The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to announce the recipients of its Specialty Awards. These will be presented on June 6th, 2026, during the Bram Stoker Awards® Presentation at StokerCon® 2026 in Pittsburgh, PA.
The Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award
The recipient of the Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award is Sarah Read.
In 2022, the Horror Writers Association renamed the Silver Hammer Award to the Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award in honor of the tremendous amount of work Karen did starting the HWA.
Our physical award has also been updated. Instead of a hammer, a new stylized sculpture has been designed and cast by the same company that mints our Bram Stoker Award statues. We look forward to sharing the new design at StokerCon 2023.
The HWA periodically gives the Karen Lansdale 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.
Sarah Read is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Bone Weaver’s Orchard, Out of Water, Root Rot & Other Grim Tales, and The Atropine Tree. She lives in northern Wisconsin where she works as a public librarian, knits, and collects stationery and pretty rocks. Visit her at authorsarahread.com.
The Richard Laymon President’s Award
The recipient of the Richard Laymond President’s Award for Service is Marc L Abbott.
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 the HWA in an especially exemplary manner and has shown extraordinary dedication to the organization.
Marc L Abbott is a Brooklyn native and horror author of the novel Sinister Ascension. He is the co-author of Hell at Brooklyn Teaand the African American Literary Award-winning anthology, Hell at the Way Station. His horror short stories are featured in Blackened Roots, The Chaos Clock, Soul Scream Antholozine, Friends and Foes of Zenobia, Even in the Grave, and the Bram Stoker Nominated anthologies New York State of Fright&Under Twin Suns: Alternate Histories of the Yellow Sign. Visit him at https://whoismarclabbott.com/.
Mentor of the Year Award
The recipient of the Mentor of the Year Award is Eric Guignard.
The HWA’s Mentor Program is available to all members of the organization. This popular program pairs newer writers with established professionals for an intensive four-month-long partnership. For new writers, the Program offers mentees a personal, one-on-one experience with a seasoned writer, tailor-made to help them grow in their writing and better market their work. For experienced writers, it is an opportunity to pay forward the assistance 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.
Established in 2014, the Mentor of the Year Award recognizes one mentor in the Program who has done an outstanding job of helping new writers. The award is chosen by the current manager of the Program.
Eric J. Guignard is a writer and anthologist of dark and speculative fiction, operating from the shadowy outskirts of Los Angeles, where he also runs the small press Dark Moon Books. He’s twice won the Bram Stoker Award, won the Shirley Jackson Award, and been a finalist for the World Fantasy Award and International Thriller Writers Award. His latest books are the collection of short stories, A Graveside Gallery: Tales of Ghosts and Dark Matters through Cemetery Dance and anthology Scaring and Daring through HarperCollins. Visit Eric at: www.ericjguignard.com or elsewhere via linktr.ee/eric_j._guignard.
Specialty Press Award
The recipient of the Specialty Press Award is Bad Hand Books.
The HWA Specialty Press Award is presented periodically to a specialty publisher whose work has substantially contributed to the horror genre, whose publications display general excellence, and whose dealings with authors have been fair and exemplary.
The award was instituted in 1997, largely due to the efforts of long-time HWA member and specialty press aficionado, Peter Crowther.
Doug Murano is the Bram Stoker Award-winning, Shirley Jackson Award-winning founder and chief creative officer of Bad Hand Books. Guided by his vision to revolutionize independent genre publishing from the heart of flyover country and four core values–grit, irreverence, inclusion and respect–Bad Hand Books has partnered with many of the world’s most exciting storytellers. You can do a lot with a bad hand. Doug resides somewhere between Mount Rushmore and Minneapolis with his wife, Jessica, their four children–Rocco, Evangeline, Luca and Franny–and Alice, the official Bad Hound.
