The Fisherman just won the Bram Stoker Award!
Needless to say, I am gobsmacked, and possibly stupefied. I wasn’t able to attend the awards ceremony, but Ellen Datlow was gracious enough to accept the award on my behalf and read these remarks:
The very first writing award I wanted to win was the Bram Stoker Award. I’m more thrilled than I can say to receive one for The Fisherman. As some of you know, it took a long time for this book to be completed, and then to find a publisher. Its reception since then, however, has been nothing short of amazing. I’m grateful to everyone who took a chance on the novel, who left an Amazon or Goodreads review, who recommended it to a friend or family member. I’m grateful, too, to those of you who saw fit to honor the book with this award. No one who looks at the novels listed in this category can fail to be impressed by their combined achievement. To have been numbered among them has been about the highest praise The Fisherman has received. If you haven’t read any of them, yet, then please accept my recommendation that you do so, post haste. Together, they display the particular brilliance that shines from the darker corners of the literary tent.
There’s no way my book would have come to pass without the love and support of my astonishing wife, Fiona. My younger son, David, already an accomplished fisherman at a young age, provided invaluable technical assistance. My older son, Nick, my daughter-in-law, Mary, and my grandkids provided support and silliness. Laird Barron and Paul Tremblay talked through various narrative possibilities and complications with me, and cheered me on to the finish line. My agent, the indefatigable Ginger Clark, never stopped asking when I was going to get back to that book whose opening chapters I’d showed her all those years ago. And Ross Lockhart and Word Horde accepted The Fisherman with enthusiasm and promoted it with gusto. My deepest, sincerest love and thanks to all of them.
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