| World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction | |
| Awarded For: | The best fantasy story of 10,000 words or less published in English in the prior calendar year |
| Presenter: | World Fantasy Convention |
| Year: | 1975 |
| Holder: | Tananarive Due ("Incident at Bear Creek Lodge") |
| Holder Label: | Most recent winner |
| Website: | worldfantasy.org/awards/ |
The World Fantasy Awards are given each year by the World Fantasy Convention for the best fantasy fiction published in English during the previous calendar year. The awards have been described by book critics such as The Guardian as a "prestigious fantasy prize", and one of the three most prestigious speculative fiction awards, along with the Hugo and Nebula Awards (which cover both fantasy and science fiction). The World Fantasy Award—Short Fiction is given each year for fantasy short stories published in English. A work of fiction is defined by the organization as short fiction if it is 10,000 words or less in length; awards are also given out for longer pieces in the Novel and Novella categories. The Short Fiction category has been awarded annually since 1975, though before 1982—when the category was instated—it was named "Best Short Fiction" and covered works of up to 40,000 words. It was then renamed "Best Short Story" until 2016, when it was renamed to the "Short Fiction" category.
World Fantasy Award nominees and winners are decided by attendees and judges at the annual World Fantasy Convention. A ballot is posted in June for attendees of the current and previous two conferences to determine two of the finalists, and a panel of five judges adds three or more nominees before voting on the overall winner. The panel of judges is typically made up of fantasy authors and is chosen each year by the World Fantasy Awards Administration, which has the power to break ties. The final results are presented at the World Fantasy Convention at the end of October. Winners were presented with a statue in the form of a bust of H. P. Lovecraft through the 2015 awards; more recent winners receive a statuette of a tree.
During the 49 nomination years, 182 authors have had works nominated; 50 of them have won, including ties and co-authors. Only five authors have won more than once: Ramsey Campbell and James Blaylock with two wins out of four nominations each, Stephen King won two out of three, and Tanith Lee and Fred Chappell won both times they were nominated. Of authors who have won at least once, Jeffrey Ford and Kelly Link have the most nominations at five, followed by Dennis Etchison and Avram Davidson, who along with Campbell and Blaylock received four nominations. Charles de Lint has the most nominations without winning at five; he is followed by Michael Swanwick, who has had four nominations without winning.
In the following table, the years correspond to the date of the ceremony, rather than when the work was first published. Each year links to the corresponding "year in literature". Entries with a blue background and an asterisk (*) next to the writer's name have won the award; those with a white background are the other nominees on the shortlist.
* Winners| Year | Author | Work | Publisher/publication | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1975 | "Pages from a Young Girl's Journal" | |||
| (DAW Books) | ||||
| "Sticks" | Whispers | |||
| 1976 | "Belsen Express" | (DAW Books) | ||
| Whispers | ||||
| "Born of the Winds" | ||||
| 1977 | "There's a Long, Long Trail A-Winding" | Frights (St. Martin's Press) | ||
| Frights (St. Martin's Press) | ||||
| "Dark Wings" | Superhorror (W. H. Allen) | |||
| "It Only Comes Out at Night" | Frights (St. Martin's Press) | |||
| "Two Suns Setting" | Fantastic | |||
| "What Is Life?" | Playboy | |||
| 1978 | Whispers (Doubleday) | |||
| (Doubleday) | ||||
| "Jeffty Is Five" | ||||
| "Loveman's Comeback" | More Devil's Kisses (Corgi) | |||
| "Manatee Gal Ain't You Coming Out Tonight" | ||||
| "When All the Children Call My Name" | (DAW Books) | |||
| 1979 | "Naples" | Shadows (Doubleday) | ||
| "Hear Me Now, My Sweet Abbey Rose" | ||||
| Ace Books | ||||
| "Within the Walls of Tyre" | Weirdbook | |||
| 1980 | "Mackintosh Willy" | Shadows 2 (Doubleday) | ||
| Amazons! (DAW Books) | ||||
| Whispers | ||||
| "Petey" | Shadows 2 (Doubleday) | |||
| "Saturday's Shadow" | Shadows 2 (Doubleday) | |||
| 1981 | Universe 10 (Doubleday) | |||
| "Cabin 33" | Shadows 3 (Doubleday) | |||
| "Children of the Kingdom" | Dark Forces (Viking Press) | |||
| "Unicorn Tapestry" | New Dimensions 11 (Pocket Books) | |||
| 1982 | Fantasy Tales | |||
| "Do the Dead Sing?" | Yankee | |||
| "Coin of the Realm" | Tales from the Nightside (Arkham House) | |||
| "Fairy Tale" | (Berkley Books) | |||
| 1983 | Shadows 5 (Doubleday) | |||
| "Deathtracks" | Death (Playboy Paperbacks) | |||
| "Firestorm" | Perpetual Light (Warner Books) | |||
| Omni | ||||
| "Petra" | Omni | |||
| 1984 | "Elle Est Trois, (La Mort)" | Whispers IV (Doubleday) | ||
| Donald M. Grant | ||||
| "Into Whose Hands" | Whispers IV (Doubleday) | |||
| Shadows 6 (Doubleday) | ||||
| "Solitario's Eyes" | ||||
| "Wong's Lost and Found Emporium" | Amazing Stories | |||
| 1985 | Whispers | |||
| "Still Life with Scorpion" | Asimov's Science Fiction | |||
| "Bad Medicine" | Asimov's Science Fiction | |||
| "Nightcrawlers" | Masques (Maclay & Associates) | |||
| 1986 | "Paper Dragons" | Imaginary Lands (Ace Books) | ||
| "Return of the Dust Vampires" | Whispers V (Doubleday) | |||
| Universe 15 (Doubleday) | ||||
| 1987 | "Red Light" | |||
| Interzone | ||||
| Omni | ||||
| "Pain" | Cutting Edge (Doubleday) | |||
| "They're Coming for You" | Cutting Edge (Doubleday) | |||
| "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back" | Nukes: Four Horror Writers on the Ultimate Horror (Maclay & Associates) | |||
| 1988 | "Friend's Best Man" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||
| "Angel" | Asimov's Science Fiction | |||
| "Hogfoot Right and Bird-hands" | Other Edens (Allen & Unwin) | |||
| "In the House of Gingerbread" | (Arbor House) | |||
| "Pamela's Get" | ||||
| "Splatter: A Cautionary Tale" | Masques II (Maclay & Associates) | |||
| 1989 | "Winter Solstice, Camelot Station" | Invitation to Camelot (Ace Books) | ||
| "Life of Buddha" | Omni | |||
| "Metastasis" | Night Visions 5 (Orion Publishing Group) | |||
| "Night They Missed the Horror Show" | Silver Scream (Dark Harvest) | |||
| 1990 | Esquire | |||
| Full Spectrum 2 (Doubleday) | ||||
| "Mr. Fiddlehead" | Omni | |||
| Book of the Dead (Bantam Books) | ||||
| "Varicose Worms" | Blood Is Not Enough (William Morrow and Company) | |||
| "Yore Skin's Jes's Soft 'n Purty...He Said." | Razored Saddles (Dark Harvest) | |||
| 1991 | (DC Comics) | |||
| "Bears Discover Fire" | Asimov's Science Fiction | |||
| Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||||
| "Stephen" | Borderlands (Maclay & Associates) | |||
| 1992 | More Shapes Than One (St. Martin's Press) | |||
| Asimov's Science Fiction | ||||
| After the King: Stories in Honor of J.R.R. Tolkien (Tor Books) | ||||
| "Pity the Monsters" | (Dell Publishing) | |||
| 1993 | "Graves" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||
| "This Year's Class Picture" | Still Dead (Mark V. Ziesing) | |||
| "Alfred" | Asimov's Science Fiction | |||
| Asimov's Science Fiction | ||||
| "Bridges" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| "Calcutta, Lord of Nerves" | Still Dead (Mark V. Ziesing) | |||
| Alternate Kennedys (Tor Books) | ||||
| 1994 | Necronomicon Press | |||
| "Death in Bangkok" | Playboy | |||
| "England Underway" | Omni | |||
| After the Darkness (Maclay & Associates) | ||||
| Snow White, Blood Red (William Morrow and Company) | ||||
| "Some Strange Desire" | Omni Best Science Fiction Three (Omni Books) | |||
| "Something Worse" | Under the Crust (Wendigo) | |||
| "Troll Bridge" | Snow White, Blood Red (William Morrow and Company) | |||
| 1995 | ||||
| Asimov's Science Fiction | ||||
| Shadows Over Innsmouth (Fedogan & Bremer) | ||||
| Harper's Magazine | ||||
| "To Receive Is Better" | (Carroll & Graf Publishers) | |||
| 1996 | Seven Tales and a Fable (Edgewood Press) | |||
| "Angel Thing" | She's Fantastical (Sybylla Feminist Press) | |||
| "Dragon's Fin Soup" | (Dell Publishing) | |||
| "Loop" | Dark Love (Roc Books) | |||
| Northern Frights 3 (Mosaic Press) | ||||
| Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||||
| 1997 | "Thirteen Phantasms" | Omni Online | ||
| Dark Terrors 2 (Victor Gollancz Ltd) | ||||
| "Underbed" | Dark Terrors 2 (Victor Gollancz Ltd) | |||
| 1998 | "Dust Motes" | Gothic Ghosts (Tor Books) | ||
| "Audience" | (Roc Books) | |||
| "Fortune and Misfortune" | Asimov's Science Fiction | |||
| "Get a Grip" | Omni Online | |||
| Northern Frights 4 (Mosaic Press) | ||||
| 1999 | Event Horizon | |||
| Starlight 2 (Tor Books) | ||||
| "Every Angel is Terrifying" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| "Shoggoth's Old Peculiar" | Smoke and Mirrors (Avon Publications) | |||
| "Travels with the Snow Queen" | Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet | |||
| 2000 | Asimov's Science Fiction | |||
| "Amerikanski Dead at the Moscow Morgue" | 999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense (Avon Books) | |||
| Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||||
| Realms of Fantasy | ||||
| "Human Bay" | Asimov's Science Fiction | |||
| "Naming the Dead" | Interzone | |||
| Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||||
| 2001 | Sci Fiction | |||
| "Down Here in the Garden" | Horror Garage | |||
| "Is There Anybody There?" | (New English Library) | |||
| "Lincoln in Frogmore" | Beluthahatchie and Other Stories (Golden Gryphon Press) | |||
| Tales of Old Earth (North Atlantic Books) | ||||
| Blackwater Days (Eidolon Publications) | ||||
| "Shoe and Marriage" | 4 Stories (Small Beer Press) | |||
| 2002 | "Queen for a Day" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||
| "His Own Back Yard" | Sci Fiction | |||
| Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||||
| "Legerdemain" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| "Something to Hitch Meat To" | Skin Folk (Warner Aspect) | |||
| 2003 | "Creation" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||
| Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||||
| "Little Dead Girl Singing" | Weird Tales | |||
| "October in the Chair" | Conjunctions 39: The New Wave Fabulists (Bard College) | |||
| Leviathan 3 (The Ministry of Whimsy Press) | ||||
| 2004 | "Don Ysidro" | Polyphony: Volume 3 (Wheatland Press) | ||
| "Ancestor Money" | Sci Fiction | |||
| Viking Press | ||||
| "Gus Dreams of Biting the Mailman" | Trampoline (Small Beer Press) | |||
| "O One" | Live Without a Net (Roc Books) | |||
| 2005 | "Singing My Sister Down" | Black Juice (Allen & Unwin) | ||
| (Viking Press) | ||||
| "Northwest Passage" | Acquainted with the Night (Ash-Tree Press) | |||
| "Reports of Certain Events in London" | McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories (Vintage Books) | |||
| Polyphony: Volume 4 (Wheatland Press) | ||||
| 2006 | "CommComm" | |||
| "Best New Horror" | Postscripts | |||
| In the Palace of Repose (Prime Books) | ||||
| "La Peau Verte" | To Charles Fort, with Love (Subterranean Press) | |||
| "Two Hearts" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| 2007 | "Journey Into the Kingdom" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||
| "Another Word for Map is Faith" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| "Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (Fantasy)" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| Twenty Epics (All-Star Stories) | ||||
| Electric Velocipede | ||||
| 2008 | "Singing of Mount Abora" | Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories (Bantam Books) | ||
| Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories (Bantam Books) | ||||
| At Ease with the Dead (Ash-Tree Press) | ||||
| "Damned If You Don't" | Tiny Deaths (Comma Press) | |||
| (Viking Press) | ||||
| 2009 | "26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss" | Asimov's Science Fiction | ||
| Clarkesworld Magazine | ||||
| "Caverns of Mystery" | Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy (Subterranean Press) | |||
| "Our Man in the Sudan" | (Humdrumming) | |||
| "Pride and Prometheus" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| 2010 | Eclipse Three (Night Shade Books) | |||
| "In Hiding" | Putting the Pieces in Place (Ex Occidente Press) | |||
| Strange Horizons | ||||
| "Light on the Water" | Fantasy Magazine | |||
| Postscripts | ||||
| "Singing on a Star" | Firebirds Soaring (Firebird Books) | |||
| 2011 | "Fossil-Figures" | Stories: All-New Tales (William Morrow and Company) | ||
| "Beautiful Men" | Visitants: Stories of Fallen Angels and Heavenly Hosts (Ulysses Press) | |||
| "Booth's Ghost" | What I Didn't See and Other Stories (Small Beer Press) | |||
| "Ponies" | Tor.com | |||
| "Tu Sufrimiento Shall Protect Us" | Black Static | |||
| 2012 | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| "X for Demetrious" | Blood and Other Cravings (Tor Books) | |||
| "Younger Women" | Subterranean Magazine | |||
| (Tachyon Publications) | ||||
| Clarkesworld Magazine | ||||
| 2013 | Beneath Ceaseless Skies | |||
| Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||||
| Beneath Ceaseless Skies | ||||
| "Breaking the Frame" | Lightspeed | |||
| "Swift, Brutal Retaliation" | Tor.com | |||
| 2014 | Subterranean Magazine | |||
| Tor.com | ||||
| "Effigy Nights" | Clarkesworld Magazine | |||
| "Selkie Stories Are for Losers" | Strange Horizons | |||
| "If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love" | Apex Magazine | |||
| 2015 | Fedogan & Bremer | |||
| "Death's Door Café" | Shadows & Tall Trees (Undertow Publications) | |||
| Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||||
| "I Can See Right Through You" | Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern | |||
| "Jackalope Wives" | Apex Magazine | |||
| 2016 | "Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers" | Nightmare | ||
| "" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| "" | Uncanny Magazine | |||
| "" | Cassilda's Song (Chaosium) | |||
| "Pockets" | Uncanny Magazine | |||
| 2017 | "Das Steingeschöpf" | Strange Horizons | ||
| "" | Clockwork Phoenix 5 (Mythic Delirium) | |||
| "Little Widow" | Nightmare | |||
| "Our Talons Can Crush Galaxies" | Uncanny Magazine | |||
| "Seasons of Glass and Iron" | (Saga Press) | |||
| 2018 | Strange Horizons | |||
| "Old Souls" | Where the Stars Rise: Asian Science Fiction and Fantasy (Laksa Media Groups) | |||
| "Welcome to Your Authentic Indian Experience™" | Apex Magazine | |||
| "Clearly Lettered in a Mostly Steady Hand" | Uncanny Magazine | |||
| "Carnival Nine" | Beneath Ceaseless Skies | |||
| 2019 | "Like a River Loves the Sky" | Uncanny Magazine | ||
| "Ten Deals with the Indigo Snake" | Lightspeed | |||
| "" | Lightspeed | |||
| "" | Nightmare | |||
| "" | Apex Magazine | |||
| 2020 | "Read After Burning" | (One World) | ||
| "Blood Is Another Word for Hunger" | Tor.com | |||
| "" | Uncanny Magazine | |||
| "Everyone Knows That They're Dead. Do You?" | (Solaris Books) | |||
| "For He Can Creep" | Tor.com | |||
| "Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | |||
| 2021 | "Glass Bottle Dancer" | Lightspeed | ||
| "My Country Is a Ghost" | Uncanny Magazine | |||
| Uncanny Magazine | ||||
| "Open House on Haunted Hill" | Diabolical Plots | |||
| Thin Places (Undertow Publications) | ||||
| 2022 | "(emet)" | Fantasy & Science Fiction | ||
| "#Spring Love, #Pichal Pairi" | Tor.com | |||
| Strange Horizons | ||||
| Fantasy Magazine | ||||
| "If the Martians Have Magic" | Uncanny Magazine | |||
| "Where Oaken Hearts Do Gather" | Uncanny Magazine | |||
| 2023 | "Incident at Bear Creek Lodge" | Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology (William Morrow Paperbacks) | ||
| Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology (William Morrow Paperbacks) | ||||
| "Douen" | The Dark | |||
| PodCastle | ||||
| "Telling the Bees" | Sunday Morning Transport |