Outstanding Novel: Adult

• A Song of Legends Lost, M.H. Ayinde (Saga) amazon / bookshop
• Cursed Daughters, Oyinkan Braithwaite (Doubleday) amazon / bookshop
• Motheater, Linda H. Codega (Erewhon) amazon / bookshop
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga) amazon / bookshop
• Harmattan Season, Tochi Onyebuchi (Tor) amazon / bookshop

Outstanding Novel: YA

• Needy Little Things, Channelle Desamours (Wednesday) amazon / bookshop
• The Transition, Logan-Ashley Kisner (Delacorte) amazon / bookshop
• The Leaving Room, Amber McBride (Feiwel & Friends) amazon / bookshop
• They Bloom at Night, Trang Thanh Tran (Bloomsbury) amazon / bookshop
• (S)Kin, Ibi Zoboi (Versify) amazon / bookshop

Outstanding Middle Grade

• Afia in the Land of Wonders, Mia Araujo (Scholastic)
• The Glade, Naseem Jamnia (Bittersweet)
• The Island of Forgotten Gods, Victor Piñeiro (Sourcebooks Young Readers)
• Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave, Ally Russel (Delacorte)
• Candace, the Universe, and Everything, Sherri L. Smith (G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers)

Outstanding Novella

• The Iron Below Remembers, Sharang Biswas (Neon Hemlock)
• Audition for the Fox, Martin Cahill (Tachyon)
• The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar (Tordotcom)
• Psychopomp & Circumstance, Eden Royce (Tordotcom)
• Descent, Wole Talabi (Clarkesworld)

Outstanding Novelette

• “Uncertain Sons”, Thomas Ha (Uncertain Sons)
• “We Begin Where Infinity Ends”, Somto Ihezue (Clarkesworld 2/25)
• “What I Saw Before the War”, Alaya Dawn Johnson (Reactor 1/22/25)
• “Human Voices”, Isabel J. Kim (Lightspeed 9/25)
• “Never Eaten Vegetables”, H.H. Pak (Clarkesworld 1/25)

Outstanding Short Story

• “Ichthyosis”, M.L. Krishnan (Fantasy 1/2/25)
• “Commensalism, Or the Labyrinth’s Vessels”, Albert Nkereuwem (Will This Be a Problem? Issue V)
• “Because I Held His Name Like a Key”, Aimee Ogden (Strange Horizons 6/16/25)
• “Autogas Ferryman”, Champ Wongsatayanont (Nightmare 9/25)
• “The Octopus Dreams of Personhood”, Hannah Yang (Diabolical Plots 4/16/25)

Outstanding Speculative Poetry

• “The oblique light at Kakushima (a memory of persimmons)”, Ryu Ando | 安堵 龍 (Strange Horizons 2/24/25)
• “Set It Off (1996) – Fans’ Cut”, Nova Cypress Black (Strange Horizons 6/30/25)
• “In an attempt to seduce Death my sister starts calling him Love”, Karan Kapoor (Strange Horizons 2/17/25)
• “The Language of Fireflies”, Angela Liu (The Deadlands 2/13/25)
• “After the Storm”, Ishita Basu Mallik (The Deadlands 5/5/25)

Critics Award

• Alex Brown
• Vanessa Fogg
• Maria Haskins
• Gabino Iglesias
• The Skiffy and Fanty Show

Outstanding Fiction Podcast

• Beneath Ceaseless Skies
• Escape Pod
• khōréō
• Lightspeed
• Nightmare

Outstanding Anthology/Collected Works

• Call and Response, Christopher Caldwell (Neon Hemlock)
• The Black Fantastic: 20 Afrofuturist Stories, André M. Carrington, ed. (Luna Press Publishing)
• We Will Rise Again: Speculative Stories and Essays on Protest, Resistance, and Hope, Karen Lord, Annalee Newitz & Malka Older, eds. (Saga)
• Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity, Lee Mandelo, ed. (Erewhon)
• As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories, Terese Mason Pierre, ed. (Spiderline)

Outstanding Creative Nonfiction

• “Photon Torpedoes Break the Space Muqarnas: SFF Audiovisuals and Anti-Muslim Violence”, Tanvir Ahmed (Strange Horizons 11/24/25)
• The Secret History of Indian Science Fiction, Gautam Bhatia (Alter 11/22/25)
• The Outspoken and the Incendiary: Interviews with Radical Speculative Fiction Writers, Terry Bisson (PM)
• Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler, Susana M. Morris (Amistad)
• “A Conjuror’s Manifesto: Notes on the Afrosurreal”, Shyheim Williams (Strange Horizons 6/30/25)

Ember Award

• Maurice Broaddus
• Karen Lord
• Dave Ring
• Arley Sorg
• Martha Wells

Community Award

• Augur
• Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine
• Sistah Scifi
• Strange Horizons
• Will This Be a Problem?

Public voting for the winners is open now through August 16, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. For more information, see the Ignyte Awards website.

• Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman (Dandy House US; Michael Joseph UK) amazon / bookshop
• The Dream Hotel, Laila Lalami (Pantheon US; Bloomsbury Circus UK) amazon / bookshop
• Luminous, Silvia Park (Simon & Schuster US; Magpie UK) amazon / bookshop
• There Is No Antimemetics Division, QNTM (Ballantine US; Del Rey UK) amazon / bookshop
• When There Are Wolves Again, E.J. Swift (Arcadia) amazon / bookshop
• The Salt Oracle, Lorraine Wilson (Solaris)

The winner will be announced on August 12, 2026 and receives an engraved bookend and £2,026 in prize money. The 2026 judges are Eliza Claudia Filimon and Antony Jones for the British Science Fiction Association, Tiffani Angus and John Coxon for the Science Fiction Foundation, and Esther MacCallum-Stewart for the Sci-Fi-London film festival. Andrew M. Butler represented the Clarke Award directors as non-voting Chair of the Judges.

Butler says,

For four decades, our Clarke judges have whittled hundreds of books down to shortlists and then to the books they feel is the best sf novel published in Britain. This is never easy. The current judges debated over 130 volumes and picked the six they liked best. There’s a strong thread of memory running through the shortlist – and I think this might be a memorable year.

Award Director Tom Hunter said,

Sir Arthur was always passionate that the award’s definition of science fiction be as diverse and open as possible, and I believe he would have both applauded the record levels of new SF being published today and the formidable challenge this created for our judging panel.

Following Sir Arthur’s passing, the award faced the real possibility of being forced to close after its 25th year. I am delighted that we have been able to steward the award successfully all the way to its 40th anniversary, and am happy to report the directors are already making plans for celebrating in 2036.

For more information, see the Clarke Award website.

• WINNER: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga) amazon / bookshop

• Witchcraft for Wayward Girls, Grady Hendrix (Berkley) amazon / bookshop
• King Sorrow, Joe Hill (William Morrow) amazon / bookshop
• The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey) amazon / bookshop
• Girl in the Creek, Wendy N. Wagner (Tor Nightfire) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• WINNER: The October Film Haunt, Michael Wehunt (St. Martin’s) amazon / bookshop

• The Scald-Crow, Grace Daly (Creature) amazon / bookshop
• Moonflow, Bitter Karella (Run For It) amazon / bookshop
• Her Wicked Roots, Tanya Pell (Gallery) amazon / bookshop
• The Faceless Thing We Adore, Hester Steel (Page Street Horror) amazon / bookshop
• Molting, Kathryn Tennison (Uncomfortably Dark Horror) amazon / bookshop
• Listen to Your Sister, Neena Viel (St. Martin’s Griffin) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• WINNER: Shiny Happy People, Clay McLeod Chapman (Delacorte) amazon / bookshop

• Beautiful Brutal Bodies, Linda Cheng (Roaring Brook) amazon / bookshop
• We’re Not Safe Here, Rin Chupeco (Sourcebooks) amazon / bookshop
• The Silenced, Diana Rodriguez Wallach (Delacorte) amazon / bookshop
• A Girl Walks into the Forest, Madeleine Roux (Quill Tree) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel

• WINNER: Ride or Die, Delilah S. Dawson (Delacorte) amazon / bookshop

• The Girl in the Walls, Meg Eden Kuyatt (Scholastic) amazon / bookshop
• Broken Dolls, Ally Malinenko (HarperCollins Children’s) amazon / bookshop
• The House Next Door, Ellen Oh (HarperCollins Children’s) amazon / bookshop
• Mystery James Digs Her Own Grave, Ally Russell (Delacorte) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• WINNER (TIE): Cathedral of the Drowned, Nathan Ballingrud (Tor Nightfire) amazon / bookshop
• WINNER (TIE): “Wolf Moon, Antler Moon”, A.C. Wise (Reactor 1/13/25)

• “Uncertain Sons”, Thomas Ha (Uncertain Sons) amazon / bookshop
• “Squid Teeth”, Sarah Langan (Reactor 5/7/25)
• Pam Kowolski is a Monster!, Sarah Langan (Raw Dog Screaming) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• WINNER: “Inheritance”, R.J. Joseph (Full Throttle: A Dark Dozen Anthology) amazon / bookshop

• “Stomata”, L.E. Daniels (Darkness Most Fowl) amazon
• “Saint Dymphna’s School for Borderland Girls“, Jocelyn Szczepaniak-Gillece (Weird Horror Spring ’25, Undertow Publications)
• “[Ir]reversible”, Anna Taborska (Witches and Witchcraft: An Anthology of Stories, Poems, and Essays) amazon / bookshop
• “Autogas Ferryman“, Champ Wongsatayanont (Nightmare 9/25)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• WINNER: Lost in the Dark and Other Excursions, John Langan (Word Horde) amazon / bookshop

• Acquired Taste, Clay McLeod Chapman (Titan) amazon / bookshop
• Little Horn: Stories, Gemma Files (Shortwave) amazon / bookshop
• Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, Hailey Piper (Titan) amazon / bookshop
• Cyanide Constellations: And Other Stories, Sara Tantlinger (Dark Matter INK) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• WINNER: Silk & Sinew: A Collection of Folk Horror from the Asian Diaspora, Kristy Park Kulski, ed. (Bad Hand) amazon / bookshop

• Storyteller: A Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology, Julie C. Day, Carina Bissett & Craig Laurance Gidney, eds. (Essential Dreams) amazon / bookshop
• The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand, Christopher Golden & Brian Keene, eds. (Gallery) amazon / bookshop
• This Way Lies Madness, Dave Jeffery & Lee Murray, eds. (Flame Tree) amazon / bookshop
• Howl: An Anthology of Werewolves from Women-in-Horror, Lindy Ryan & Stephanie M. Wytovich, eds. (Black Spot) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction

• WINNER: Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction, Becky Siegel Spratford, ed. (Saga) amazon / bookshop

• Global Indigenous Horror, Naomi Simone Borwein, ed. (University Press of Mississippi) amazon / bookshop
• The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Monsters, Brandon R. Grafius & John W. Morehead, eds. (Oxford University Press) amazon / bookshop
• America’s Most Gothic, Leanna Renee Hieber & Andrea Janes (Citadel) amazon / bookshop
• Morbidly Curious: A Scientist Explains Why We Can’t Look Away, Coltan Scrivner (Penguin Random House) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

• WINNER: “My Long Road to Horror”, Tananarive Due (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction) amazon / bookshop

• “Deathwish Wolf Man: The Tragic Hero at the Heart of the Universal Monsters“, Patrick Barb (Interstellar Flight 10/3/25)
• “Why Horror”, Stephen Graham Jones (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction) amazon / bookshop
• “Haunted Thresholds: Liminal Horror and the Psychological Disintegration of Women from Post-Partum, Grief, Trauma and Religious Fanaticism”, Mo Moshaty (Darkest Margins: 24 Essays on Liminality and Liminal Spaces in the Horror Genre)
• “My Mother Was Margaret White”, Cynthia Pelayo (Why I Love Horror: Essays on Horror Fiction) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in Poetry

• WINNER: Everything Endless, Linda D. Addison & Jamal Hodge (Raw Dog Screaming) amazon / bookshop

• Songs of Enough: An Inferno All My Own, Maxwell I. Gold (Hippocampus) amazon / bookshop
• The Uterus is an Impossible Forest, Shannon Kearns (Raw Dog Screaming) amazon / bookshop
• The Haunting, Cate Peebles (Tupelo) amazon / bookshop
• Allegories of Beauty & Violence: A Collection of Gothic Romance Poems, MarieAnn C. Raguso (Analyze This) amazon

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• WINNER: Bowling With Corpses and Other Tales from Lands Unknown, Mike Mignola (Dark Horse) amazon / bookshop

• Jumpscare, Cullen Bunn, illustrated by Danny Luckert (Dark Horse) amazon / bookshop
• John Carpenter’s Tales for a HalloweeNight Vol. 11, Sandy King, ed. (Storm King) amazon / bookshop
• Athanasia, Daniel Kraus, illustrated by Dani (Vault) amazon / bookshop
• Let This One Be a Devil, Steve Foxe & James Tynion IV, illustrated by Piotr Kowalski (Dark Horse) amazon / bookshop

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• WINNER: Sinners, Ryan Coogler (Warner Bros., Domain, Proximity)

• Weapons, Zach Cregger (New Line Cinema, Domain, Subconscious)
• 28 Years Later, Alex Garland (Sony, Columbia Pictures, TSG Entertainment)
• Companion, Drew Hancock (New Line Cinema, BoulderLight Pictures, Vertigo Entertainment)
• Bring Her Back, Bill Hinzman & Danny Philippou (Causeway Films, Salmira Productions, The South Australian Film Corporation)

As previously announced, Bad Hand Books is the recipient of the Specialty Press Award, the Richard Laymon President’s Award went to Marc L Abbott, Sarah Read won the Karen Lansdale Silver Hammer Award, Eric Guignard was named Mentor of the Year Award, and this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award winners were Jonathan Maberry and Lisa Morton. All winners were honored on June 6 at the StokerCon 2026 awards banquet.

For more information, see the Stoker Awards website or the awards livestream on YouTube.

• WINNER: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga; Titan UK) amazon / bookshop

• When We Were Real, Daryl Gregory (Saga) amazon / bookshop
• Katabasis, R.F. Kuang (Harper Voyager US; Harper Voyager UK) amazon / bookshop
• Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor (Morrow; Gollancz) amazon / bookshop
• The Incandescent, Emily Tesh (Tor; Orbit UK) amazon / bookshop
• Sour Cherry, Natalia Theodoridou (Tin House; Wildfire) amazon / bookshop
• Wearing the Lion, John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia) amazon / bookshop

Novella

• WINNER: The River Has Roots, Amal El-Mohtar (Tordotcom; Arcadia) amazon / bookshop

• Disgraced Return of the Kap’s Needle, Renan Bernardo (Dark Matter INK) amazon / bookshop
• The Death of Mountains, Jordan Kurella (Lethe) amazon / bookshop
• Automatic Noodle, Annalee Newitz (Tordotcom) amazon / bookshop
• But Not Too Bold, Hache Pueyo (Tordotcom) amazon / bookshop
• “Descent”, Wole Talabi (Clarkesworld 5/25)

Novelette

• WINNER: “Uncertain Sons”, Thomas Ha (Uncertain Sons) amazon / bookshop

• “Our Echoes Drifting Through the Marsh”, Marie Croke (Beneath Ceaseless Skies 1/9/25)
• “We Begin Where Infinity Ends”, Somto Ihezue (Clarkesworld 2/25)
• “The Name Ziya”, Wen-Yi Lee (Reactor 6/18/25) amazon / bookshop
• “Never Eaten Vegetables”, H.H. Pak (Clarkesworld 1/25)
• “The Life and Times of Alavira the Great as Written by Titos Pavlou and Reviewed by Two Lifelong Friends”, Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny 3-4/25)

Short Story

• WINNER: “Laser Eyes Ain’t Everything”, Effie Seiberg (Diabolical Plots 5/25)

• “Through the Machine”, P.A. Cornell (Lightspeed 5/25)
• “Six People to Revise You”, J.R. Dawson (Uncanny 1-2/25)
• “In My Country”, Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld 4/25)
• “The Tawlish Island Songbook of the Dead”, E.M. Linden (PodCastle 2/18/25)
• “Because I Held His Name Like a Key”, Aimee Ogden (Strange Horizons 6/16/25)

Poetry

• WINNER: “The World To Come”, Jennifer Hudak (Strange Horizons 12/22/25)

• “Though You Always Are”, Linda D. Addison & Jamal Hodge (Everything Endless) amazon / bookshop
• “They Said Robots Are”, Casey Aimer (Penumbric 6/25)
• “The Mourning Robot”, Angela Liu (Uncanny 9-10/25)
• “Care for Lightning”, Mari Ness (Uncanny 1-2/25)
• “To Be the Change”, Nico Martinez Nocito (Strange Horizons 3/10/25)

Andre Norton Award

• WINNER: Into the Wild Magic, Michelle Knudsen (Candlewick) amazon / bookshop

• The Tower, David Anaxagoras, narrated by Christopher Gebauer (Recorded Books) amazon
• Gemini Rising, Jonathan Brazee (Semper Fi) amazon / bookshop
• Wishing Well, Wishing Well, Jubilee Cho (Atthis Arts) amazon / bookshop
• Sunrise on the Reaping, Suzanne Collins (Scholastic) amazon / bookshop
• Goblin Girl, K.A. Mielke (self-published) amazon / bookshop

Comic

• WINNER: Mary Shelley’s School for Monsters: The Killing Stone, Jessica Maison, illustrated by Anna Wieszczyk (Wicked Tree) amazon

• Second Shift, Kit Anderson (Avery Hill) amazon / bookshop
• Carmilla Volume 3: The Eternal, Amy Chu, illustrated by Sal Cipriano & Soo Lee (Berger) amazon / bookshop
• Helen of Wyndhorn, Tom King, illustrated by Bilquis Evely & Matheus Lopes, lettered by Clayton Cowles (Dark Horse) amazon / bookshop
• Fishflies, Jeff Lemire (Image) amazon / bookshop
• Strange Bedfellows, Ariel Slamet Ries (HarperAlley) amazon / bookshop
• The Flip Side, Jason Walz (Rocky Pond) amazon / bookshop
• The Stoneshore Register, G. Willow Wilson, illustrated by M.K. Perker, lettered by Richard Bruning (Berger) amazon / bookshop

Ray Bradbury Award

• WINNER: Murderbot Season One

• KPop Demon Hunters*
• Pluribus Season One*
• Severance: “Chikhai Bardo”*
• Sinners*
• Superman*

Game Writing

• WINNER: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

• Blue Prince
• Dispatch
• Hades II
• Hollow Knight: Silksong*
• Spire, Surge, and Sea

*Provisional nomination; awaiting acceptance and response on LLM-use.

Winners were announced at the 2026 Nebula Conference and Awards, held June 3-7, 2026 at the Crowne Plaza Chicago O’Hare Hotel & Conference Center in Chicago IL, and virtually online. Many winners, including all short story, novelette, and poem finalists, will be republished in the Nebula Awards Showcase 61 [amazon / bookshop] on June 9, 2026.

For more, see the SFWA website.

• The Drowned Man’s Daughter, C.J. Lavigne (NeWest) [amazon / bookshop]
• The Works of Vermin, Hiron Ennes (Tor) [amazon / bookshop]
• Horsefly, Mireille Gagné, tr. Pablo Strauss (Coach House) [amazon / bookshop]
• Wild Life, Amanda Leduc (Random House Canada)
• The Hunger We Pass Down, Jen Sookfong Lee (McClelland & Stewart) [amazon / bookshop]
• The Lady, The Tiger and the Girl Who Loved Death, Helen Marshall (Titan) [amazon / bookshop]
• The Bewitching, Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey) [amazon / bookshop]
• Veal, Mackenzie Nolan (ECW) [amazon / bookshop]
• Death on the Caldera, Emily Paxman (Titan) [amazon / bookshop]
• Ley Lines, Tim Welsh (Guernica) [amazon / bookshop]