Inaugural Splatterpunk Award Winners with Nominees for RA and CD Purposes

Here is an awards list you need to have for any library where there is a solid horror readership.

Splatterpunk like it's Romance equivalent,Erotica, is gaining in popularity once again. If your library adds the best erotica [which most do by now], you have no excuse not to circulatethe best of extreme horror.

How do we identify where to begin in this violent and sexually explicit subgenre? Well, with the award winners of course!

Just like we cannot collect every erotica title that is popular these days [we’d run out of money], we cannot get every extreme horror title. But the best, those we should have. 

Below, you can find the short list of nominees and the winners courtesy of Locus Magazine. Two of the nominees for best novel also have links to reviews I published in IndiePicks magazine. And the short story winner, Jeff Strand, is another author you probably have in your library collections [his middle grade novels are perfect for reluctant readers]. I would highly suggest adding the novel nominees, although a few libraries may have pushback on Christin Morgan’s title [the book is great though]. Remember, awards lists are a great RA tool as well as a collection development tool. Here is my original post from 2011 where I outlined how to use awards lists as a resource.

2018 Splatterpunk Awards Winners

 August 28, 2018

Winners of the the inaugural Splatterpunk Awards, honoring “superior achievement in the sub-genres of SplatterPunk / Extreme Horror fiction,” were announced at Killercon 2018, held August 24-26, 2018 at the Wingate by Wyndham Conference Center in Round Rock TX.

Best Novel

• WINNER: White Trash Gothic, Edward Lee (Deadite)

• Containment: The Death of Earth, Charlee Jacob (Necro)
• Exorcist Falls, Jonathan Janz (Sinister Grin) [Becky’s review]
• The Hematophages, Stephen Kozeniewski (Sinister Grin) [Becky’s review]
• Spermjackers From Hell, Christine Morgan (Deadite)

Best Novella

• WINNER: Header 3, Edward Lee & Ryan Harding (Necro)

• The Lucky Ones Died First, Jack Bantry (Deadite)
• Killer Chronicles, Somer Canon (Thunderstorm)
• “Damn Dirty Apes”, Adam Howe (Die Dog or Eat the Hatchet)
• The Big Bad, K. Trap Jones (Necro)

Best Short Story

• WINNER: “The Tipping Point”, Jeff Strand (Everything Has Teeth)

• “Extinction Therapy”, Bracken MacLeod (Splatterpunk Fighting Back)
• “Molly”, Glenn Rolfe (Splatterpunk Fighting Back)
• “Melvin”, Matt Shaw (Splatterpunk Fighting Back)
• “Dirty Desk”, Jeffrey Thomas (Chopping Block Party)

Best Collection

• WINNER: Gorilla in My Room, Jack Ketchum (Cemetery Dance)

• The Garden of Delight, Alessandro Manzetti (Comet)
• 2017: A Year of Horror and Pain, Part One, Matt Shaw (self-published)
• Everything Has Teeth, Jeff Strand (Thunderstorm)

Best Anthology

• WINNER: Splatterpunk Fighting Back, Jack Bantry & Kit Power, eds. (Splatterpunk Zine)

• VS, Dawn Cano, ed. (Shadow Work)
• Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 2, Randy Chandler & Cheryl Mullenax, eds. (Comet)
• DOA III, Marc Ciccarone & Andrea Dawn, eds. (Blood Bound)
• Chopping Block Party, Brendan Deneen & David G. Barnett, eds. (Necro)

J.F. Gonzalez Lifetime Achievement Award

• David J. Schow

The 2018 jurors were Tod Clark, Gerard Houarner, Mike Lombardo, Monica J. O’Rourke, and David J. Schow. The selectors for the J.F. Gonzalez Award were Brian Keene and Wrath James White.

For more, see the Killercon website.