My Heart Is a Chainsaw cut through the competition and earned Stephen Graham Jones his second consecutive Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel. 

The Horror Writers Association announced the winners of the 2021 Bram Stoker Awards at StokerCon in Denver, Colorado, on May 14. 

This year’s win was the fourth Bram Stoker Award overall for Jones. His novel The Only Good Indians won last year. He also won the Long Fiction category twice with Night of the Mannequins (2020) and Mapping the Interior (2017). 

Hailey Piper earned her first Stoker as Queen of Teeth won Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Piper was also nominated for the Long Fiction category with “Recitation of the First Feeding” from her collection titled Unfortunate Elements of My Anatomy.

Author Alessandro Manzetti and artist Stefano Cardoselli won for Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel with The Inhabitant of the Lake. Manzetti previously won Stokers in the Poetry Collection category (2015, 2019) and received the HWA Specialty Press Award for Independent Legions Press (2017). Cardoselli was nominated in the same category last year. 

Erica Waters won for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel with her second release, The River Has Teeth. Her debut novel, Ghost Wood Song, received a nomination in the same category last year. 

Jeff Strand won for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction with “Twentieth Anniversary Screening,” which was originally one of four novellas in a multi-author collection titled Slice and Dice. Strand had been nominated four times between 2006 and 2012, most notably for his novels Pressure and Dweller. 

Lee Murray earned her third and fourth Stoker writing awards, winning for Superior Achievement in Short Fiction with “Permanent Damage,” a story in the anthology Attack From the ‘80s. A 2019 Mentor of the Year, Murray was also one of four contributors who won for Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection with Tortured Willows: Bent. Bowed. Unbroken. 

The other three Tortured Willows poets are Christina Sng, Angela Yuriko Smith, and Geneve Flynn. Sng is now a three-time Stoker recipient for her poetry. Smith earned a second Stoker in one night, winning Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction for “Horror Writers: Architects of Hope,” which appeared in Issue 55 of The Sirens Call. For Flynn, it was her second Stoker after winning in the Anthology category last year. 

Gemma Files won her first Stoker for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection with In That Endless, Our End. 

Mike Flanagan, James Flanagan, and Jeff Howard won for Superior Achievement in a Screenplay with Season 1’s Episode 6 of Midnight Mass titled “Book VI: Acts of the Apostles.” 

Ellen Datlow won for Superior Achievement in an Anthology with When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson. A 2010 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Datlow has racked up seven Stoker wins in the Anthology category. 

Michael Knost won for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction with Writers Workshop of Horror 2. Knost also received recognition as Mentor of the Year. 

For more on the 2021 Bram Stoker Awards, visit their website by clicking HERE. 

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