The finalists for the 2021 World Fantasy Awards have been announced, including Lifetime Achievement recipients Megan Lindholm and Howard Waldrop. The winners of the 2021 World Fantasy Awards will be announced at the World Fantasy Convention, November 4-7, 2021 in Montréal, Canada. This year’s theme for the convention is “Fantasy, Imagination, and the Dreams of Youth.”
The full list of finalists follows.
To be eligible, all nominated material must have been published in 2020 or have a 2020 cover date. Nominations came from two sources. Members of the current convention as well as the previous two were able to vote two nominations onto the final ballot. The remaining nominations came from the panel of judges. For this year’s awards, the judges were Tobias Buckell, Siobhan Carroll, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Brian Evenson, and Patrick Swenson.
NOVEL
- Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury)
- Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson (Tor Books)
- The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga Press/Titan UK)
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey US/Jo Fletcher Books UK)
- The Midnight Bargain by C. L. Polk (Erewhon Books US/Orbit UK)
NOVELLA
- Ring Shout, or Hunting Ku Kluxes in the End Times by P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom)
- “Stepsister” by Leah Cypess (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction,May/June 2020)
- Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings (Tordotcom)
- The Four Profound Weaves by R. B. Lemberg (Tachyon Publications)
- Riot Baby by Tochi Onyebuchi (Tordotcom)
SHORT FICTION
- “Glass Bottle Dancer” by Celeste Rita Baker (Lightspeed, April 2020)
- “The Women Who Sing for Sklep” by Kay Chronister (Thin Places)
- “The Nine Scents of Sorrow” by Jordan Taylor (Uncanny Magazine, July/Aug. 2020)
- “My Country Is a Ghost” by Eugenia Triantafyllou (Uncanny Magazine,January/February 2020)
- “Open House on Haunted Hill” by John Wiswell (Diabolical Plots, June 15 2020)
ANTHOLOGY
- Edited By, edited by Ellen Datlow (Subterranean Press)
- The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories, Vol. 1, edited by James D. Jenkins and Ryan Cagle (Valancourt Books)
- Shadows & Tall Trees 8, edited by Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)
- The Book of Dragons, edited by Jonathan Strahan (Harper Voyager)
- The Big Book of Modern Fantasy, edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (Vintage Books)
COLLECTION
- The Best of Jeffrey Ford by Jeffrey Ford (PS Publishing)
- Velocities: Stories by Kathe Koja (Meerkat Press)
- Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda, translated by Polly Barton (Soft Skull Press US/Tilted Axis UK)
- We All Hear Stories in the Dark by Robert Shearman (PS Publishing)
- Nine Bar Blues: Stories of an Ancient Future by Sheree Renée Thomas (Third Man Books)
ARTIST
- Rovina Cai
- Jeffrey Alan Love
- Reiko Murakami
- Daniele Serra
- Charles Vess
SPECIAL AWARD — PROFESSIONAL
- Clive Bloom, for The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Gothic (Palgrave Macmillan)
- C. Finlay, for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction editing
- Jo Fletcher, for Jo Fletcher Books
- Maria Dahvana Headley, for Beowulf: A New Translation (MCD X FSG Originals US/Scribe UK)
- Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, for The Monster Theory Reader (University of Minnesota Press)
SPECIAL AWARD — NON-PROFESSIONAL
- Scott H. Andrews, for Beneath Ceaseless Skies: Literary Adventure Fantasy
- Brian Attebery, for Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts
- Michael Kelly, for Undertow Publications
- Arley Sorg and Christie Yant, for Fantasy Magazine
- Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas, for Uncanny Magazine
