Bizarro Con just announced the Wonderland Award Winners for books published in 2019. Ordinarily, these would be presented in the ballroom at McMenamins Edgefield, Troutdale, Oregon. Thanks to COVID-19 the convention was cancelled and our festivities were moved online. As reported on BizarroCon.com, here are your picks for excellence in Bizarro Fiction.
Sam Richard reacts to his award for To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows, published by Weird Punk Books, in the category of Best Collection.
Written during the black-depths of early widowhood, To Wallow in Ash & Other Sorrows explores grief, loss, and the alluring comforts found within the heart of oblivion. Written in the spirit of J.G. Ballard, Georges Bataille, and Kathe Koja, these nine Sorrows are a cross-section of literary splatterpunk, transgressive fiction, and weird horror, which seek to illuminate the terror, dread, and discomfort of mourning through the black mirror of the grotesque. This book is full of pain. This book is full of tears. This book is full of ash.
“Nearly every page surges with confrontational energy, a kind of blunt honesty that rarely leaves room for reassurance in its single-minded pursuit of total, aching, human vulnerability.” – GINGER NUTS OF HORROR
“To Wallow in Ash and Other Sorrows is one of the most original collections to have come out in years, it will arouse you, bring you to tears, and shock you, sometimes all at once.” – THE PLUTONIAN
“Works of art that speak so clearly, so personally, and so deeply to the soul come along oh so rarely-and this book wrecks me every time I open it. Henry Rollins once described Hubert Selby’s The Demon as a book that would burn a hole in your soul. I would say that Sam has achieved that level of literary power.” – BIFF BAM POP!
Cody Goodfellow reacts to his award for Unamerica, published by King Shot Press, in the category of Best Novel.
“Cody Goodfellow knows how to chill your blood. . .” —STEPHEN KING, author of It and The Dark Half
Buried half a mile beneath the desert sands of the US-Mexico border, exists a secret city that holds the promise of everything that draws refugees and immigrants to America––liberty, luxury and excess. . .
In this Terminal Autonomous Zone, two prophets will rise—one, a reckless seeker who believes the psychedelic mushrooms he’s discovered will spur a revolution in human consciousness; the other, a fire-and-brimstone preacher endowed by strange angels with a power that heals the sick and raises the dead—and as rival factions emerge around them, a march toward war begins . . .
“Goodfellow satirizes the excesses of capitalism, religion, and drug culture in this macabre dystopian fantasy… a wild, trippy journey through a horrifying nightmare version of America.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
“A gripping novel that lives up to the hype.” —THIS IS HORROR
Congratulations to the winners, runners up, honorable mentions, all the authors and publishers from your friends at Bizarro Central. We are excited to see what art blossomed in the wake of 2020 and what 2021 will bring.
Happy New Year!
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