (with Dan Rabarts), fiction collection Grotesque: Monster Stories, as well as several books for children. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines, including prestigious venues such as Weird Tales, Space and Time, and Grimdark Magazine. She is proud to have edited more than two dozen anthologies, among them award-winning titles Baby Teeth: Bite Sized Tales of Terror and At the Edge (with Dan Rabarts), Te Kōrero Ahi Kā (with Grace Bridges and Aaron Compton), Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror, Midnight Echo #14, Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (with Geneve Flynn), and Under Her Eye (with Lindy Ryan). A Rhysling- and Pushcart-nominated poet, Lee’s poetry collection, Tortured Willows: Bent, Bowed, Unbroken, is a collaboration with poets Christina Sng, Geneve Flynn, and Angela Yuriko Smith. Her first solo poetry collection, Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud (2024), won her a Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship and the NZSA Laura Solomon Cuba Press Prize for ‘unique and innovative vision’. Lee is a life member of Tauranga Writers, New Zealand’s longest standing writing group, and of SpecFicNZ, and she’s an Honorary Literary Fellow of the New Zealand Society of Authors. Lee lives over the hill from Hobbiton in New Zealand’s sunny Bay of Plenty where she dreams up stories from her office overlooking a cow paddock. Read more at www.leemurray.info.
