Aron Beauregard, Sidney Shiv, and The Obituaries #6: Red Romance led the list of nominations for the 2025 Splatterpunk Awards with three each, according to a release by briankeene.com on April 29.
Beauregard’s nominations include Best Novel for Benjamin, which he co-authored with Shane McKenzie; Best Novella for A Life of Crime; and Best Short Story for “The Old College,” which appeared in the anthology Fear of Clowns. Beauregard is a two-time Splatterpunk Awards winner, taking Best Novel for Playground in 2023 and Best Collection for Beyond Reform in 2022.
Shiv, a first-time nominee, scored one nom as an author for Best Short Story with “Fulfillment,” which appeared in his collection Where Devils Dance. He earned two more noms in the Best Anthology category as an editor for Shocking Sojourns and Splatology 2.0, a project he co-edited with Chisto Healy.
The Obituaries #6: Red Romance was the most nominated work of 2025. It earned a Best Anthology nomination plus two Best Short Story noms for “Together Forever” by C.V. Hunt and “Baby, I’d Die 4 U” by Kristopher Triana.
Triana and Daniel J. Volpe along with the anthology Y’all Ain’t Right each received two nominations.
Triana is up for Best Novel with The Old Lady and Best Short Story with “Baby, I’d Die 4 U.” Triana previously won the Splatterpunk Award for Best Novel twice – in 2019 for Full Brutal and in 2022 for The Night Stockers, a book he co-wrote with Ryan Harding.
Volpe’s For The Better is nominated for Best Novella and Sucking Chest Wound and Other Horrors for Best Collection. Volpe previously won Best Novella for Plastic Monsters in 2023.
Y’all Ain’t Right edited by K. Trap Jones is up for Best Anthology, and one of its tales, Ryan Harding’s “Genital Grinder 2.5,” is nominated for Best Short Story. This is the seventh anthology edited by Jones to be nominated for a Splatterpunk Award. Harding previously won the Best Short Story category twice — for “Angelbait” in 2020 and for “The Seacretor” in 2019.
Author and first-time nominee Judith Sonnet initially received two nominations, including Best Collection for Every Night In The Bone Orchard. However, Sonnet’s The Home, which earned a Best Novel nomination, was disqualified when organizers realized the book was released in January 2025. Only works published in 2024 are eligible for the 2025 Splatterpunk Awards.
The Home “had received fan recommendations for 2024,” according to the release. “Per the rules, we have disqualified it for 2024. It will still be eligible for next year’s ballot, and all recommendations will carry over.”
Besides Shiv and Sonnet, other first-time nominees were McKenzie, Jenny Kiefer, Mehitobel Wilson, Mark Tullius, Lyndsey Smith, and Healy. Bram Stoker Award-winning author John Everson earned his second-ever Splatterpunk Awards nomination in the Best Novella category with Living Death Race: Beauty & the Brains. Also, after winning Best Novel for Maeve Fly in 2024, CJ Leede returns for a chance to win the category again for American Rapture in 2025.
In addition to the 2025 Splatterpunk Awards, organizers will also present the J.F. Gonzalez Lifetime Achievement Award to Joe R. Lansdale and Lucy Taylor. Previous recipients are David J. Schow, David G. Barnett, Edward Lee, John Skipp, Clive Barker, Monica J. O’Rourke, Brian Keene, Ray Garton, Craig Spector, and Wrath James White.
Founded by authors White and Brian Keene in 2017, the Splatterpunk Awards honor superior achievement in Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror fiction in the five categories of Novel, Novella, Short Story, Collection, and Anthology. Winners will be announced during KillerCon 2025, which is scheduled August 1-3 in Austin, Texas.
Here is the list of 2025 Splatterpunk Awards nominees. Visit briankeene.com for the complete press release.
BEST NOVEL
Benjamin by Aron Beauregard and Shane McKenzie
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer
American Rapture by CJ Leede
The Old Lady by Kristopher Triana
BEST NOVELLA
A Life of Crime by Aron Beauregard
Master of Bodies by Robert Essig
Living Death Race: Beauty & the Brains by John Everson
Nipping Them In the Bud by Edward Lee
For the Better by Daniel J. Volpe
BEST SHORT STORY
“The Old College” by Aron Beauregard (Fear of Clowns)
“Genital Grinder 2.5” by Ryan Harding (Y’all Ain’t Right)
“Together Forever” by C.V. Hunt (The Obituaries #6: Red Romance)
“Fulfillment” by Sidney Shiv (Where Devils Dance)
“Baby, I’d Die 4 U” by Kristopher Triana (The Obituaries #6: Red Romance)
BEST COLLECTION
This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances by Eric LaRocca
Gold and Gore by Candace Nola
Every Night In The Bone Orchard by Judith Sonnet
Sucking Chest Wound and Other Horrors by Daniel J. Volpe
Wrecks & Violets by Mehitobel Wilson
BEST ANTHOLOGY
Dethfest Confessions: The Devil’s Playlist edited by Mark Tullius and Lyndsey Smith
The Obituaries #6: Red Romance
Shocking Sojourns edited by Sidney Shiv
Splatology 2.0 edited by Sidney Shiv and Chisto Healy
Y’all Ain’t Right edited by K Trap Jones.
LIONEL RAY GREEN 