A Welcome Surprise
Late in the evening of 1 March, the kind of hour when sensible people are already asleep but writers are still staring at their screens, I got an email notification that brought a grin to my face. My S&S and heroic historical collection, OLD GODS AND OTHER TALES, had been nominated for the Costigan Award from the Robert E. Howard Foundation.
I read that email twice. Maybe three times.
Named for Sailor Steve Costigan — one of REH’s beloved boxing and adventure characters — the Costigan is a literary achievement award for “original creative writing that carries on the spirit and tradition of Robert E. Howard, to better recognize and celebrate his influence on future generations of writers.” In other words, it’s exactly the sort of award that, if fourteen-year-old me had known it would someday exist, he would have pointed at it and said: that. That is what I’m after.
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, then you’re aware of my love for REH, of how I copied his stories in order to learn how to write, and of my conscious decision to mimic him in matters of prose style and content. I expand on it a bit in the Introduction to OLD GODS:
Long story short: in my heart of hearts, I’ve always wanted to be the next Robert E. Howard. So I read what he read, wrote what he wrote (sometimes literally typing out his stories to get a feel for the cadence and rhythm of his literary style), and even submitted where he submitted. Alas, I never broke in at the Weird Tales of my youth—helmed then by George H. Scithers—but I got a bit of traction in the world of letters by trying (and failing) to write a pastiche Conan novel. — from the Introduction to OLD GODS AND OTHER TALES
The collection came at the tail end of a year of furious writing. From November 2024 until mid-2025, I wrote close to a quarter-million words of short fiction — mostly cozy fantasy, but with a few S&S or historical tales thrown in the mix. I released two volumes of cozy fantasy, last year, and OLD GODS AND OTHER TALES, with a fabulous cover by Stas Borodin.
The idea that someone — one of you, my friends — read my collection and thought enough of it to nominate it for an award meant for works that carry the spirit of REH forward . . . well, I’m not too proud to admit that I had to step outside and stand in the dark for a moment and just breathe.
More news as it develops. And thank you, truly, to everyone who has read these stories and carried them with you. You’re the reason any of this matters.
Congratulations! That is truly awesome!!
Congratulations, sir!