Stoker Award Winner
June 18, 2023

Stoker Award Winner

Tim Waggoner received a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Nonfiction for his work on Writing in the Dark: The Workbook. The award was presented during the Annual Bram Stoker Awards® Banquet at StokerCon™ 2023 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on June 17, 2023.

The Bram Stoker Awards recognizes superior achievement in horror literature. It is given by the Horror Writers Association, a nonprofit international organization of writers and publishing professionals dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it. The full 2022 awards list can be read here. About Writing in the Dark: The Workbook

Like Tim Waggoner’s Bram Stoker Award-winning Writing in the Dark, a manual for how to write horror fiction, this workbook covers a wide variety of topics, ranging from monster, idea, and plotline creation to avoiding clichés and developing the art of suspense. The workbook, however, foregrounds practice over discussion to help writers master these concepts. Both texts stand on their own while working together to provide you with the direction and tools you need to maximize your own authorship.

The wealth of examples, exercises, and tutorials in Writing in the Dark: The Workbook are designed to inspire and stretch the imagination. Waggoner draws from his own experiences in addition to other professional writers, among them Laird Barron, Maurice Broaddus, Nadia Bulkin, Ramsey Campbell, Mort Castle, Tananarive Due, Christopher Golden, Grady Hendrix, Daniel Kraus, Joe R. Lansdale, Elizabeth Massie, Graham Masterton, Seanan McGuire, John Shirley, and many others.

Featuring an introduction by Michael A. Arnzen, Writing in the Dark: The Workbook will resonate with young authors who are just getting started on their careers as well as veterans of the horror genre and craft.

Praise for Writing in the Dark:

“I had a chance to read through Tim Waggoner’s Writing in the Dark this week, and it is excellent! Comprehensive, accessible, no-frills, and packed with the advice that writers like Tim and myself wish we had been given when we started.”
—Brian Keene

“One of the best non-fiction texts on the art and business of writing horror-suspense since King’s On Writing.”
—Lee Murray, multi-award-winning writer and editor

“I felt more as if I were sitting in a dive bar, discussing secrets of the universe with my feet up. He can take the toughest topic—from theme to voice to motivation and conflict—and talk someone through it as if reviewing his favorite new movie.”
—Dave Simms, Cemetery Dance

“Tim Waggoner’s Writing in the Dark is an instant classic in the small canon of ‘how to books’ specifically directed at that special breed of authors known as horror writers . . .”
—Michael A. Arnzen

Buy the Book:

Hardcover and Paperback

Hardcover

Paperback