This Year's Oscar Noms Are Out, Now Get Ready for 2026's Page to Screen Adaptations With Becky's Advice On Making Better Page to Screen Displays

Last week the Oscar Nominations came out and as always, there is a lot of overlap for us in library land. This year's best adapted screen play nominations are:

NOMINEES

BUGONIA

Screenplay by Will Tracy

NOMINEES

FRANKENSTEIN

Written for the Screen by Guillermo del Toro

NOMINEES

HAMNET

Screenplay by Chloé Zhao & Maggie O'Farrell

NOMINEES

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

Written by Paul Thomas Anderson

NOMINEES

TRAIN DREAMS

Screenplay by Clint Bentley & Greg Kwedar

Of these, Bugonia, is adapted from a Korean film but otherwise the others come from books. 

Hamnet is also unique in that the author of the novel it is based on was a writer for the film. Recently, PW did this interview with O'Farrell about that page to screen process.

But this is a list of and conversation about last year's adaptations. As all of us who work in libraries know, all page to screen adaptations are popular with our patrons all year long. Plus, books that have been out a while, get new life from their screen release, even if the author had nothing to do with the adaptation.

So while we field requests for these books-- Frankenstein, Hamnet, Train Dreams, and Vineland (One Battle After Another)-- and people have to place holds, why not offer "while you wait"t suggestions of  2026's screen adaptations. The books are all available right now. And bonus points for the readers being excited that they are "ready" when the movies and TV shows follow soon. 

Where can you find those title though? LitHub has you covered with this comprehensive 2026 Literary Film and TV preview.

Look you can make the same old same, old display of current and past Oscar nominees in this category. Or you can give people a better display, one that allows them to read a great book and get ready for the pop culture discussions that are coming every soon. You look like a genius. You have anticipated their needs and given them a book they could not find without your help. They will remember it is the library that helped them enjoy the screen release and the pop culture moment around it even more.

And let's be honest here. If you put up an Oscar nominees display, it won't have any of this year's books anyway. They got checked out last week and there is a long holds queue. They won't be as satisfied with past nominees as they will be with the possibility of getting ahead of next year's awards cycle.

The concept of being a head of the curve, rather than a year or two behind, is way more exciting to readers.

So get that "Moving from Page to Screen in 2026" display up this week instead of an Oscar themed one. Trust me. They will love it. And come this time next year, they will be thanking you.

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Awards for Titles You May Have Missed Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.

I spend a lot of time promoting awards lists as a way to stay up to date on major genres, to use them for collection development, displays, and suggestions, but there is another reason why some of these awards lists are vital to our work-- Discovery-- and that is showcased with the lists I have today.

Both awards are the perfect example of why awards lists are vital to our work. These are book you might have missed without their nominations.

First up, the Philip K. Dick Award. From the Locus Magazine announcement:

The award is presented annually to a distinguished work of science fiction originally published in paperback form in the United States. The award is sponsored by the Philip K. Dick Trust and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, and the ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science Fiction Society.

This year’s judges are Jim Aikin (chair), Kim Antieau, J.D. Goff, Abbey Mei Otis, and Lisa Swanstrom.

The winner and any special citations will be announced April 3, 2026 at Norwescon 48, to be held April 2-5, 2026 in SeaTac WA.

The nominees this year are:

• Sunward, William Alexander (Saga)
• Outlaw Planet, M.R. Carey (Orbit UK; Orbit US)
• Casual, Koji A. Dae (Tenebrous)
• The Immeasurable Heaven, Caspar Geon (Solaris UK)
• Uncertain Sons and Other Stories, Thomas Ha (Undertow)
• Scales, Christopher Hinz (Angry Robot UK)
• City of All Seasons, Oliver K. Langmead & Aliya Whiteley (Titan)

This award is genre (SF) and for paperback originals. The paperback original part is key for libraries as many prioritize buying hardcover do to it standing up to more checkouts. But these titles are worth an add to your collection as they are deemed the best of the best. Each of these titles is a perfect addition to all public library collections.

Thankfully, Locus also makes it easy with the awards database for you to find all the past nominees and winners of this award right here.

Next up is the most prestigious award for short story collections, The Story Prize:

The Story Prize, now in its 22nd year, is pleased to honor as its finalists three outstanding short story collections chosen from 114 submissions representing 72 different publishers or imprints:
 

Other Worlds by André Alexis (FSG Originals)

Atavists by Lydia Millet (W.W. Norton & Company)

Long Distance by Ayşegül Savaş (Bloomsbury Publishing)

Library patrons read short stories at a higher rate than the general public. They also appreciate finding new authors through their stories and get very excited when they also have novels to explore.

Speaking of that, the backlist of nominees and winners is also a great place to find excellent story collections to add to your collections along with the three above. 

You can access the backlist by year through a drop down menu entitled "Winners" from the main page.

Take a look at these 2 awards to help you find titles you may have missed. Order them, use the backlist from the last few years to order a few more, and promote them with displays so readers can find them. 

Lesser known awards in general make for eye catching displays. Why? Because you are highlighting great reads that your users would never know about without your help. And that is how we show them our worth and expertise. You will make a lot of readers very happy, but only if you get those books out in front  of them.

Story Prize and Philip K Dick Award displays are a great idea anytime of year and with the backlist options so easily accessible, you can keep them full as the books get checked out.

Live Event 1/31/26 in Beverley, MA to Raise Money for the Shirley Jackson Awards, Featuring Paul Tremblay, John Langan, Eric LaRocca, Catherynne Valente, and Me

I am so excited to invite you all to this amazing event in conjunction with the Why I Love Horror Book Tour. We are appearing at Copper Dog Books in Beverly, MA at 7pm on Saturday January 31, 2026 and we are asking for a $5 suggested donation to the Shirley Jackson Awards to enter. You can give less or more, your choice. 

Here is the link to the book store to register.

Click here for a press release from the Shirley Jackson Awards about this event with lots more details.

A huge shout out to the Shirley Jackson Awards Administrator, JoAnn Cox for working to get this all set up.

We are having this event 6 months out from the awards themselves. We feel like it is a great time to remind everyone that while all of us involved with the awards are volunteers, there are costs to administering the awards themselves, let alone our ideas about funding scholarships and travel grants to people in the future. 

That being said, this one off event is part of a grander plan that JoAnn and I envision and have already laid some basic ground work for. Ideally, we take this idea and replicate it at book stores all over America on this same weekend next year (strategically picked as the free weekend between the end of the NFL playoffs  and the Super Bowl). 

We have already talked to a few other people in other cities about hosting this on an annual basis, but first things first, we need to have this first event.

Please go here to learn more about the Shirley Jackson Awards. I am a proud member of the Advisory Board

And here to register for this event on 1/31/26.

And here for a press release from the Shirley Jackson Awards about this event with lots more details.

Resource Alert-- Macabre Daily and a Chance to Learn About How The Horror Writers Association's Library Committee Can Help Your Library

Recently, Konrad Stump (my HWA Libraries Co-Chair) and I each appeared separately on the Macabre Daily's Paper Cuts Interview series to talk about our work with the Horror Writers Association as the co-chairs of the Libraries Committee.

Before I get into the specifics of our library worker focused episodes, I wanted to make sure everyone knew about the wealth of resources available via Macabre Daily for you to use to help readers and horror fans of reading and movies and graphic novels. They have lists of books a movies as well a tons of interviews and review. Please make sure you bookmark it as an essential horror resource across formats. I have added Macabre Daily to my archive of my preferred horror resources.

Okay, now back to our interviews.

In Konrad's appearance he talked about his work organizing Oh, the Horror! for Springfield Greene County Library, how libraries can use Summer Scares at their libraries, and what we offer every year at Librarians' Day on the Friday of StokerCon.

You can click here or on the graphic at the bottom of this post to access the landing page for his interview which is full of links and details as well as providing a place to watch the interview on that page.

In my interview, we talk about my book, the recent podcast I did with Emily Hughes and Robb Olson previewing the horror titles were are excited about coming for the first half of 2026, and more.

You can click here or on the graphic at the bottom of this post to access the landing page for my interview which is full of links and details as well as providing a place to watch the interview on that page.

There is a lot here for you to help your horror readers with new titles, backlist sure bets, and so many resources.

Finally, if you want our help connecting your library with authors and or resources, we are both one email away: libraries at horror dot org.

Listening to Library Users: A Wake-Up Call For Library Marketing via Super Library Marketing with a Bonus Becky Rant

Back in December, I wrote about the 2026 State of Reading Report from Everland and Fable.  One of the conclusions from this study was:

Human connection drives discovery: While readers’ comfort with and usage of AI rose, they still trust people most. Personal connections now lead recommendations and sharing, showing reading and discovery remain deeply social acts in today’s screen-filled world.

So I bet you are thinking-- GREAT NEWS-- this is what we do at the library. And while you would be correct to think this, there is one HUGE problem here-- patrons don't know we offer human book suggestions.

This is why I have this blog, this is why I go around and teach library workers all over the world on how and why they need to be more intentional with their RA Service. 

Angela Hursh who worked for NoveList and also runs the blog, Super Library Marketing, recently posted one of her super helpful 5 minute videos and this one....well you all need to watch this.

It is entitled: Listening to Library Users: A Wake-Up Call for Library Marketing. In this video she talks about interviewing three regular library users-- all who use the library frequently, but in different ways and when she asked all three this question-- Have you ever talked to the librarian about book recommendations? All three of them said, I they never even thought that was a thing they could do.

Please watch the entire video here.

I am guessing a bunch of you are surprised by this. Unfortunately, I am not. This is related to the most common complaint I get from library staff which is-- Becky you teach us all to be better at RA Service but no one comes and asks us for reading suggestions.

Over the last 3 years, I have completely changed my training to address this question. You have seen this in the form of my posts about conversations starters. But the crux of this argument is we need to model the behavior we want to see. We need to stop thinking of RA as transaction (like reference) and more as a conversation. RA service requires we cultivate an atmosphere of conversation around books. 

I have an entire program that uses this idea of cultivating conversations around books and reading as the basis for everything I share. You can see the slides here or again, just visit the tag for conversation starters.

Here's the hard truth, one I have been out there trying to get you all to see for years now-- We are the reason people do not know to come to as for reading recommendations. We have dropped the ball by just assuming they will know that we do this instead of actively working to show them.

We have trained the American public for 150 years now, to come to the library to ask about their information needs. We have done a great job at that. But even though all of our public libraries have something about reading or recreation or the like in their missions, even though leisure reading is at the core of what we do and why we are here, despite all of this, we do not make it clear that we can help with reading recommendations for adults.

Kids sure. People know to come to ask for help, but once they are grown, they forget. And we do not help them.

So please watch Hursh's video. And then explore the my Booktalking slides here or just visit the tag for conversation starters. Both will help you fix this program.

Make 2026 your year to stop waiting for them to come ask you and start cultivating a culture of book talking and recommendation sharing at your library. (The easiest way to start is with my conversation starts to display advice).

Because our patrons don't want to use AI. They want a human recommendation from someone they trust. THAT SHOULD BE US. And as Hursh shows us, it is clearly not us that they go to for this.

I have all the links and ideas to help you get started for free here on the blog. You have no excuse to allow AI to take over. Because don't think that they will not resort to AI if they need a recommendation. We are here. We are ready. And whether or not your library has paid for me to train your staff, this entire blog has everything you need to help you al get started....for FREE.

Back tomorrow with some info about how the HWA Libraries Committee can help you help your horror readers (also all of this is for free).

Using Awards Lists As a RA Tool: Splatterpunk Awards Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.    

As reported here in File 770, The 2026 Splatterpunk Award nominees were announced January 10. The awards honor superior achievement in the literary sub-genres of Splatterpunk and Extreme Horror fiction.

The Splatterpunk Awards are a great way to get more extreme horror into your library because these are judged as among the best. You can see this year's nominees here or below. And you can use this link courtesy of Locus Magazine to see all past nominees and winners.

In general, if you are a library who carries erotica (which is all of you), you should have extreme horror as well. However, it is mostly coming out from smaller presses and is not widely reviewed-- not because it is not worthy of  reviews, but because it is hard enough to get the mainstream Horror titles review. But with this award, you now have a vetted list of current titles and backlist options with just a click.

If you still need more arguments as yo why these books are 100% for your library, look at the nominees below. We have Stephen Graham Jones, Eric LaRocca, Mary Sangiovanni, Hailey Piper, Joe Lansdale, Bracken MacLeod and multiple stories from the Stand anthology all listed there. Authors whose books you already have on your shelves. Some NYT Bestsellers.

I added links to my reviews of the books where applicable to help you understand how mainstream these titles are.

These books are not just for extreme horror fans, they are for everyone.  See below for the full list of nominees via Locus Magazine.

2026 Splatterpunk Awards Nominees

Best Novel

• Janitors vs. The Living Dead, Michelle Garza & Melissa Lason (Death’s Head)
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga)
• At Dark, I Become Loathsome, Eric LaRocca (Blackstone)
• The Home, Judith Sonnet (Madness Heart)
• Music to Sacrifice Virgins To, Kristopher Triana (Bad Dream)

Best Novella

• Playground: Child of Divorce, Aron Beauregard (Bad Dream)
• Disco Rice, Robert Essig (Infected Voices)
• Strange Stones, Edward Lee & Mary SanGiovanni (Clash)
• The Freakshow: Rebirth in Drayton Falls, Bryan Smith (Grindhouse)
• Runts, Daniel J. Volpe (Bad Dream)

Best Short Story

• “Wrong Fucking Place, Wrong Fucking Time”, C. Robert Cargill (The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand)
• Red Womb, C.M. Guidroz (self-published)
• “And She Was Made of Glass”, Lucas Milliron (Full Throttle)
• “Executive Decision”, Christine Morgan (Full Throttle)
• “The Tripps”, Wrath James White (The End of the World As We Know It: New Tales of Stephen King’s The Stand)

Best Collection

• The Essential Horror of Joe R. Lansdale, Joe R. Lansdale (Tachyon)
• Let Not Your Sorrow Die, Bracken MacLeod (Bad Hand)
• Violent Nights, Candace Nola (Uncomfortably Dark)
• Teenage Girls Can Be Demons, Hailey Piper (Titan)
• This Is Splatterpunk: The John Skipp Primer, John Skipp (Fungasm)

Best Anthology

• Splatterpunk’s She Dotted Her Eyes, Jack Bantry, ed. (self-published)
• The Rack II: More Stories Inspired by Vintage Horror Paperbacks, Tom Deady, ed. (Greymore)
• Choices: An Anthology of Reproductive Horror, Dianna Gunn, ed. (Renaissance)
• Full Throttle, Candace Nola, ed. (Uncomfortably Dark)
• Stories From The Motel Sick, Michael Allen Rose, ed. (RoShamBo)

J.F. Gonzalez Lifetime Achievement Award

• Ryan Harding
• Christine Morgan

The awards will be presented at the 2026 KillerCon, to be held from November 6-8, 2026 in Austin TX. For more, see the official web page.