Copyright 2018 by Gary L. Pullman
As
I mentioned in the first installment of this four- (now five-) part
series, it's unclear how prestigious the Bram Stoker Award is beyond
the Horror Writers Association
(HWA), whose members bestow the prize to writers (often among their
own ranks) for “superior achievement” in the genre.
The prizes were first awarded, in a variety of categories, in 1987. Winners receive a statuette made by Society Awards, the same firm that makes the Emmy Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the GLAAD Media Award.
The prizes were first awarded, in a variety of categories, in 1987. Winners receive a statuette made by Society Awards, the same firm that makes the Emmy Award, the Golden Globe Award, and the GLAAD Media Award.
It's
surprisingly easy to become a member of the HWA. As the
organization's website
indicates, “You needn’t be an
established professional writer to join HWA. Your demonstrated
intention to become a professional writer is all that’s required to
join HWA at the Affiliate level.” “Demonstrated intention” is
indicated by “one minimally paid publication in any of several
categories.” There are opportunities, at various other “levels,”
for several other types of membership; one need not have written
anything at all for the “Associate level” of membership, which is
open to “non-writing professionals with an interest in the field
(such as illustrators, librarians, booksellers, producers, agents,
editors, and teachers).” The question doesn't seem so much who is
eligible to join the HWA as who is not
allowed.
Nomination
for the HWA's annual Bram
Stoker Award, “an eight-inch replica of a fanciful haunted
house, designed specifically for HWA by sculptor Steven Kirk,” is
also an easy process, open to many: “any work of Horror first
published in the English language may be considered for an award
during the year of its publication.” Currently, “the eleven Bram
Stoker Award categories are: Novel, First Novel, Short Fiction, Long
Fiction, Young Adult, Fiction Collection, Poetry Collection,
Anthology, Screenplay, Graphic Novel and Non-Fiction”—something,
it seems, for everyone. To add yet another opportunity to win an
award, the HWA recently added a twelfth category: “Short
Non-Fiction.”
Any
member of the HWA can nominate
an author for placement on the preliminary ballot, and a panel of
judges prepares a second preliminary “ballot” of potential
winners. Then, “two rounds of voting by our Active members . . .
determine first the Final Ballot (all those appearing on the Final
Ballot are “Bram Stoker Nominees”), and then the Bram Stoker
Award Winners.”
One
should be skeptical of the value of a prize for “superior
achievement” that is often awarded to the members of the
organization who vote for the winner, especially when the contest is
open to a wide segment of the population of published authors and any
member can place a name on the ballot. Outside the HWA, how seriously
is the Bram Stoker Award for Novel taken? Is the prize considered
prestigious by anyone outside the HWA?
Obviously,
the answers to these questions depend on the person (or organization)
asked. Authors who've won one—or more—of the awards often boast
of their “superior achievement” on their websites or in
interviews and plaster their book covers with HWA badges. After
all, one of the expressed purposes of the HWA is to promote its
authors' works. Many successful horror authors are, after all, HWA
members, and members pay dues. Therefore, the HWA itself and its
author-members are likely to agree that the Bram Stoker Award is
prestigious. Publishers, whose goal is to sell books, are apt to
concur, as are other organizations, such as universities, with which
a horror author may be affiliated.
On
the other hand, fans (as opposed to groupies) are often a lot less
impressed with the award; many a Bram Stoker Award winner's
prize-winning novel has received low ratings on Amazon and other
book-selling websites, and, as we've seen in previous posts, book
reviewers and literary critics are often unswayed in their opinions
of books and authors by the fact that a writer is a Bram Stoker Award
winner. What matter to readers, reviewers, and critics is the reading
experience and the quality of the book, not an award by a
professional organization to which many of the award winners belong.
If readers consider a book to be a stinker, its having won an award
won't matter. For a literary critic, such as Harold Bloom, whose
disdain for Stephen King is widely known, no number of such awards is
going to change his or her mind about the quality and value of
the award-winner's work or of horror fiction in general.
Die-hard
fans and groupies, for whom a favorite author can do no wrong, are
going to love a writer no matter what; whether he or she happens to
have been awarded a prize isn't going to have much of an effect on
such followers, so, for them, the Bram Stoker Award also isn't likely
to matter much one way or the other.
The unavailability of the criteria by which the Bram Stoker Award is awarded also leaves the matter of its prestige open to question. The HWA doesn't publish the criteria its judges use to determine what constitutes “superior achievement,” so there's no meaningful basis for agreeing or disagreeing with their awarding of the prize to any particular author. The awarding of the award is merely a consensus of opinion based on who-knows-what?
The unavailability of the criteria by which the Bram Stoker Award is awarded also leaves the matter of its prestige open to question. The HWA doesn't publish the criteria its judges use to determine what constitutes “superior achievement,” so there's no meaningful basis for agreeing or disagreeing with their awarding of the prize to any particular author. The awarding of the award is merely a consensus of opinion based on who-knows-what?
Why
has Stephen King, one of the most prolific and profitable
authors of horror (or any other genre), with 350
million book sales, won no fewer than six Bram Stoker Awards,
while his colleague and fellow HWA member, Dean Koontz, also a
prolific and highly successful author of horror and dark fantasy,
with 450 million book
sales to his credit, has never won a single such award? Popularity
cannot be equated with quality, of course, but is it really realistic
to suppose that Koontz, who's been nominated three times for the
award, has never
once, in a career spanning half a century, demonstrated “superior
achievement” in the writing of a horror novel, while, according to
the HWA, King frequently does? It seems absurd that Koontz has been
slighted in this way, while other, far lesser-known writers have
received an award. What's going on behind the doors and curtain of
the HWA? Politics? Nepotism? Cronyism?
King
has been declared, by a few promoters, as having eclipsed even Edgar
Allan Poe as the best horror writer of all time. While it is
undeniably true that King has written far more than Poe wrote,
quantity is not the same as quality.
Popular with ordinary readers and with literary critics alike, Poe not only wrote superb horror stories, but he also popularized and greatly improved the horror story, at the same time introducing psychological horror, and he invented the detective story. Both accomplishments are nothing if not “superior achievements.” The invention of an entire genre alone is a peerless feat. In addition, while serving as de facto editors of important literary magazines, he wrote both book reviews and essays in literary criticism and established specific criteria for writing both poetry and short stories that are still influential to this day.
Popular with ordinary readers and with literary critics alike, Poe not only wrote superb horror stories, but he also popularized and greatly improved the horror story, at the same time introducing psychological horror, and he invented the detective story. Both accomplishments are nothing if not “superior achievements.” The invention of an entire genre alone is a peerless feat. In addition, while serving as de facto editors of important literary magazines, he wrote both book reviews and essays in literary criticism and established specific criteria for writing both poetry and short stories that are still influential to this day.
Had
the HWA existed in Poe's day, he might have been a member—indeed, he
might have been a founder—and he probably would have won Bram Stoker Awards for Short Fiction, Anthology,
Poetry Collection, and Lifetime Achievement—and deservedly so.
If
the HWA wants its award to become prestigious beyond its own
membership, winners, and publishers, the association should adopt a
few reforms. Specific criteria should be developed and published, and
these standards should lean heavily toward literary excellence.
William Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus), Henry James (The Turn of the Screw, “The Jolly Corner”), Nathaniel Hawthorne (Twice-Told Tales), Edgar AllanPoe, Charles Dickens ("The Signal-man"), and other top-flight writers have, after all, written horror
stories.
The awards should be occasional, rather than annual (“superior achievement” of any kind doesn't generally occur in a narrow field such as horror fiction, on a dependable, yearly basis).
The judges should be drawn from among scholars, literary critics, and professional book reviewers as well as HWA members. There's probably room for improving the processes for ballot inclusion and nomination, too.
The awards should be occasional, rather than annual (“superior achievement” of any kind doesn't generally occur in a narrow field such as horror fiction, on a dependable, yearly basis).
The judges should be drawn from among scholars, literary critics, and professional book reviewers as well as HWA members. There's probably room for improving the processes for ballot inclusion and nomination, too.