Category: News

This year the Horror Writers Association announces Graham Masterton as Lifetime Achievement Award winner. He will receive the award at StokerCon™ 2019, held at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Masterton has provided many years of dedicated commitment to the horror community and the writing and publishing industry.

“Members on the selection committee have fond memories of Masterton’s books,” reported HWA President, Lisa Morton. “Graham Masterton has influenced many horror writers. We are truly thrilled to bestow him with this award.” HWA offers the Lifetime Achievement Award once a year and employs a hard-working committee for the selection process. Recipients are chosen through stringent criteria. The rules require a unanimous vote from all committee members.

Graham Masterton is highly recognized for his horror novels, but he has also been a prolific writer of thrillers, disaster novels, and historical epics, as well as one of the world’s most influential series of sex instruction books. He became a newspaper reporter at the age of 17 and was appointed editor of Penthouse magazine at only 24.

His first horror novel The Manitou was filmed with Tony Curtis playing the lead, and three of his short horror stories were filmed by Tony Scott for The Hunger TV series. More recently, Graham turned his hand to crime novels with White Bones, set in Ireland, swiftly becoming a bestseller. This has been followed by five more bestselling crime novels featuring Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire.

He has also published a grisly 18th century crime novel, Scarlet Widow.

Graham’s horror novels were introduced to Poland in 1989 by his late wife Wiescka and he is now one of that country’s most celebrated award-winning authors. A new horror novel Ghost Virus will be published in French in 2019.

He has established an award for short stories written by inmates in Polish prisons, Nagroda Grahama Mastertona “W Więzieniu Pisane”. He is currently working on new horror and crime novels and resides in Surrey, England.

Upon learning of this award, Graham Masterton said, “At the age of 10, I discovered how to give my friends a tingle of fear by writing a short story about a man who was decapitated but walked around singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” out of his severed neck. That’s how my career in horror began. I am gratified that all these years later my tingling has been recognized by the Horror Writers Association.”

The Mentor of the Year Award was established in 2016 to recognize a writer who has offered extraordinary service to the Horror Writers Association’s Mentor Program, which pairs newer writers with more established writers. Mentors work with their mentees on developing their craft and their business, in the interest of assisting writers in establishing careers.

The year, the Mentor Program Chair has chosen JG Faherty as the 2018 Mentor of the Year.

Upon hearing news of the award, JG said, “It’s really an honor to be chosen as Mentor of the Year. I am a firm believer that the Mentorship program is one of the most important benefits of membership we have, and under Brian Hatcher’s guidance, it’s reached new heights of success. Way, way back in the dark ages (2007 or so), I was a mentee, working on my first novel. I got lucky enough to be paired with then-president Deborah LeBlanc as my mentor. She helped me immensely with my novel and several short stories, and in the process became a friend as well. Without her help, I might never have sold that first book. Because of her, and because of other people in the organization who’ve taught me that giving back is one of the most important things Active members can do, I signed up as a mentor the moment I earned my Active status. My goal is to help each of my mentees the way Deb helped me, because that’s what writers should be doing, helping other writers succeed. And I’m happy to say that along the way, I’ve made several more friends. What could be better?”

A life-long resident of New York’s haunted Hudson Valley, JG Faherty is the author of 6 novels, 9 novellas, and more than 60 short stories, and he’s been a finalist for both the Bram Stoker Award® (The Cure, Ghosts of Coronado Bay) and ITW Thriller Award (The Burning Time). He writes adult and YA horror, science fiction, dark fantasy, and paranormal romance, and his works range from quiet, dark suspense to over-the-top comic gruesomeness. After directing the HWA’s YA program for two years, he implemented the organization’s Library & Literacy Program, which focuses on author-library relations, using horror as a tool to entice more people to read, and supporting library reading and writing programs for young adults. He has also served on the Board of Trustees since 2011. As a child, his favorite playground was a 17^th-century cemetery, which many people feel explains a lot. You can follow him at www.twitter.com/jgfaherty, www.facebook.com/jgfaherty, and www.jgfaherty.com.

Instituted in 2000, the Richard Laymon President’s Award is named in honor of Richard Laymon, who died in 2000 while serving as President of the Horror Writers Association (HWA). 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 President Lisa Morton has chosen Brad Hodson to receive the 2018 Richard Laymon Award. As HWA’s Administrator, Brad has served HWA for many years, overseeing both the organization’s day-to-day operations and also coordinating much of the yearly StokerCon™ events. As President Lisa Morton noted, “The definition of this award states that it goes to an especially dedicated volunteer, while Brad is our only full-time employee. However, I figure that what Brad puts in every week goes so far beyond the forty hours we pay him for that he’s surely our hardest working volunteer as well. HWA owes much of its growth to him, and this recognition is long overdue.”

“Joining the HWA has truly been a life-changing experience,” Brad said, when informed of the award. “From networking to access to the resources that let me start making professional sales, it’s helped my career immensely. But, more so, the Administrator position has been a godsend. The amazing people I now get to interact with on a daily basis have enriched my life in so many ways. And having a day job that
revolves around a genre I adore while assisting writers and educating readers has, even at its most stressful, been fulfilling in so many ways. HWA’s President for most of my time in the position has been Lisa Morton and I couldn’t ask for a better boss. Lisa has always trusted my opinions and empowered me to do what needs to be done while simultaneously offering guidance and resources to do so. I’ve worked for major companies in the entertainment industry and it’s rare to find an environment like I have with
the HWA. When I first took over as Administrator, we only had 350 members and almost all of them were in the US and Canada. I’ve watched that number grow to over 1500 members in 27 countries in a few short years. There’s a reason for that growth: the President, Vice President, Board of Trustees, and all of the volunteers are passionate about the Horror Writers Association.  And that passion is infectious. I’m happy to have caught the bug and am truly honored to be this year’s recipient of the Richard Laymon
President’s Award.”

As an author and screenwriter, Brad C. Hodson is proud to be the Administrator of the Horror Writers Association. A sampling of his various duties includes managing the member database, the renewal system, StokerCon registration, and serving as the communications hub for the org. He works
with other organizations, such as the Author’s Coalition, to advocate for creators and help keep HWA initiatives such as our scholarship program funded and paying out to recipients. Managing the day-to-day nuts and bolts of what keeps the organization running has given him a special appreciation for the genre, the creators and fans that champion it, and the volunteers who work tirelessly behind the scenes to provide HWA’s members with the resources at their disposal.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce that Jess Landry has been chosen for the 2018 Silver Hammer Award. The HWA presents the Silver Hammer Award in recognition of extraordinary volunteerism by a member who dedicates valuable time and effort to the organization. The award is determined by HWA’s Board of Trustees.

Working as Head Compiler, Jess is a key member of HWA’s Bram Stoker Awards® Committee. The Head Compiler is responsible for checking every work that is recommended by a member. She adds links to works for authors/publishers/editors that are on the HWA’s Recommended Reading List, often answering hundreds of emails throughout the year regarding works. As a part of the Awards Committee, the Head Compiler is expected to write the Co-Chairs should an issue arise and give input regarding the matter, as well as giving input throughout the year as we continuously strive to improve the system. The Recommendations branch of the binary awards system wouldn’t work without her hard work and dedication. 

She also works in Membership Outreach, contacting dozens of new authors every year to invite them to join the organization.

Upon being informed of the award, Jess commented, “When I first joined the HWA in 2014, I had no idea what I was getting into or what kind of people I would encounter, but when the opportunity to volunteer arose shortly after I became a member, I jumped at the chance. Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to lurk behind the scenes with some fantastic folks and have come to appreciate all the hard work that goes into maintaining our close-knit community. It takes everyone working together to make the HWA run as smoothly as it does, so I’m truly honoured to have been selected for the 2018 Silver Hammer Award. And it’s a good thing all I have to do is type this, because I’m honest-to-Jeebus speechless. Thank you!”

From the day she was born, Jess Landry has always been attracted to the darker things in life. Her fondest childhood memories included getting nightmares from the Goosebumps books, watching The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, and reiterating to her parents that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her mental state. Since then, Jess’s fiction has appeared in many anthologies, including Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles, Monsters of Any Kind, Where Nightmares Come From, Lost Highways: Dark Fictions from the Road, and Fantastic Tales of Terror (which features her Bram Stoker Award® -nominated short story, “Mutter”), among others. You can visit her on the interwebs at jesslandry.com, though your best bet at finding her is on Facebook (facebook.com/jesslandry28), where she often posts cat gifs and references Jurassic Park way too much.