Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction

The Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for short fiction.

Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction
Awarded for	Superior achievement in horror writing for short fiction
Presented by	Horror Writers Association
Eligibility	Published in English
Formerly called	Best short story
First award	1987 (1987)
Most recent winner	“Versus Versus”, Laird Barron (2024)
Most awards	Nancy Holder (3)
Most nominations	Gary A. Braunbeck, Mort Castle, Lisa Manetti, John Palisano, Steve Rasnic Tem (4)
Website	www.thebramstokerawards.com
Related	Bram Stoker Award

Winners and nominees

This category was previously titled "best short story". Nominees are listed below the winner(s) for each year.^[1]

Short story

Year	Recipient	Title	Result	Citation
1987	Robert R. McCammon	"The Deep End"	Winner	[2]
	Jonathan Carroll	"Friend's Best Man"	Nominee	[2]
	Charles L. Grant	"This Old Man"
	F. Paul Wilson	"Day-Tay-Vao"
	F. Paul Wilson	"Traps"
1988	Joe R. Lansdale	"Night They Missed the Horror Show"	Winner	[3]
	Ray Bradbury	"The Thing at the Top of the Stairs"	Nominee	[3]
	Harlan Ellison	"She's a Young Thing and Cannot Leave Her Mother"
	Carol Orlock	"Nobody Lives There Now"
	Lucius Shepard	"Jack's Decline"
	Chet Williamson	"The Music of the Dark Time"
1989	Robert R. McCammon	"Eat Me"	Winner	[4]
	Edward Bryant	"A Sad Last Love at the Diner of the Damned"	Nominee	[4]
	Kathryn Ptacek	"Each Night, Each Year"
	Steve Rasnic Tem	"Bodies and Heads"
	Chet Williamson	"'Yore Skin's Jes's Soft 'n Purdy' He Said"
1990	David B. Silva	"The Calling"	Winner	[5]
	Edward Bryant	"The Loneliest Number"	Nominee	[5]
	Steve Rasnic Tem	"Back Windows"
	Karl Edward Wagner	"But You'll Never Follow Me"
	Chet Williamson	"From the Papers of Helmut Hecher"
1991	Nancy Holder	"Lady Madonna"	Winner	[6]
	Poppy Z. Brite	"The Ash of Memory, the Dust of Desire"	Nominee	[6]
	Joe R. Lansdale	"Love Doll: A Fable"
	Grant Morrison	"The Braille Encyclopaedia"
	Maxine O'Callaghan	"Wolf Winter"
	Al Sarrantonio	"Richard's Head"
1992	Dan Simmons	"This Year's Class Picture"	Winner	[7]
	Nancy Kilpatrick	"Farm Wife"	Nominee	[7]
	Karl Edward Wagner	"Did They Get You to Trade?"
	Gahan Wilson	"Come One, Come All"
	Douglas E. Winter	"Bright Lights, Big Zombie"
1993	Nancy Holder	"I Hear the Mermaids Singing"	Winner	[8]
	Sherman Alexie	"Distances"	Nominee	[8]
	William S. Burroughs	"Death Fiend Guerrillas"
	Dennis Etchison	"The Dog Park"
	Wayne Allen Sallee	"Pain Grin"
1994	Nancy Holder	"Cafe Endless: Spring Rain"	Co-Winner	[9]
	Jack Ketchum	"The Box"
	Edward Lee	"Mr. Torso"	Nominee	[9]
	Lucy Taylor	"Things of Which We Do Not Speak"
1995	Harlan Ellison	"Chatting With Anubis"	Winner	[10]
	Harry Crews	"Becky Lives"	Nominee	[10]
	Thomas Ligotti	"The Bungalow House"
	William Browning Spencer	"The Death of the Novel"
1996	P. D. Cacek	"metalica"	Winner	[11]
	Robert Devereaux	"The Slobbering Tongue That Ate the Frightfully Huge Woman"	Nominee	[11]
	Graham Masterton	"The Secret Shih Tan"
	Brian Stableford	"The House of Mourning"
	Karl Edward Wagner	"Plan 10 from Inner Space"
1997	Edo van Belkom and David Nickle	"Rat Food"	Winner	[12]
	Douglas Clegg	"I Am Infinite, I Contain Multit	Nominee	[12]
	Scott Edelman	"A Plague on Both Your Houses"
	Brian Hodge	"Madame Babylon"

Short fiction

Year	Recipient	Title	Result	Citation
1998	Bruce Holland Rogers	"The Dead Boy at Your Window"	Winner	[13]
	Edo van Belkom	"The Rug"	Nominee	[13]
	Tina L. Jens	"Blues-Born"
	Stephen King	"Autopsy Room Four"
1999	F. Paul Wilson	"Aftershock"	Winner	[14]
	P. D. Cacek	"The Grave"	Nominee	[14]
	Ramsey Campbell	"The Entertainment"
	Steve Rasnic Tem	"Halloween Street"
2000	Jack Ketchum	"Gone"	Winner	[15]
	Gerard Daniel Houarner	"Dead Cat Bounce"	Nominee	[15]
	Robert J. Sawyer	"Fallen Angel"
	Karen E. Taylor	"Mexican Moon"
2001	Tim Lebbon	"Reconstructing Amy"	Winner	[16]
	Mort Castle	"I Am Your Need"	Nominee	[16]
	Jack Ketchum	"The Haunt"
	David B. Silva	"Whose Puppets, Best and Worst, Are We?"
2002	Tom Piccirilli	"The Misfit Child Grows Fat on Despair"	Winner	[17]
	Mort Castle	"Disappearances"	Nominee	[17]
	Christopher Fowler	"The Green Man"
	Charlee Jacob	"The Plague Species"
	China Miéville	"Details"
2003	Gary A. Braunbeck	"Duty"	Winner	[18]
	Scott Edelman	"The Last Supper"	Nominee	[18]
	Stephen King	"Harvey's Dream"
	Joyce Carol Oates	"The Haunting"
	George Saunders	"The Red Bow"
2004	Nancy Etchemendy	"Nimitseahpah"	Winner	[19]
	Gary A. Braunbeck	"Just Out of Reach"	Nominee	[19]
	Douglas Clegg	"A Madness of Starlings"
	John Farris	"Hunting Meth Zombies in the Great Nebraskan Wasteland"
	Margo Lanagan	"Singing My Sister Down"
	Chuck Palahniuk	"Guts"
2005	Gary A. Braunbeck	"We Now Pause for Station Identification"	Co-winners	[20]
	Clive Barker	"Haeckel's Tale"	Nominee	[20]
	Mort Castle	"As Others See Us"
	Yvonne Navarro	"Times of Atonement"
	Steve Rasnic Tem	"Invisible"
2006	Lisa Morton	"Tested"	Winner	[21]
	Mort Castle	"FYI"	Nominee	[21]
	Yvonne Navarro	"Feeding the Dead Inside"
	Gene O'Neill	"Balance"
	Stephen Volk	"31/10"
2007	David Niall Wilson	"The Gentle Brush of Wings"	Winner	[22]
	C. Dean Andersson	"The Death Wagon Rolls on By"	Nominee	[22]
	John Everson	"Letting Go"
	Paul G. Tremblay	"The Teacher"
	Paul G. Tremblay	"There's No Light Between Floor"
	Lisa Tuttle	"Closet Dreams"
2008	Sarah Langan	"The Lost"	Winner	[23]
	Scott Edelman	"Petrified"	Nominee	[23]
	Nick Mamatas and Tim Pratt	"The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft"
	M. Rickert	"Evidence of Love in A Case of Abandonment"
	Lee Thomas	"Turtle"
2009	Norman Prentiss	"In the Porches of My Ears"	Winner	[24]
	Nate Kenyon	"Keeping Watch"	Nominee	[24]
	Weston Ochse	"The Crossing of Aldo Ray"
	Harry Shannon	"The Night Nurse"
2010	Joe R. Lansdale	"The Folding Man"	Winner	[25]
	Gary A. Braunbeck	"Return to Mariabronn"	Nominee	[25]
	Lisa Manetti	"1925; A Fall River Halloween"
	Nate Southard	"In the Middle of Poplar Street"
	Mark W. Worthen	"Final Draft"
2011	Stephen King	"Herman Wouk is Still Alive"	Winner	[26]
	Adam-Troy Castro	"Her Husband's Hands"	Nominee	[26]
	Ken Lillie-Paetz	"Hypergraphia"
	Gene O'Neill	"Graffiti Sonata"
	George Saunders	"Home"
	Kaaron Warren	"All You Can Do Is Breathe"
2012	Lucy Snyder	"Magdala Amygdala"	Winner	[27]
	Bruce Boston	"Surrounded by the Mutant Rain Forest"	Nominee	[27]
	Joe McKinney	"Bury My Heart at Marvin Gardens"
	Weston Ochse	"Righteous"
	John Palisano	"Available Light"
2013	David Gerrold	"Night Train to Paris"	Winner	[28]
	Michael Bailey	"Primal Tongue"	Nominee	[28]
	Patrick Freivald	"Snapshot"
	Lisa Manetti	"The Hunger Artist"
	John Palisano	"The Geminis"
	Michael Reaves	"Code 666"
2014	Usman T. Malik	"The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family"	Co-Winner	[29]
	Rena Mason	"Ruminations"
	Hal Bodner	"Hot Tub"	Nominee	[29]
	Sydney Leigh	"Baby's Breath"
	John Palisano	"Splinterette"
	Damien Angelica Walters	"The Floating Girls: A Documentary"
2015	John Palisano	"Happy Joe's Rest Stop"	Winner	[30]
	Kate Jonez	"All the Day You'll Have Good Luck"	Nominee	[30]
	Gene O'Neill	"The Algernon Effect"
	Damien Angelica Walters	"Sing Me Your Scars"
	Alyssa Wong	"Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers"
2016	Joyce Carol Oates	"The Crawl Space"	Winner	[31]
	Michael Bailey	"Time is a Face on the Water"	Nominee	[31]
	Hal Bodner	"A Rift in Reflection"
	Christopher Golden	"The Bad Hour"
	Lisa Manetti	"ArbeitMacht Frei"
2017	Lisa Manetti	"Apocalypse Then"	Winner	[32]
	Michael Bailey	"I Will Be the Reflection Until the End"	Nominee	[32]
	James Chambers	"A Song Left Behind in the Aztakea Hills"
	Annie Neugebauer	"So Sings the Siren"
	Mercedes M. Yardley	"Loving You Darkly"
2018	Jess Landry	"Mutter"	Winner	[33]
	Lee Murray	"Dead End Town"	Nominee	[33]
	Annie Neugebauer	"Glove Box"
	John F. D. Taff	"A Winter's Tale"
	Kyla Lee Ward	"And in Her Eyes the City Drowned"
2019	Gwendolyn Kiste	"The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)"	Winner	[34]
	Greg Chapman	"The Book of Last Words"	Nominee	[34]
	Jess Landry	"Bury Me in Tar and Twine"
	Cindy O'Quinn	"Lydia"
	Tim Waggoner	"A Touch of Madness"
2020	Josh Malerman	"One Last Transformation"	Winner	[35]
	Meghan Arcuri	"Am I Missing the Sunlight?"	Nominee	[35]
	Kurt Fawver	"Introduction to the Horror Story, Day 1"
	Cindy O'Quinn	"The Thing I Found Along a Dirt Patch Road"
	Kyla Lee Ward	"Should Fire Remember the Fuel?"
2021	Lee Murray	"Permanent Damage"	Winner	[36]
	Carol Gyzander	"The Yellow Crown"	Nominee	[36]
	Cindy O'Quinn	"A Gathering at the Mountain"
	Anna Taborska	"Two Shakes Of A Dead Lamb’s Tail"
	Kyla Lee Ward	"A Whisper in the Death Pit"
2022	Aaron Dries	"Nona Doesn’t Dance"	Nominee	[37]
	Douglas Gwilym	"Poppy’s Poppy"
	J. A. W.  McCarthy	"The Only Thing Different Will Be the Body"
	Anna Taborska	"A Song for Barnaby Jones"
	Anna Taborska	"The Star"
	Mercedes M. Yardley	"Fracture"
2023
	Cindy O’Quinn	Quondam	Winner	[38]
	L.E. Daniels	Silk	Nominee	[38]
	Rachael K. Jones	The Sound of Children Screaming
	Sam J. Miller	If Someone You Love Has Become a Vurdalak
	Nadine Aurora Tabing	An Inherited Taste
2024
	Laird Barron	Versus Versus	Winner	[39]
	Rachel Bolton	“And She Had Been So Reasonable”	Nominee	[39]
	Sasha Brown	To the Wolves
	R. A. Busby	Ten Thousand Crawling Children
	Raven Jabukowski	She Sheds Her Skin