For Immediate Release
The 2026 Splatterpunk Awards, honoring superior achievement in Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror published in 2025, were presented last Saturday at KillerCon in Austin, Texas. Hosted by Brian Keene and John Baltisberger, this year’s ceremony mark a transitionary, generational changing of the guard as award founders Keene and Wrath James White have turned the awards over to the next generation of writers beginning in 2027.
Here is this year’s ballot, with winners in bold in each category.
BEST NOVEL
Janitors vs. The Living Dead, Michelle Garza & Melissa Lason (Death’s Head)
The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga)
At Dark, I Become Loathsome, Eric LaRocca (Blackstone)
The Home, Judith Sonnet (Madness Heart)
Music to Sacrifice Virgins To, Kristopher Triana (Bad Dream)
BEST NOVELLA
Playground: Child of Divorce, Aron Beauregard (Bad Dream)
Disco Rice, Robert Essig (Infected Voices)
Strange Stones, Edward Lee & Mary SanGiovanni (Clash)
The Freakshow: Rebirth in Drayton Falls, Bryan Smith (Grindhouse)
Runts, Daniel J. Volpe (Bad Dream)
BEST SHORT STORY
“Wrong Fucking Place, Wrong Fucking Time”, C. Robert Cargill (The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand)
Red Womb, C.M. Guidroz (self-published)
“And She Was Made of Glass”, Lucas Milliron (Full Throttle)
“Executive Decision”, Christine Morgan (Full Throttle)
“The Tripps”, Wrath James White (The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand)
BEST COLLECTION
The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale, Joe R. Lansdale (Tachyon)
Let Not Your Sorrow Die, Bracken MacLeod (Bad Hand)
Violent Nights, Candace Nola (Uncomfortably Dark)
Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, Hailey Piper (Titan)
This Is Splatterpunk: The John Skipp Primer, John Skipp (Fungasm)
BEST ANTHOLOGY
Splatterpunk’s She Dotted Her Eyes, Jack Bantry, ed. (self-published)
The Rack II: More Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks, Tom Deady, ed. (Greymore)
Choices: An Anthology of Reproductive Horror, Dianna Gunn, ed. (Renaissance)
Full Throttle, Candace Nola, ed. (Uncomfortably Dark)
Stories From The Motel Sick, Michael Allen Rose, ed. (RoShamBo)
J.F. GONZALEZ LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Ryan Harding
Christine Morgan
At the conclusion of the ceremony, it was announced that next year’s J. F. Gonzalez Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Billy Martin (writing as Poppy Z. Brite)
Previous recipients of the J.F. Gonzalez Lifetime Achievement Award are David J. Schow (2018), David G. Barnett (2019), Edward Lee (2020), John Skipp (2021), Clive Barker (2022), Monica J. O’Rourke (2023), Brian Keene (2023), Ray Garton (2024), Craig Spector (2024), Wrath James White (2024), Joe R. Lansdale (2025), Lucy Taylor (2025), Christine Morgan (2026), and Ryan Harding (2026).