31 Days of Horror: Day 30-- Promote Horror All Year Long by Lila Denning

Today is the last day of programming here before tomorrow's annual Halloween announcement of the Summer Scares Spokesperson. That means it is the perfect day to talk about what happens from November 1-September 30.

The short answer is....still Horror. But I know that it not intuitive to everyone. To help I invited Lila Denning, acquisitions librarian, book display guru, horror reviewer, and much more to tell all of you how to promote Horror all year long.

Take it away Lila. And after reading this, visit her blog-- Passively Recommending Books for book display advice all year long. [Spoiler alert, Horror shows up all the time.]

As October ends, Halloween Librarians may grow sad as the time to have horror shine comes to an end. The rest of our collections can come out of hiding in November as the calendar moves towards the winter holidays. That sort of thinking is increasingly obsolete as horror’s profile in publishing continues to rise. Libraries need to change the marketing of their collections to demonstrate an understanding of horror readers, from the most intense to casual fans. If you are skeptical, ask yourself when is crime fiction or science fiction season? Horror fans deserve the same year round attention that other readers receive. 

Passive readers advisory tools such as book displays and book lists both help your patrons find their next great read while allowing your library to bring backlist titles to your patron’s attention. View them as a marketing tool to show off the depth and breadth of your library’s collection. That includes horror outside of October (as well as romance outside of February but that’s for another blog.)

Winter and holiday horror is released every year. Recent titles include the collections Christmas and Other Horrors: A winter solstice anthology (2023) and The Darkest Night: A Terrifying Anthology of Winter Horror Stories (2024) as well as novels like Candy Cain Kills (2023), Dead of Winter (2023), Where the Dead Wait (2023), and the forthcoming Our Winter Monster (2025). A book display or list with winter themed crime fiction and horror would give your patrons plenty of options. There are horror titles that you can match up with almost any holiday or season. When you set up displays or lists, include horror. There are plenty of terrifying thrillers and mysteries that are released throughout the year. People love to read frighting and suspenseful fiction all year. Spring break and summer are great times to promote horror. As someone who lives 15 minutes from the beach, I can promise you that “beach read” doesn’t mean light and humorous to everyone.

The Bram Stoker Awards occur every year in summer. The long list as well as the previous year’s nominated titles make for a great midsummer book display or list. Don’t forget Summer Scares, a joint effort between iRead, NoveList, Book Riot, and the Horror Writers of America, designed to promote horror reading in the summer. There are middle grade, young adult, and adult titles chosen every year. The current and past selections, as well as other titles from the authors who have been chosen also make for a great summertime display.

Pick a trope or theme and add books from across your collection. Witches, shifters, haunted houses, grief, unexplained death, and dysfunctional families can be found in many fiction and non-fiction titles. Someone who loves a theme in one genre already has an entryway into finding a horror novel they will love. These kinds of displays and lists can be put up year-round. Don’t worry about mixing up genres in a list or book display. If you check the bibliographic record for crime fiction or horror, you will see multiple genres listed. Even publishers will list several genres on their own sites, promoting individual titles. 

Horror is being blended with other kinds of fiction regularly now. Those readers you may have decided don’t like horror are watching horror movies and streaming series. Harness a popular horror story in another medium to promote your horror backlist. Horror themed movies and streaming shows are released all year. Find read alikes in your collection and allow things that are already on your patrons’ mind to help move your backlist titles. Think broadly when you consider how similar a title is to a given movie or show; don’t get trapped into thinking readalikes need to be a precise match.

Enjoy mashing up genres in your book displays and lists! I hope I have shown you that you can add horror to your passive readers advisory efforts all year. Many of your patrons seek out scares and thrills as part of their regular reading. While October is peak time for scary tales, let your spooky collection shine every month.

31 Days of Horror: Day 32-- Promoting Horror All Year Long with Lila Dennning

I wanted to remind you AFTER October Horror is still worth promoting. As reported in Publisher's Lunch in January 2023, Horror is up 79% in sales as its own category over the previous 2 years. 

While we see an increase in seasonal readers in the Fall, there is a steady amount of all year long Horror readers, and that number is growing.

I asked my colleague Lila Denning, a national expert on Book Discussions, and part of the HWA's Library Team, to share how she highlights Horror all year long.

Even if she does not convince you, at the very least, leave those displays up for another week as people trickery in who meant to read a Horror title this fall but forgot. They will be relieved that you are sill thinking of them.

Thank you to Lila for helping out here. To read other guest posts by her, click here. And now, Lila Denning:

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It’s the day after Halloween and you may be tempted to set aside the horror titles in your collection until next October. You may be sad that spooky season is over as we head into the winter holidays. But remember that it’s always spooky season because horror circulates all year and given the current rise in popularity, it is part of good patron service to include it in your passive and active readers advisory outside of Halloween season. By expanding how you think about genre and blending similar themes, you can continue to market horror to your patrons throughout the year.

Winter is dark, silent, cold and kind of scary. Look for those horror novels that take place in the winter and the snow. Lists like this one on Goodreads can guide a search of your library’s collection. There is also at least one winter or winter holiday themed short story collection released every year. Some readers may appreciate a small break from the push of joy and family visits to dive into something scary.

A theme like “Not Such a Happy Home” could include domestic thrillers, psychological suspense, haunted houses, and dysfunctional families. This would allow you to blend mysteries, suspense, and horror on one book display or online list. There are plenty of books with broad appeal that could be included. Using generic terms like murder for the title of the list or display, is another way to expand beyond one genre.

Witches cross genres – add paranormal romance, historical fiction, and horror. There are also creatures like shifters that appear in more than one genre. Add a sign that says “Shift Into Summer” and you can help circulate those titles in that time in between spring and summer. Of course, human monsters like serial killers appear in a variety of books, movies, and TV series.

When movie or series gains popularity during the year (studios don’t save all their horror features for October), remember to put up a display or list with read-alikes for that title. Bird Box was released in December 2018 and was a huge success. Netflix released Wednesday in November. That series could be used to promote your backlist YA titles in addition to adult books. Harness the energy of things with momentum in popular culture to draw attention to your backlist horror.

Springtime is the season for baby birds, melting snow and…folk horror. The movie Midsommer demonstrated that people will flock to stories set in rural places about folk religions, paganism, and witches.

Don’t forget about scary beach reads. Not everyone wants light, humorous books while they are on vacation. I have book displays with horror empty out in the summer as patrons take them down the road to the beach to enjoy as they sit in the bright sun. One of the more iconic summer creature films is Jaws. Recently there have been some great beach/ocean/shoreline related horror released that could jump start a summer display – What Kind of Mother by Clay McLeod Chapman and Whalefall by Daniel Kraus. Additional evidence for the allure of scary books in the summer is the number of big mystery and suspense titles that are released every summer.

Speaking of summer, don’t neglect horror on your YA and youth summer reading suggestion list. There are a lot of great middle grade and YA horror titles available. Seeing their favorite kind of books promoted in the library could be just what a child needs to draw them back into reading and the library. The Bram Stoker Award nominees are an excellent place to start.

There are also juvenile fiction titles and picture books that can be suggested to help younger fans keep reading while school is out. The Horror Writers Association (HWA), in partnership with United for Libraries, Book Riot, and Booklist present Summer Scares every year. Three adult, YA, and middle grade titles are selected and can be worked into book clubs and displays. The most up-to-date resource page is here. Use these titles and the annual programming guide to make next summer a spooky one.

Hopefully, these ideas will give you a jumpstart on adding horror to your displays and lists all year. While Halloween is a wonderful celebration of the dark and spooky, horror can easily be worked into readers advisory year-round. If you are one of the library workers who loves horror, take it forward into every month.

50 Best Horror Books of All Time via Esquire and Comments on Diversifying Your Lists

Click here to enter the list via Esquire's webiste

Normally, when main stream magazines do a list of Horror books, I roll my eyes before diving in and I predictably, end up disappointed. But this time, I had high hopes because friend of the blog and podcaster, Neil McRobert did his list of the 50 Best Horror Books of All Time for Esquire Magazine and it is awesome. 

Last October, I invited McRobert to participate in my 31 Days of Horror: Why I Love Horror series. McRobert has the top notch Talking Scared Podcast and holds a PhD in Gothic Literature. He has spent years studying Horror as a scholar, yes, but he is also a fan. Click here to see McRobert's appearance on my blog and learn more about him. 

Anytime someone posts a best list of any kind, there are going to be haters. In this case, I saw some criticism that this list has too much of a recency bias. But I loved that recency bias for a couple of reason and applaud McRobert for it.

First, and the most important part for libraries, the recently bias of this list means you can be assured that these are titles that will be enjoyed by today's readers. I loved that about this list. Yes there were a few old classics, but it is focused on what books a general Horror reader today would most connect with and enjoy. This is VERY important both because the venue is a mass market magazine, not a Horror specific publication, and because as a library worker, you can check your shelves for these titles [most of which you already have], add those you are missing, and most importantly, promote them to your general readers. This is a list you can use anytime of year, not just to target Horror readers. It is a list for everyone who wants to feel the fear, even if just a little. This is not for Horror fans; it is for readers [full stop]. 

This is also a list that you can build a display from today! And Add a QR code to access the list. Or post it on your website. Even better, if you have Esquire in your print or digital magazine collection, use this list to promote that holding and increase circulation on it as well.

Second, by giving his list a recency bias, McRobert's list is not only white men. This is a diverse list of excellent Horror. Many "best" list makers use the fact that the "classics" were from a time when only white males published in order to argue for why their lists are not diverse. This is not an  acceptable excuse any longer.. Making sure our best lists represent marginalized voices is more important than anything. As I say frequently, classics change. Not only do people not want to read many books that are 100 years old anymore, but they also need to see an established genre in a modern light where all voices are represented. Because of systemic oppression, we only have the voices of non-white males from a more recent time. That is a societal problem that people  who make these best lists can actively help  to fix.

In the introduction to the list, McRobert mentions that there are some big names missing and says straight up something I wanted to point out:

"Certain big names are missing ...because their books tread ground better travelled by others."

I think a great example of this on the list is including Victor LaValle's The Ballad of Black Tom over the Lovecraft original it is based upon. LaValle's excellent novella is a rewrite of Lovecraft's most racist story. "The Horror at Red Hook." As I said here, in this novella it is as if LaValle is giving Lovecraft a hug and the middle finger at the same time. It is brilliant classic for today's readers.

Kudos to McRobert for being willing to consider the contributions of systemically marginalized voices and judge them by the quality of their work, not the era in which they were published.

I also have two observations from my point of view. Not really criticisms but just points I wanted to make about the list.

1. Anyone who listens to McRobert's podcast knew that IT by Stephen King was going to hold the number 1 spot on his list. He is unapologetic about his love for this book and I applaud that. It would not be my number 1 but I do love consistency. Also, you have got to own your biases when you do these lists. I would have been disappointed if a list by McRobert did NOT have IT number one.
2. As much as I love the addition of more marginalized voices here, we also have to work to keep hateful humans and their books out of our lists. This is the other side of the anti-racist RA Service coin that must work in tandem with diversifying our lists on order for any progress to be made. It would be hard to argue that The Terror by Dan Simmons is NOT one of the best Horror books; however, he is a horrible human being. Click here for a sampling of reasons and examples. I have stopped supporting him in anyway. I left any mention of him out of my book, even choosing to not include him in my lists of important Horror authors of the late 20th Century-- which he most definitely was. This choice is a glaring omission, and that is 100% the point. By not including him, I make people think about why he was omitted. Clearly, if you read my book, it is clear I know my stuff, so his omission forces you to ask, why he isn't there. I would have replaced The Terror on principle with my favorite recent Horror book from that era, The Ruins by Scott Smith. 

But those are small quibbles. This is an excellent list, one that is especially useful for library workers. I hope you check it out and use it sometime soon for a display. Don't wait until October, these are excellent year round reads.

And finally, big props to McRobert. Going out on a limb to make a list of the best of anything is a brave activity. I know, I have done it many times. He did a great job.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway #53: Two Books-- A New Cult Horror and a Bonus Buzz Worthy SF

Today's giveaway is a doozy. The second novel by this year's Bram Stoker Winner for Best First Novel and a bonus "defiantly joyful speculative adventure" for fans of John Scalzi. Here is how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American public library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that  week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here to see giveaway #52. A winner was picked but they have yet to respond, so I may pick 2 winners tomorrow. 

I have a huge stack of physical ARCs to giveaway as the Spooky Season begins in earnest so let's get to it with a 2-fer to kick off the speculative fun.

First up, is Children of Demeter by E.K. Knight. Knight won the the 2020 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel for The Fourth Whore. Both titles are put out by Raw Dog Screaming Press who are one of my favorite independent presses [see the full list here]. Their books are well made, of excellent writing quality, and easy to get though our normal ordering channels. Please check out their other titles.

Summary of Children of Demeter via Goodreads: 

In 1973, a commune of almost twenty-five people—mostly women and children—disappeared overnight from the small town of West Burma, WI. What happened to the hippie Children of Demeter has remained a mystery until this day, which is what draws Sarah Bisset, a sociologist on sabbatical, to the place.

With her personal life in ruins Sarah is more than happy to lose herself in the secrets of the isolated farmhouse, but soon those revelations have her questioning her own identity, and even her sanity. Is she prepared to navigate the labyrinth of lies and cover ups to expose the truth concealed inside Demeter House despite the consequences?

Children of Demeter is an excellent, female fueled, cult horror story. Cult horror is very popular right now. I mean it always has been, but it is getting a marketed bump in readership right now. Check out this recent list from Book Riot of great cult horror and add this new title to the list. Side note, I have read just about every title on that Book Riot list and can confirm they are excellent and should be in your collections.

This is also a great example of a frame that would make a great display because it crosses many genres. There are a lot of readers who love cult stories and not all of them read horror. Not all cult stories are horror, but for people who really love the cult frame, genre doesn't matter, so these horror novels may be perfect. By the way, to this list I would also add a title I enjoyed very much and gave away here on the blog over a year ago [giveaway 14], The Children of Red Peak by Craig DiLouie. 

You can combine the Book Riot list with this Goodreads user generated list of books tagged "cults" to get a broader list of "cult" titles for all readers. Novelist also has "cults" as a searchable subject meaning you can also extend this list to your YA and Children's' display areas too. I do love when a display subject can be highlighted across a building. You can even have the AV department do movies and TV shows. I promise this will be very popular displays.

As a bonus, I have a copy of one of the buzziest speculative books coming this month. It is not scary but I am in a good mood and wanted to spread some of that joy. Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki is from Tor [who sent me the ARC] to give away to all of you. Here is the publisher summary via Goodreads:

Good Omens meets The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet in this defiantly joyful adventure set in California's San Gabriel Valley, with cursed violins, Faustian bargains, and queer alien courtship over fresh-made donuts.

Shizuka Satomi made a deal with the devil: to escape damnation, she must entice seven other violin prodigies to trade their souls for success. She has already delivered six.

When Katrina Nguyen, a young transgender runaway, catches Shizuka's ear with her wild talent, Shizuka can almost feel the curse lifting. She's found her final candidate.

But in a donut shop off a bustling highway in the San Gabriel Valley, Shizuka meets Lan Tran, retired starship captain, interstellar refugee, and mother of four. Shizuka doesn't have time for crushes or coffee dates, what with her very soul on the line, but Lan's kind smile and eyes like stars might just redefine a soul's worth. And maybe something as small as a warm donut is powerful enough to break a curse as vast as the California coastline.

As the lives of these three women become entangled by chance and fate, a story of magic, identity, curses, and hope begins, and a family worth crossing the universe for is found.

This book comes out on 9/28 and it is going to be popular. I am happy to provide it as a bonus for those who enter.

Good luck!

Summer Scares YouTube Playlist is Live!

It's Alive.....The Summer Scares 2021 YouTube Playlist. Click here to access it.

Right now, all we have live is the video explaining the FREE Summer Scares Programming Guide, a product of the Springfield-Greene County [MO] Library District, explained by Summer Scares Programming Chair, Konrad Stump. 

But already loaded to go live on 5/24 are 3 panels that you can use as programs for your patrons featuring the 2021 Summer Authors in conversation with Summer Scares Committee members. The panels are broken up into age groups.

May is when Summer Scares really gets going in earnest. Our podcast partner, Ladies of the Fright will be releasing their first Summer Scares episode this month and we have a few more fun videos planned. 

For the most up to date information and resources, check out the Summer Scares Resource Page. For example, that page already has 2 podcast links about the program, including one from one of our sponsors, Booklist, that features an interview with Summer Scares 2021 spokesperson Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Hear which book she calls a "platypus."

And don't forget that this is year 3 of Summer Scares. We also have an archive of past lists, programming guides and resources here. You have plenty of titles and their readalikes to make up spooky displays and host scary book discussions for all ages of readers, all summer long.

Horror books make a great read all year long, but especially in the summer-- chilling tales for the hot days.

Click here to enter the playlist

Using Awards Lists as a RA Tool: This Is Horror

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.

This is Horror, one of my favorite Horror resources as noted on the page I have dedicated to those favorites, is not only a fantastic general Horror resource for library workers [I especially love the weekly news roundup to keep you quickly and accurately up to date], but it also hosts the second most important awards for the genre [The Bram Stoker Awards being first].

Last week, the This is Horror Awards finalists were announced in a variety of categories. You can click here to see the full slate of nominees AND access backlist winners and nominees. Please refer to the series note at the top of this post to see my advice on how to use all awards lists as your best RA tool.

Note that I also keep an easy to access archive page of all of the most pertinent Horror and Horror adjacent Awards in this page always found in the right gutter of the blog.

As you will see noted in my new book [preorder now and use the $5 off coupon and link at the top of this page], one of my favorite things about all horror awards-- none of them come out in October. Why should they? Horror is worth celebrating other times of the year and the mere positioning of these awards announcements subconsciously reinforces that.

Check out the This is Horror Awards finalists for this year and year's past. Consider adding some of these titles to your collections. Honestly, scanning the top 4 categories [Novel, Novella, Story Collection, and Anthology], you should have every single one of these books in your collection. Most you already have. These are not niche titles. These are mainstream, excellent works. I personally have reviewed many of them.

And don't forget to check out my Horror Awards page anytime you are looking for ideas on suggestions or for some new display ideas.

Click here or on the image to enter the site

Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot Announced

Below is the final ballot of titles that are in the running for a Bram Stoker Award. I have linked to all of the books I have reviewed [which are numerous]. Please note that I have reviewed 4 of 5 titles in the novel category and the 5th title is from the publisher who I promoted last week in my #HorroForLibraries giveaway. I know you own the other 4, add Devil's Creek too.

I also want to point all of you to the excellent Bram Stoker Awards website. It is maintained separately from the HWA's main site to make it easier for everyone to have easy backlist access.

The Bram Stoker Awards will be announced as part of the Virtual StokerCon 2021- May 20-23. I will have a lot of news about the event very soon, but here is a bit of a preview: Librarians' Day will be happening and it will be a part of the entire Con. So for the same price you would have paid to attend in person, library workers can attend the entire event and authors can attend Librarians' Day. So for example, you get entry to the Final Frame Film Competition which is one of my favorite things about StokerCon with your LD ticket.

[However, that is just the tip of the iceberg in news about StokerCon.]

Also, I would like to  point out that in the list of this year's nominees for the Bram Stoker Awards we have 2 current Summer Scares authors nominated for their new works [Katsu and Koja], our current spokesperson [Moreno-Garcia] and 4 past Summer Scares authors [Jones [2 nominations below and a former spokesperson], Kraus, Keene, and Bulkin [in the Black Cranes Anthology]].

Your takeaway from this fact: Summer Scares is a prefect entry into the Horror genre for all ages of library patrons. Our committee is knowledgable about horror for libraries and we have our pulse on what is "the best." 

Here is the list and remember, all awards lists make for my favorite RA Tool.

The 2020 Bram Stoker Awards® Final Ballot

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Jones, Stephen Graham – The Only Good Indians (Gallery/Saga Press)

Katsu, Alma – The Deep (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)

Keisling, Todd – Devil’s Creek (Silver Shamrock Publishing)

Malerman, Josh – Malorie (Del Rey)

Moreno-Garcia, Silvia – Mexican Gothic (Del Rey)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Hall, Polly – The Taxidermist’s Lover (CamCat Publishing, LLC)

Harrison, Rachel – The Return (Berkley)

Jeffery, Ross – Tome (The Writing Collective)

Knight, EV – The Fourth Whore (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Reed Petty, Kate – True Story (Viking)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Archer, Steven (author/artist) – The Masque of the Red Death (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Brody, Jennifer (author) and Rivera, Jules (artist) – Spectre Deep 6 (Turner)

Douek, Rich (author) and Cormack, Alex (artist) – Road of Bones (IDW Publishing)

Holder, Nancy (author), Di Francia, Chiara (artist), and Woo, Amelia (artist) – Mary Shelley Presents (Kymera Press)

Manzetti, Alessandro (author) and Cardoselli, Stefano (artist/author) – Her Life Matters: (Or Brooklyn Frankenstein) (Independent Legions Publishing)

Niles, Steve (author), Simeone, Salvatore (author), and Kudranski, Szymon (artist) – Lonesome Days, Savage Nights (TKO Studios)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Cesare, Adam – Clown in a Cornfield (HarperTeen)

Kraus, Daniel – Bent Heavens (Henry Holt and Company/Macmillan)

Snyman, Monique – The Bone Carver (Vesuvian Books)

Thomas, Aiden – Cemetery Boys (Swoon Reads/Macmillan)

Waters, Erica – Ghost Wood Song (HarperTeen)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Iglesias, Gabino – Beyond the Reef (Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror) (Wicked Run Press)

Jones, Stephen Graham – Night of the Mannequins (Tor.com)

Kiste, Gwendolyn – The Invention of Ghosts (Nightscape Press)

Landry, Jess – I Will Find You, Even in the Dark (Dim Shores Presents Volume 1) (Dim Shores)

Pinsker, Sarah – Two Truths and a Lie (Tor.com)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

Arcuri, Meghan – “Am I Missing the Sunlight?” (Borderlands 7) (Borderlands Press)

Fawver, Kurt – “Introduction to the Horror Story, Day 1” (Nightmare Magazine Nov. 2020 (Issue 98))

Malerman, Josh – “One Last Transformation” (Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors) (Written Backwards)

O’Quinn, Cindy – “The Thing I Found Along a Dirt Patch Road” (Shotgun Honey Presents Volume 4: Recoil) (Down and Out Books)

Ward, Kyla Lee – “Should Fire Remember the Fuel?” (Oz is Burning) (B Cubed Press)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Koja, Kathe – Velocities: Stories (Meerkat Press)

Langan, John – Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies (Word Horde)

Lillie, Patricia – The Cuckoo Girls (Trepidatio Publishing)

Murray, Lee – Grotesque: Monster Stories (Things in the Well)

Taborska, Anna – Bloody Britain (Shadow Publishing)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

Amaris, Scarlett and Stanley, Richard – Color Out of Space (SpectreVision)

Green, Misha – Lovecraft Country, Season 1, Episode 1: “Sundown” (Affeme, Monkeypaw Productions, Bad Robot Productions, Warner Bros. Television Studios)

Green, Misha and Ofordire, Ihuoma – Lovecraft Country, Season 1, Episode 8: “Jig-a-Bobo” (Affeme, Monkeypaw Productions, Bad Robot Productions, Warner Bros. Television Studios)

LaManna, Angela – The Haunting of Bly Manor, Season 1, Episode 5: “The Altar of the Dead” (Intrepid Pictures, Amblin Television, Paramount Television Studios)

Whannell, Leigh – The Invisible Man (Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, Goalpost Pictures, Nervous Tick Productions)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Manzetti, Alessandro – Whitechapel Rhapsody: Dark Poems (Independent Legions Publishing)

McHugh, Jessica – A Complex Accident of Life (Apokrupha)

Pelayo, Cynthia – Into the Forest and All the Way Through (Burial Day Books)

Sng, Christina – A Collection of Dreamscapes (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Tantlinger, Sara – Cradleland of Parasites (Rooster Republic Press)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Bailey, Michael and Murano, Doug – Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors (Written Backwards)

Murray, Lee and Flynn, Geneve – Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (Omnium Gatherum Media)

Kolesnik, Samantha – Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror (Grindhouse Press)

Tantlinger, Sara – Not All Monsters: A Strangehouse Anthology by Women of Horror (Rooster Republic Press)

Yardley, Mercedes M. – Arterial Bloom (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Florence, Kelly and Hafdahl, Meg – The Science of Women in Horror: The Special Effects, Stunts, and True Stories Behind Your Favorite Fright Films (Skyhorse)

Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra – 1000 Women in Horror (BearManor Media)

Keene, Brian – End of the Road (Cemetery Dance Publications)

Peirse, Alison – Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre (Rutgers University Press)

Waggoner, Tim – Writing in the Dark (Guide Dog Books/Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Wetmore, Jr. Kevin J. – The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Adaption (McFarland)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

Jackson Joseph, Rhonda – “The Beloved Haunting of Hill House: An Examination of Monstrous Motherhood” (The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Adaptation) (McFarland)

Pelayo, Cynthia – “I Need to Believe” (Southwest Review Volume 105.3)

Robinson, Kelly – “Lost, Found, and Finally Unbound: The Strange History of the 1910 Edison Frankenstein” (Rue Morgue Magazine, June 2020)

Sng, Christina – “Final Girl: A Life in Horror” (Interstellar Flight Magazine, October 2020)

Waggoner, Tim – “Speaking of Horror” (The Writer)