Board of Directors
The Board Members of the Robert E. Howard Foundation
A Short REH Biography
By Rusty Burke
The 2026 Robert E. Howard Awards – Nominees
Below you can find all the categories and candidates for this years Robert E. Howard Awards. You will find a link to where you can find their work and what they have been nominated for. Everyone can nominate a candidate for the awards, but only members of the REH Foundation can vote. The winners will be announced at the Howard Days in Cross Plains, 2026.
Scholarship Awards
The Atlantean—Outstanding Achievement, Book
Requirements: Nonfiction work (print or digital), minimum 30,000 words, substantively devoted to the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard, published in the last calendar year.
Considerations: Reprinted works without significant revisions are not eligible. Award goes to the author or authors.
Nominee
Willard M. Oliver, Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author, Univ. of North Texas Press, 2025.
Click hereThe Valusian—Outstanding Achievement, Anthology/Collection
Requirements: Nonfiction anthology or collection of essays (print or digital), nonfiction, minimum 30,000 words, substantively devoted to the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard, published in the last calendar year.
Considerations: Reprinted works without significant revisions are not eligible. Award goes to the editor or editors.
Nominees
Fred Blosser – The Solomon Kane Companion: An Informal Guide to Robert E. Howard’s Dark Avenger
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Tom Roberts (Editor) – Windy City Pulp Stories #24
Click hereThe Hyrkanian—Outstanding Achievement, Essay
Requirements: Scholarly Nonfiction essays (print or digital), no minimum word count, substantively focused on the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard, published in the last calendar year.
Considerations: Short blog posts, news, interviews, reviews, trip reports, and other minor works are not considered. Award goes to the author or authors.
Nominees
Mariano D’Anza – “Dove cavalcano le sierene: La Poesia di R. H Howard” In Zothique 18
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Alfonso Freire-Sánchez – Relectura de Conan el Bárbaro desde las coordenadas de la era postheroica
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Naomi Kanakia, On REH, Conan, and Weird Tales
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Ryan Linkof, “The Ultimate Barbarian”: Robert E. Howard, Frank Frazetta, and the Pulp Fantasy of Prehistory
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Rick McCollum, Conquest Comics Press (An Insider’s View)
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Jeff Shanks, “Shadows of the Serpent: Howard, Kull and the Birth of Sword and Sorcery” in Conan: Scourge of the Serpent #1-4
Eric Williams – Robert E. Howard, Grettir the Outlaw, and the origins of two-fisted Weird Fiction
Click hereThe Venarium—Emerging Scholar
Requirements: Candidates must have recently begun making significant contributions to Howard scholarship through publications and/or presentations over the past few years.
Considerations: Previous winners are not eligible. Award goes to the individual.
Nominees
Teemu Tarkkala – Master’s Thesis: Might Makes Right: The Colonial Underpinnings of Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian
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Dan Yergert, The Conan Chronology – YouTube
Click hereArt Awards
One of the missions of the Robert E. Howard Foundation is to promote Howard’s creative legacy as well as his study. Art awards recognize achievement in creative fields related to Robert E. Howard’s life and work.
The Black Lotus—Outstanding Achievement, Web-based
Requirements: Web-based content (i.e. digital magazine, journals, websites, blogs, podcasts, audiovisual/multimedia presentations, internet sites, etc.), substantively focused on the life and/or work of Robert E. Howard, new content must have been published in the last calendar year.
Considerations: Non-static social media like Facebook and Twitter would not be eligible. The award goes to the site owner/administrator.
Nominees
Bob Freeman, The Occult Detective Channel, REH’s Kirowan and Conrad series (YouTube)
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Ståle Gismervik – The World of Robert E. Howard (Website)
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Lion (Eleazar Tamez), Sword and Sorcery Book Club (YouTube)
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Robert MacFarlane / Tennessee Fats; (YouTube) The Most Accurate Comic Adaptations list of EVERY Robert E Howard’s Conan Story – Battle Royale 25!
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Evan Todd; Stygian Dogs (YouTube)
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Michael K. Vaughan; The Robert E Howard Show (YouTube)
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The Costigan—Literary achievement
Awarded 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. Requirements: Fiction (i.e. short fiction, novels, poetry, etc.), in the spirit and tradition of Robert E. Howard, published in the last calendar year. No comic books or graphic novels are allowed.
Considerations: Work must be substantial and original in content; translations and adaptations will not be considered. Award goes to the individual writer or writing team.
Nominees
Brian D. Anderson, “Conan: Comrades”
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Brendan Deneen, “Conan: The Amulet of Nakamar”
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Francesco Dimitri, “Kull: The Talons of Deep Time”
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Shaun Hamill, Solomon Kane: The Lair of the Mari Lwyd
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Steven Shrewsbury, “This Light of Mine,” Black Diadem: Magazine of the Fantastique: Fall/Winter Issue 2025/2026
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Molly Tanzer, “Jirel Meets Death”, New Edge Sword and Sorcery Magazine
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The Rankin—Artistic achievement
Requirements: Visual media (painting, comic books, graphic novels, film, audio adaptations, etc.), directly related to the depiction of Robert E. Howard’s life, stories and poetry, characters, or fictional worlds; published in the last calendar year. Comic media must be nominated for a specific issue or self-contained story arc, not as a series or collection.
Considerations: Work must be substantial and original in content. Award goes to the individual artist for solo projects. For Comic Books and Graphic Novels, the award goes to the entire team involved.
Nominees
Valentin Sécher – Conan Illustrated: The Tower of the Elephant
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Liam Sharp, “Tattered Wings”, Savage Sword of Conan #11
Roy Thomas and Roberto De La Torre, “Mark of the Beast”, Savage Sword of Conan#7
Patrick Zircher (writer/artist/colorist), Pete Pantazis (Colorist), Richard Starkings & Tyler Smith (Letterers): Solomon Kane: The Serpent’s Ring (limited series)
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Jim Zub (writer), Ivan Gil (artist), João Canola (Colorist), Richard Starkings & Tyler Smith (Letterers), Roberto De La Torre (Cover artist): Conan: Scourge of the Serpent (limited series)
Jim Zub (writer), Alex Horley (artist), Richard Starkings & Tyler Smith (Letterers), “The Nomad”, Conan the Barbarian #25
Click hereSpecial Awards
The Black River—Special Achievement
Requirements: Candidates will have produced or contributed something special that doesn’t fit into any other category, e.g. scholarly presentations, biographical discoveries, etc.
Nominee
Ståle Gismervik for creating and running the REHF website, formatting and establishing the REHF Press Ultimate Edition books
REH Foundation website REHF Press website
Special awards voted on by the REH Foundation board of directors
Some achievements deserve recognition, but do not fit neatly into easy categories, nor are they likely to be handed out every year. Those who have made some substantial achievement in scholarship or particular contribution to Howard studies, may be eligible for a Crom Award. Those who have made a significant contribution over a long involvement with Howard Studies may be eligible to join the Black Circle. These special awards will be voted on privately by the Board of Directors. The winners, if any, will be announced at the end of the Awards program.
The Crom Award
Only the Board of Directors will decide on making any nominations for the Crom Award.
The Black Circle—Special Achievement
The Black Circle is the most prestigious award the Foundation gives. Nominees must have a minimum of 20 years in promoting Robert E. Howard, his works, and his legacy.
Marcelo Anciano
Marcelo Anciano may be the person most responsible for leading the resurgence in getting Robert E. Howard’s works in their original text back out in the world after the Howard Boom of the 1960’s to 1970’s. In 1998, he shepherded The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane into publication with Wandering Star, that is currently published by Del Rey. He led the charge to get the three Conan books done, as well as the Bran Mak Morn, Kull, and the two “Best of” volumes. He put together a crack team (Rusty Burke, Stuart Williams, Patrice Louinet, Jim & Ruth Keegan, Steve Tompkins, and others) to bring out the books in Howard’s original text. Rusty Burke credits Marcelo as the “genius” who inspired them all in working on those books.
Chris Gruber
Chris Gruber became formally involved in Robert E. Howard fandom in 2002 when he joined REHUPA. From the beginning Chris was a relentless champion of Howard’s long-neglected boxing stories. He was a frequent contributor to The Cimmerian and The Dark Man journals, as well as The Cimmerian and REH: Two-Gun Raconteur blogs. He has contributed multiple chapters to scholarly essay collections, given presentations at the PCA/ACA conference and academic institutions, and edited Howard’s Boxing Stories (2005) from the University of Nebraska Press, the last resulting in a Black River Award. Along with Mark Finn and Patrice Louinet, he co-edited the monumental four volume set of Howard’s complete boxing stories, Fists of Iron (2013-15). He served as a consultant and contributor to the Kull sourcebook from Modiphius games. In 2018 he co-edited A Robert E. Howard Sampler with Bobby Derie.
Fred Malmberg
Fredrik Malmberg is CEO of Heroic Signatures, which holds the rights to Robert E. Howard’s work. Fredrik has protected the legacy of Howard’s characters for more than two decades and has helped maintain their prominence in popular culture by overseeing their licensing in film, comics, video games, RPGs, books, merchandising, and other media. His first professional venture into the world of Robert E. Howard was in the early 1980s, publishing the Swedish language editions of the Conan stories. In the early 2000s, Fredrik’s company Paradox purchased the rights to Conan and the other Howard characters and his initial efforts contributed to what has become known as the Second Howard Boom, with the publication of the authoritative REH texts in trade paperback form, the launch of the successful Age of Conan MMO video game, and the highly acclaimed comic series from Dark Horse. In 2006, he helped initiate the creation of the REH Foundation to help protect Robert E Howard’s literary legacy. In the years since, Fredrik has overseen the launch of multiple successful games in various platforms and films of both Conan and Solomon Kane. Under his watch, Heroic Signatures has recently launched a successful new publishing venture with Titan Books producing both comics and prose with Howard’s characters.
Donald A. Wollheim
Donald A. Wollheim (1914-1990) was one of the most influential science fiction and fantasy fans, writers, editors, and publishers of the late 20th century. As a fan-publisher, Wollheim was responsible for the first publication of “Solomon Kane’s Homecoming” in Fanciful Tales of Time and Space (1936) and “The Hyborian Age” in The Phantagraph (1936) and the LANY version, and shortly after Robert E. Howard’s death, Donald Wollheim proposed a collection of his Conan stories. That first collection didn’t happen, but Wollheim never forgot Howard or the desire to promote his work. As a professional editor, Wollheim was responsible for the publication of Howard’s fiction in the popular Avon Fantasy Reader series, and while at ACE, Wollheim published Conan the Conqueror in a Double, and Almuric, as well as anthologies like The Macabre Reader (1960). As a publisher, DAW books continued to place Howard’s works at the forefront of the fantasy and sword & sorcery boom, including the Lin Carter-edited Year’s Best Fantasy Stories series and Lost Worlds (1980)—continuing to promote and publish Robert E. Howard for over 40 years.