Horror Writers Association Names Lifetime Achievement Award Winners

Owl Goingback and Thomas Ligotti are the recipients of this year’s Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Awards, which will be presented during the Bram Stoker Awards ceremony at Stokercon in Scarborough U.K. from April 16-19.

HWA presents the Lifetime Achievement Award annually to individuals whose work has substantially influenced the horror and dark fantasy genres.

Owl Goingback

Owl Goingback acknowledged the award:

I grew up an only child in the rural Midwest. I would probably have gone stark raving mad of boredom, especially during the harsh winter months, if I hadn’t been kept entertained by horror fiction and Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine. I owe a lot to Poe, Lovecraft, Bradbury, Forry Ackerman, and many modern scribes of dark fiction for helping me keep my sanity during those years, and I wanted to give something back to the genre by writing horror fiction of my own. I am deeply honored that the Horror Writers Association has named me a Lifetime Achievement Award winner, and eternally thankful that my works of fiction are being read and enjoyed by at least a few people.

Thomas Ligotti has accepted and will be making an official statement soon.

OWL GOINGBACK: Having served as a jet engine mechanic in the Air Force, and the former owner of a restaurant and lounge, Owl Goingback became a full time writer in 1987. He has written numerous novels, children’s books, short stories, and magazine articles. His novel Crota won the 1996 Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, and was one of four finalists in the Best Novel category. The Bram Stoker Awards are given annually by voting members of the Horror Writers Association and are considered the highest honor a writer can receive in the horror genre. Owl’s novel Shaman Moon was published by White Wolf Publishing as part of the omnibus edition The Essential World of Darkness. The book draws on his Native American heritage to tell a story of supernatural suspense, as do his other novels Darker than Night and Evil Whispers. He has also ghostwritten novels for celebrities.

His children’s books Eagle Feathers and The Gift have received critical acclaim from both parents and teachers. Eagle Feathers is a Storytelling World Awards Honor Recipient. The award was presented at the 1998 Annual National Convention of the International Reading Association. Goingback’s shorter works of fiction have appeared in numerous anthologies, including Tales from the Great Turtle, Confederacy of the Dead, Phantoms of the Night, Excalibur, The Book of Kings, When Will You Rage?, Once Upon a Midnight, Quest to Riverworld, Grails: Visitations of the Night, and South from Midnight. His story “Grass Dancer” was a Nebula Award Nominee for best short story of the year. In addition to his writing, he has lectured throughout the country on the customs and folklore of the American Indians. He has also modeled and done a bit of acting. The author resides in Florida with his wife and two sons.

Thomas Ligotti

THOMAS LIGOTTI: Among the most acclaimed horror writers of the past thirty years, he has received three Bram Stoker Awards, a British Fantasy Award, and an International Horror Guild Award. He lives in South Florida. Thomas Ligotti’s debut collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and his second, Grimscribe, permanently inscribed a new name in the pantheon of horror fiction. Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.

Ligotti’s stories take on decaying cities and lurid dreamscapes in a style ranging from rich, ornamental prose to cold, clinical detachment. His raw and experimental work lays bare the unimportance of our world and the sickening madness of the human condition. Like the greatest writers of cosmic horror, Ligotti bends reality until it cracks, opening fissures through which he invites us to gaze on the unsettling darkness of the abyss below.

[Based on a press release.]