Fresh off nominations for 2024 Shirley Jackson Awards, Gwendolyn Kiste and Monika Kim won top honors during the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards presented by the Horror Writers Association on June 14 at StokerCon 2025 in Stamford, Conn.
The Haunting of Velkwood by Gwendolyn Kiste won for Superior Achievement in a Novel, and The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim won for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Both novels are also nominated for 2024 Shirley Jackson Awards, which are scheduled for presentation on July 19.
A livestream of the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards is available to watch on YouTube. The Horror Writers Association has presented the annual awards for superior achievement in horror and dark fiction since 1987. The Stokers are named in honor of the author of Dracula.
For Kiste, the 2024 award is her fourth Stoker trophy overall, including one for The Rust Maidens which won Superior Achievement in a First Novel for 2018. The Haunting of Velkwood is an emotional, character-driven suburban ghost story about three childhood friends who survive a night when everyone in their suburban hometown turned to ghosts.
Kiste was the only woman vying for Superior Achievement in a Novel, besting a strong field of nominees which included Gabino Iglesias, Stephen Graham Jones, Josh Malerman, and Paul Tremblay.
“I was the only woman in the category this year, and that was a very, very hard thing,” Kiste said during her acceptance remarks. “I felt a lot of pressure. As you’re reading this year, all I’m going to ask is just keep reading books, novels, especially by women. It’s the category that we get usually the most money, so it’s the most likely way we can make careers out of this. Read books by women when you’re doing the recommendations on the recommended reading list. Think about women. Be here to support us.”
Kiste also plugged small presses in her remarks.
“On the preliminary ballot, there were ten of us. There was only one small press book,” Kiste said. “Small presses are our lifeblood. They’re the ones that when we lost our sections in a lot of bookstores, they were still standing by us. And I don’t want to see that lost. Keep supporting the small presses. They have been here for us. Keep reading small press books. I’d love to see more small press books in this category.”
For Kim, she won her first Stoker on her first nomination for The Eyes Are the Best Part. The novel is billed as a “feminist psychological horror about the making of a female serial killer from a Korean-American perspective.” Included on the Time Magazine 100 Must-Read Books of 2024, The Eyes Are the Best Part is described by The New York Times Book Review as a novel that is “violent, smart, gruesome and wildly original” and “pulls readers into a horrific world of murder and cannibalism while also critiquing misogyny, exploring Asian fetishization and stereotypes, sharing what it’s like to navigate two cultures and telling a touching story of a family in turmoil.”
Here is a list of the other 2024 winners, according to BramStokerAwards.Horror.Org.
- Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel (tie): There’s Something Sinister in Center Field by Robert P. Ottone and The Creepening of Dogwood House by Eden Royce
- Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel: Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo by Adam Cesare
- Superior Achievement in Long Fiction: Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram
- Superior Achievement in Short Fiction: “Versus Versus” by Laird Barron (from Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners)
- Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection: Love is a Crematorium and Other Tales by Mercedes M. Yardley
- Superior Achievement in an Anthology: Discontinue If Death Ensues: Tales from the Tipping Point edited by Carol Gyzander and Anna Taborska
- Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction: Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You’re Too Scared to Watch by Emily C. Hughes
- Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction: “Blacks in Film and Cultivated Bias” by Lisa Wood (from No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction that Transcends the Tropes)
- Superior Achievement in Poetry: Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future by Pedro Iniguez
- Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel: H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu by Gou Tanabe
- Superior Achievement in a Screenplay: The Substance by Coralie Fargeat
The HWA also presented the following awards:
- Specialty Press Award: Mocha Memoirs Press
- Richard Laymon President’s Award: Maxwell I. Gold
- Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award: Jonathan Lees
- Mentor of the Year Award: Gretchen McNeil
- Lifetime Achievement Award Winners: David Cronenberg, Del and Sue Howison, and Dame Susan Elizabeth Hill
StokerCon 2026 announced
The Horror Writers Association also announced StokerCon 2026 is scheduled from June 4-7 at the Westin Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Guests of Honor so far include Linda D. Addison, Ann VanderMeer, John Shirley, and Billy Martin.
Visit eventbrite.com to purchase tickets.
LIONEL RAY GREEN 
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