The Reformatory by Tananarive Due won the 2023 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel during a June 1 ceremony at StokerCon 2024 in San Diego, California. It was the first win for Due whose “Rumpus Room” was also nominated in the Long Fiction category. Her novels My Soul to Keep and The Between had previously been nominated in the 1990s.
The event also honored Steve Rasnic Tem, Mort Castle, and Cassandra Peterson with Lifetime Achievement Awards for their substantial influence on the horror genre.
Overall, 66 works of fiction and nonfiction were nominated in 13 categories for the Stoker Awards, which are presented by the Horror Writers Association annually. With more than 2,000 members, the HWA is the premier writers organization in the horror and dark fiction genre and has presented the Bram Stoker Awards since 1987.
You can watch the three-hour-long awards ceremony on the HWA’s YouTube channel. Of the 13 categories, 10 featured first-time winners.
The 2023 Specialty Awards were also presented.
Thunderstorm Books, created by Paul Goblirsch in 2008, received the Specialty Press Award.
The recipient of the Richard Laymon President’s Award for Service was Brian W. Matthews.
Lila Denning won the Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award for her massive amount of volunteer work for HWA.
L. Marie Wood received the Mentor of the Year award for her outstanding job in helping new writers.
Without further ado, here are the winners in the other categories:
Superior Achievement in an Anthology: Out There Screaming edited by Jordan Peele and John Joseph Adams. Peele previously won the Screenplay category twice for Us and Get Out.
Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection: Blood from the Air by Gemma Files. It was Files’ second award. She won the same category in 2021 for In That Endlessness, Our End.
Superior Achievement in a First Novel: The Daughters of Block Island by Christa Carmen.
Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel: Carmilla: The First Vampire by Amy Chu, author, and Soo Lee, artist.
Superior Achievement in Long Fiction: Linghun by Ai Jiang.
Superior Achievement in Long Nonfiction: 101 Horror Books to Read Before You’re Murdered by Sadie Hartmann.
Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel: The Nighthouse Keeper by Lora Senf.
Superior Achievement in Poetry: On the Subject of Blackberries by Stephanie M. Wytovich. It was Wytovich’s second award. She won the same category in 2016 for Brothel.
Superior Achievement in a Screenplay: Godzilla Minus One by Takashi Yamazaki.
Superior Achievement in Short Fiction: “Quondam” by Cindy O’Quinn, from The Nightmare Never Ends.
Superior Achievement in Short Nonfiction: “Becoming Ungovernable: Latah, Amok, and Disorder in Indonesia” by Nadia Bulkin from Unquiet Spirits: Essays by Asian Women in Horror.
Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel: She Is a Haunting by Trang Thanh Tran.
StokerCon 2025 will be held June 12-15 at the Hilton Stamford Hotel in Stamford, Connecticut.
RELATED LINK
The Official Website of Horror and Fantasy Writer Lionel Ray Green 
Yay for Tananarive! I’m such a huge fan. She deserves this!