Stoker Nom Nom Nom…

I’m delighted to join the  preliminary ballot for Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection alongside others in the field I respect and admire like Damien Angelica Walters, Usman Tanveer Malik, Stephen Graham Jones, and Ellen Datlow! It is always a lovely feeling to know that readers (besides Laura Marshall!) like what I’m doing.
The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has released the Preliminary Ballot for the 2014 Bram Stoker Awards®.  This is not the list of finalists, but the list which HWA’s members will vote on to determine the finalists — who will be revealed on February 23.
Superior Achievement in a Novel

• Tim Burke – The Flesh Sutra (NobleFusion Press)
• Adam Christopher – The Burning Dark (Tor Books)
• Michaelbrent Collings – This Darkness Light (self-published)
• Lawrence C. Connolly – Vortex (Fantasist Enterprises)
• Craig DiLouie – Suffer the Children (Gallery Books of Simon & Schuster)
• Patrick Freivald – Jade Sky (JournalStone)
• Chuck Palahniuk – Beautiful You (Jonathan Cape, Vintage/Penguin Random House UK)
• Christopher Rice – The Vines (47North)
• Brett J. Talley – The Reborn (JournalStone)
• Steve Rasnic Tem – Blood Kin (Solaris Books)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• Maria Alexander – Mr. Wicker (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
• J.D. Barker – Forsaken (Hampton Creek Press)
• Janice Gable Bashman – Predator (Month9Books)
• David Cronenberg – Consumed (Scribner)
• Michael Knost – Return of the Mothman (Woodland Press)
• Daniel Levine – Hyde (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
• Josh Malerman – Bird Box (Harper Collins)
• Whitney Miller – The Violet Hour (Flux)
• Chantal Noordeloos – Angel Manor (Horrific Tales Publishing)
• C.J. Waller – Predator X (Severed Press)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• Ari Berk – Lych Way (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
• Jake Bible – Intentional Haunting (Permuted Press)
• Ilsa J. Bick – White Space (Egmont)
• John Dixon – Phoenix Island (Simon & Schuster/Gallery Books)
• Kami Garcia – Unmarked (The Legion Series Book 2) (Little Brown Books for Young Readers)
• S.E. Green – Killer Instinct (Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse)
• Tonya Hurley – Passionaries (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Micol Ostow – Amity (Egmont)
• Peter Adam Salomon – All Those Broken Angels (Flux)
• Sam Swanson and Araminta Star Matthews – Horror High School: Return of the Loving Dead (Curiosity Quills Press)
• Johnny Worthen – Eleanor: Book 1 (The Unseen) (Jolly Fish Press)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• Charles Burns – Sugar Skull
• Emily Carroll – Through the Woods
• Victor Gischler – Kiss Me Satan
• Joe Hill – Locke and Key, Vol. 6
• Joe R. Lansdale and Daniele Serra – I Tell You It’s Love (Short, Scary Tales Publications)
• Jonathan Maberry – Bad Blood (Dark Horse Books)
• Paul Tobin – The Witcher

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• Michael Bailey – Dandelion Clocks (Inkblots and Blood Spots) (Villipede Publications)
• Taylor Grant – The Infected (Cemetery Dance #71) (Cemetery Dance)
• Eric J. Guignard – Dreams of a Little Suicide (Hell Comes To Hollywood II: Twenty-Two More Tales Of Tinseltown Terror (Volume 2)) (Big Time Books)
• Kate Jonez – Ceremony of Flies (DarkFuse)
• Joe R. Lansdale – Fishing for Dinosaurs (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)
• Jonathan Maberry – Three Guys Walk Into a Bar (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)
• Joe McKinney – Lost and Found (Limbus, Inc., Book II) (JournalStone)
• Gene O’Neill – Ridin the Dawg (Mia Moja) (Thunderstorm Books)
• John F.D. Taff – The Long Long Breakdown (The End in all Beginnings) (Grey Matter Press)
• Gregor Xane – The Riggle Twins (Bad Apples) (Corpus Press)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• Dale Bailey – Sleep Paralysis (Nightmare Magazine, April 2014) (Nightmare)
• Hal Bodner – Hot Tub (Hell Comes to Hollywood II) (Big Time Books)
• Patrick Freivald – Trigger Warning (Demonic Visions Book 4) (Chris Robertson)
• Sydney Leigh – Baby’s Breath (Bugs: Tales That Slither, Creep, and Crawl) (Great Old Ones Publishing)
• Usman T. Malik – The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family (Qualia Nous) (Written Backwards)
• Alessandro Manzetti – Nature’s Oddities (The Shaman: And Other Shadows) (self-published)
• Rena Mason – Ruminations (Qualia Nous) (Written Backwards)
• John Palisano – Splinterette (Widowmakers: A Benefit Anthology of Dark Fiction)
• Sayuri Ueda – The Street of Fruiting Bodies (Phantasm Japan) (Haikasoru, an imprint of VIZ Media, LLC)
• Genevieve Valentine – A Dweller in Amenty (Nightmare Magazine, March 2014) (Nightmare)
• Damien Angelica Walters – The Floating Girls: A Documentary (Jamais Vu, Issue Three) (Post Mortem Press)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• Michael Bailey – Inkblots and Blood Spots (Villipede Publications)
• Stephen Graham Jones – After the People Lights Have Gone Off (Dark House Press)
• John R. Little – Little by Little (Bad Moon Books)
• Helen Marshall – Gifts for the One Who Comes After (ChiZine Publications)
• David Sakmyster – Escape Plans (Wordfire Press)
• Terrence Scott – The Madeleine Wheel: Playing with Spiders (Amazon)
• Lucy Snyder – Soft Apocalypses (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
• Robin Spriggs – The Untold Tales of Ozman Droom (Anomalous Books)
• John F.D. Taff – The End In All Beginnings (Grey Matter Press)
• Alexander Zelenyj – Songs for the Lost (Eibonvale Press)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey – The End Is Nigh (Broad Reach Publishing)
• Michael Bailey – Qualia Nous (Written Backwards)
• Jason Brock – A Darke Phantastique (Cycatrix Press)
• Ellen Datlow – Fearful Symmetries (ChiZine Publications)
• Kate Jonez – Halloween Tales (Omnium Gatherum)
• Eric Miller – Hell Comes to Hollywood II (Big Time Books)
• Chuck Palahniuk, Richard Thomas, and Dennis Widmyer – Burnt Tongues(Medallion Press)
• Brian M. Sammons – The Dark Rites of Cthulhu (April Moon Books)
• Brett J. Talley – Limbus, Inc., Book II (JournalStone)
• Terry M. West – Journals of Horror: Found Fiction (Pleasant Storm Entertainment)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• Scott M. Gimple – The Walking Dead: The Grove, episode 4:14 (AMC)
• James Hawes – Penny Dreadful: Possession (Desert Wolf Productions/Neal Street Productions)
• Jennifer Kent – The Babadook (Causeway Films)
• Alex Kurtzman and Mark Goffman – Sleepy Hollow: “Bad Blood” (Sketch Films/K/O Paper Products/20th Century Fox Television)
• John Logan – Penny Dreadful: Séance (Desert Wolf Productions/Neal Street Productions)
• Greg Mclean and Aaron Sterns – Wolf Creek 2 (Emu Creek Pictures)
• Stephen Moffat – Doctor Who: Listen (British Broadcasting Corporation)
• Cameron Porsendah – Helix: Pilot (Tall Ship Productions/Kaji Productions/Muse Entertainment/Lynda Obst Productions/in association with Sony Pictures Television)
• Jack Thomas Smith –Infliction (Fox Trail Productions)
• James Wong – American Horror Story: Coven: “The Magical Delights of Stevie Nicks” (FX Network)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

• Massimo Berruti, S.T. Joshi, and Sam Gafford – William Hope Hodgson: Voices from the Borderland (Hippocampus Press)
• Jason V. Brock – Disorders of Magnitude (Rowman & Littlefield)
• Hayley Campbell – The Art of Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins Publishers)
• S.T. Joshi – Lovecraft and A World in Transition (Hippocampus Press)
• Leslie S. Klinger – The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft (Liveright Publishing Corp., a division of W.W. Norton & Co.)
• Joe Mynhardt and Emma Audsley – Horror 101: The Way Forward (Crystal Lake Publishing)
• Robert Damon Schneck – Mrs. Wakeman vs. the Antichrist (Tarcher/Penguin)
• Lucy Snyder – Shooting Yourself in the Head For Fun and Profit: A Writer’s Survival Guide (Post Mortem Press)
• Tom Weaver, David Schecter, and Steve Kronenberg – The Creature Chronicles: Exploring the Black Lagoon Trilogy (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• Robert Payne Cabeen – Fearworms: Selected Poems (Fanboy Comics)
• G.O. Clark – Gravedigger’s Dance (Dark Renaissance Books)
• David E. Cowen – The Madness of Empty Spaces (Weasel Press)
• Corrinne De Winter and Alessandro Manzetti – Venus Intervention (Kipple Officina Libraria)
• Wade German – Dreams from the Black Nebula (Hippocampus Press)
• Tom Piccirilli – Forgiving Judas (Crossroad Press)
• Michelle Scalise – The Manufacturer of Sorrow (Eldritch Press)
• Marge Simon and Mary Turzillo – Sweet Poison (Dark Renaissance Books)
• Tiffany Tang – Creepy Little Death Poems (Dreality Press)
• Stephanie Wytovich – Mourning Jewelry (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Voting for HWA eligible members closes February 15.