The Horror Writers Association (HWA) today announced the recipients of its Lifetime Achievement Awards: Steve Rasnic Tem, Mort Castle, and Cassandra Peterson.
They will be presented on June 1 during the Bram Stoker Awards® ceremony at StokerCon®2024 in San Diego, CA.
The Lifetime Achievement Award, presented periodically to an individual whose work has substantially influenced the horror genre, is the most prestigious of all awards presented by HWA. It does not merely honor the superior achievement embodied in a single work. Instead, it is an acknowledgment of superior achievement in an entire career. While this award is often presented to a writer, it may also be given for influential accomplishments in other creative fields.
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD WINNERS
MORT CASTLE – A former stage hypnotist, folksinger, and teacher (every level from grade to grad school), Mort Castle has been a publishing writer since 1967, with hundreds of stories, articles, comics, and books published in a dozen languages. Castle has won three Bram Stoker Awards®, two Black Quill awards, the Golden Bot (Wired Magazine), and has been nominated for The Audie, The Shirley Jackson award, the International Horror Guild award and the Pushcart Prize. In 2000, the Chicago Sun-Times News Group cited him as one of Twenty-One “Leaders in the Arts for the 21st Century in Chicago’s Southland.” Poland’s, Newsweek magazine listed his The Strangers (Obcy) in the “Top Ten Horror / Thriller Novels of 2008” and there will a 40th anniversary edition of the book this year in Spain, Poland, Germany, and the USA. Castle and his wife Jane will celebrate their 53nd wedding anniversary this July. They live in Crete, Illinois.
CASSANDRA PETERSON – From the top of her beehive hairdo to the bottom of her stiletto heels, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark personifies the horror genre in one spooky, sexy, funny package.
As Queen of Halloween, her reign has now spanned 40 years and includes her long-running nationally syndicated television series, Movie Macabre and two feature films: Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and Elvira’s Haunted Hills. She has appeared in National ad campaigns for Pepsi and Coors, recorded five record albums and has written a line of young adult novels, a “Coffin Table” photo retrospective, and most recently, her memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira from Hachette Book Group.
The worldwide Elvira brand has generated thousands of products, including three pinball machines, four slot machines, eight Funko POP!’s, four comic book series, a line of NECA action figures, a Chia Pet, a Living Dead doll, a Monster High Skullector doll from Mattel, and the best-selling female costume of all time.
Elvira has appeared on hundreds of television shows including Happy Halloween Scooby Doo, Elvira’s 40th Anniversary Very Scary, Very Special Special for the Shudder Channel, and the Netflix & Chills Halloween ad campaign.
Played by actress-writer Cassandra Peterson, Elvira, Mistress of the Dark has carved out a niche in popular American culture that is sure to endure for decades to come.
STEVE RASNIC TEM – Steve Rasnic Tem’s writing career spans over 45 years, including more than 500 published short stories, 17 collections, 8 novels, misc. poetry and plays, and a handbook on writing, Yours to Tell: Dialogues on the Art & Practice of Fiction, written with his late wife Melanie Tem. His collaborative novella with Melanie, The Man On The Ceiling, won the World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and International Horror Guild awards in 2001. He has also won the Bram Stoker, International Horror Guild, and British Fantasy Awards for his solo work, including Blood Kin, winner of 2014’s Bram Stoker for novel. Originally from the Appalachian region of Southwest Virginia, he now lives in Centennial Colorado. www.stevetem.com
ABOUT THE HORROR WRITERS ASSOCIATION. The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it. Founded in the late 1980s, it now has close to 2000 members around the world and is the oldest and most respected professional organization for creators of horror fiction. More information about the Horror Writers Association is available at Horror.org. For more information about the Bram Stoker Awards® and HWA’s other awards, please visit The Bram Stoker Awards website.
[Based on a press release.]
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It’s good to see Mort Castle get recognition from the HWA. In the summer of 2023, there was a controversy because he wasn’t included in the “Celebrating Our Elders” event. Then, there was more controversy because Mort Castle expressed an opinion about it. And more replies ensued in a spiral until the HWA Facebook page found itself staring into the abyss.