Announcing the Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot

Today I am proud to present the Bram Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot. This is the long list from which the active members of the Horror Writers Association will choose a final ballot. And I am excited to be one of those members with a vote.

I present this preliminary ballot here on the blog for a few reasons. I realize for other awards I don't do this, only presenting the final ballot for collection development and RA reason, but in this case I am intimately involved so I thought it would be a good chance to share some of the behind the scenes information and a few extra tips:

1. I made a New Year's Resolution to stop apologizing for promoting horror on the main blog. Getting this diverse and inclusive list of excellent horror across a variety of formats and publishers on this blog in a manner where these titles can be found though a simple text search is important to me. You need to be able to find these authors and titles to help patrons.
2. There are quite a few books and authors which I have reviewed and/or written about on the horror blog that are appearing here. These are names you need to pay attention to, and they don't include a man named "King" anywhere on the list. 
3. I was the chair of one of these juries. I understand how the entire process works. In light of all of the RWA problems and issues, I am proud of the work all of the Stoker Award juries did here and I wanted to give you insight into the process.
• We work independently throughout the year obtaining works and reading them. As the chair, I did work to solicit titles to add to our private digital reading area but my jury also sent me titles there were interested in seeing. In the case of my jury, one title I did not know about but another jury member did, made this preliminary list. This especially makes me proud of the system we, as an organization, put in place.
• Every member of each jury has an equal say in the titles that are pooled together to make the preliminary ballot. A group of at least 5 vote independently. Those votes are tallied and then the entire jury's list is presented in vote order to the overall Stoker Chairs. In the case of my jury I was pleased to see that every single individual member's top choice made the Prelimary Ballot and all, within our top 5 overall.
• However, the HWA does not stop with allowing each jury having the only say here. The membership of the HWA, at every level, has a chance to recommend works. The preliminary list that a jury sends in is then cross referenced with the member recommendations. If a title received a significant number of recommendations but is NOT on the jury's prelimary ballot, that title can still be added to the ballot. This is why each jury submits their titles in order of the "points" they received to the Stoker Chairs. This process allows for members to have a say. And I believe it works. It is also key to this process that the HWA has removed how many "recs" a title has received. No one except the Stoker Jury Chairs knows that number. Again, in my jury, our lowest vote getting title was dropped from our list and replaced by another title from the rec list. I am also happy to report, this replaced title did also receive votes from our jury.
4. Look at this list. We have diversity, lots of women, and big and small presses. We have horror that is "in your face" and quiet horror. We have voices new and old. You can serve a wide readership of speculative fiction fans with this preliminary ballot. And in a genre with very few library based resources at our disposal, giving you a longer list of options is imperative.
5. I tout the work of The Seers' Table everywhere I go. But it is an initiative of the HWA where diverse and own voices authors are given a spotlight every single month. When Linda Addison [incidentally on the ballot below in poetry] helped to start the Diverse Works Committee, she hoped that it would translate into more inclusive ballots over time, and as we see now, it is. EDI values need to be at the forefront of everything we do. We need to give diverse authors a chance in the spotlight so people know about them, seek out their work, and give it a try. People will not even know they exist without this spotlight. Without the Seers' Table and it's years of work, wonderful works of horror would go unread because no one knew they were eve out there. Even myself, I work hard to identify diverse authors, but without the Seers' Table, there is at least one author on my jury's ballot that I would not have known about and sought out a copy from the publisher for us to consider without this resource. 
6. Look at the publishers represented here. These are the publishers you need to be considering when ordering horror, especially those smaller presses. Use this list as a resource to give you okay you may need to add these titles to your collection. Many libraries have told me that my blog counts as resource in their collection development policies, so by placing the titles here, some of you now have what you need to go out and order them.

And now on to the list:

THE 2019 BRAM STOKER AWARDS® PRELIMINARY BALLOT

The 2019 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to release the Preliminary Ballot for the 2019 Bram Stoker Awards®. The HWA (see http://www.horror.org/) is the premier writersorganization in the horror and dark fiction genre, with over 1,600 members. We have presented the Bram Stoker Awards®in various categories since 1987 (see http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/).

Works on this ballot are not referred to as “nominees” or “finalists”. Only works appearing on the Final Ballot may be referred to as “nominated works” and their authors as “finalists”.  

The HWA Board of Trustees and the Bram Stoker Awards®Committee congratulate all those appearing on the Preliminary Ballot. Notes about the voting process will appear after the ballot listing.

2019 Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Goingback, Owl – Coyote Rage (Independent Legions Publishing)

Goodfellow, Cody – Unamerica (King Shot Press)

Lawson, Curtis M. – Black Heart Boys’ Choir (Wyrd Horror)

Little, John R. – The Murder of Jesus Christ (Bad Moon Books)

Malerman, Josh – Inspection (Del Rey)

Miskowski, S.P. – The Worst is Yet to Come (TrepidatioPublishing)

Moore, Michael J –  Highway Twenty (Hellbound BooksPublishing LLC)

Murray, Lee – Into the Ashes (Severed Press)

Nevill, Adam L.G. – The Reddening (Ritual Limited)

Taff, John F.D. – The Fearing (Grey Matter Press)

Wendig, Chuck – Wanderers (Del Rey)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Amor, Gemma – Dear Laura (Independently Published)

Cull, Andrew – Remains (IFWG Publishing International)

Day, Nicholas – Grind Your Bones to Dust (Excession Press)

Guignard, Eric J. – Doorways to the Deadeye (JournalStone)

Hopstaken, Steven and Prusi, Melissa – Stoker’s Wilde (Flame Tree Press)

Lane, Michelle Renee – Invisible Chains (Haverhill HousePublishing)

Luff, Cody T – Ration (Apex Book Company)

Moulton, Rachel Eve – Tinfoil Butterfly (MCD x FSG Originals)

Read, Sarah – The Bone Weaver’s Orchard (TrepidatioPublishing)

Starling, Caitlin – The Luminous Dead (Harper Voyager)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Bérubé, Amelinda – Here There Are Monsters (Sourcebooks Fire)

Dávila Cardinal, Ann – Five Midnights (Tor Teen)

Ernshaw, Shea – Winterwood (Simon Pulse)

Faring, Sara – The Tenth Girl (Imprint)

Gardner, Liana – Speak No Evil (Vesuvian Books)

Kurtagich, Dawn – Teeth in the Mist (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

Marshall, Kate Alice – Rules for Vanishing (Viking Books for Young Readers)

Nzondi – Oware Mosaic (Omnium Gatherum)

Salomon, Peter Adam – Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds(PseudoPsalms Press)

West, Jacqueline – Last Things (Greenwillow Books)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Bunn, Cullen – Bone Parish Vol. 2 (BOOM! Studios)

Bunn, Cullen – Bone Parish Vol. 3 (BOOM! Studios)

Cates, Donny – Redneck Volume 3: Longhorns (Image Comics)

Gaiman, Neil – Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples (Dark Horse Books)

Guillory, Rob – Rob Guillory’s Farmhand Volume 1: Reap What Was Sown (Image Comics)

Lemire, Jeff – Gideon Falls Book 2: Original Sins (Image Comics)

Lemire, Jeff – Gideon Falls Volume 3: Stations of the Cross(Image Comics)

Liu, Marjorie – Monstress Volume 4: The Chosen (Image Comics)

Manzetti, Alessandro – Calcutta Horror (Independent Legions Publishing)

Tanabe, Gou – H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness Volume 1 (Dark Horse Manga)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Breukelaar, J.S. – Like Ripples on a Blank Shore (Collision: Stories) (Meerkat Press, LLC)

Cluley, Ray – Adrenaline Junkies (The Porcupine Boy and Other Anthological Oddities) (Crossroad Press)

Jones, Pam – Ivy Day (Spaceboy Books LLC)

LaValle, Victor – Up from Slavery (Weird Tales Magazine #363)(Weird Tales Inc.)

Manzetti, Alessandro – The Keeper of Chernobyl (Omnium Gatherum)

Serafini, Matt – Rites of Extinction (Grindhouse Press)

Smith, Farah Rose – Anonyma (Ulthar Press)

Taborska, Anna – The Cat Sitter (Shadowcats) (Black Shuck Books)

Tantlinger, Sara – To Be Devoured (Unnerving)

Thomas, Richard – Ring of Fire (The Seven Deadliest) (Cutting Block Books)

Warren, Kaaron – Into Bones Like Oil (Meerkat Shorts)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

Chapman, Greg – “The Book of Last Words” (This Sublime Darkness and Other Dark Stories) (Things in the Well Publishing)

Kiste, Gwendolyn – “The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)” (Nightmare MagazineNov. 2019, Issue 86) 

Landry, Jess – “Bury Me in Tar and Twine” (Tales of the LostVolume 1: We All Lose Something!) (Things in the Well Publishing)

Little, John R. – “Anniversary” (Dark Tides: A Charity Horror Anthology) (Gestalt Media)

MacKenzie, Brooke – “The Elevator Game” (Who Knocks? Magazine Issue #2)

O’Quinn, Cindy – “Lydia” (The Twisted Book of Shadows) (Twisted Publishing)

Serna-Grey, Ben – “Where Gods Dance” (Apex Magazine Issue #118)

Waggoner, Tim – “A Touch of Madness” (The Pulp Horror Book of Phobias) (LVP Publications)

Westlake, Jack – “Glass Eyes in Porcelain Faces” (Black Static Issue #70) (TTS Press)

White, Gordon B. – “Birds of Passage” (Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles) (Chthonic Matter)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Chambers, James – On the Night Border (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Chiang, Ted – Exhalation: Stories (Knopf)

Evenson, Brian – Song for the Unraveling of the World (Coffee House Press)

Hodson, Brad C. – Where Carrion Gods Dance (Washington Park Press)

Howard, Kat – A Cathedral of Myth and Bone: Stories(Gallery/Saga Press)

Johnson, L.S. – Rare Birds: Stories (Traversing Z Press)

Jonez, Kate – Lady Bits (Trepidatio Publishing)

Langan, John – Sefira and Other Betrayals (Hippocampus Press)

Read, Sarah – Out of Water (Trepidatio Publishing)

Tremblay, Paul – Growing Things and Other Stories (William Morrow)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

Aster, Ari – Midsommar (B-Reel Films, Square Peg)

Busick, Guy and Murphy, Ryan – Ready or Not (Mythology Entertainment)

Duffer Brothers, The – Stranger Things (Season 3, Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt) (Netflix)

Eggers, Robert and Eggers, Max – The Lighthouse (A24, New Regency Pictures, RT Features)

Flanagan, Mike – Doctor Sleep (Warner Bros., Intrepid Pictures/Vertigo Entertainment)

Gilroy, Dan – Velvet Buzzsaw (Netflix)

Hageman, Dan and Hageman, Kevin – Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (1212 Entertainment, CBS Films, DDY, Entertainment One, Rolling Hills Productions, Sean Daniel Company, Starlight International Media)

López, Issa – Tigers Are Not Afraid (Filmadora Nacional, Peligrosa)

Peele, Jordan – Us (Monkeypaw Productions, Perfect World Pictures, Dentsu, Fuji Television Network, Universal Pictures) 

Sutherland, Teresa – The Wind (Soapbox Films, Divide/Conquer, Mind Hive Films)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Beltran, Patrick and Ward, D. Alexander – The Seven Deadliest(Cutting Block Books)

Brhel, John and Sullivan, Joe -- Other Voices, Other Tombs (Independently Published)

Brozek, Jennifer – A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods (Pulse Publishing)

Cade, Octavia – Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up to No Good(Upper Rubber Boot Books)

Datlow, Ellen – Echoes (Gallery/Saga Press)

Golden, Christopher and Moore, James A. – The Twisted Book of Shadows (Twisted Publishing)

Guignard, Eric J. – Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror (Dark Moon Books)

Johnson, Eugene and Dillon, Steve – Tales of the Lost Volume 1: We All Lose Something! (Things in the Well Publishing)

Schweitzer, Darrell – Mountains of Madness Revealed (PS Publishing)

Wilson, Robert S. – Nox Pareidolia (Nightscape Press)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Beal, Eleanor and Greenaway, Jonathan – Horror and Religion: New Literary Approaches to Theology, Race, and Sexuality(University of Wales Press)

Earle, Harriet E.H. – Gender, Sexuality, and Queerness in American Horror Story: Critical Essays (McFarland)

Eighteen-Bisang, Robert and Miller, Elizabeth – Drafts of Dracula (Tellwell Talent)

Grafius, Brandon R. – Reading the Bible with Horror(Lexington Books/Fortress Academic)

Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra – Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces (University of Wales Press)

Kachuba, John B. – Shapeshifters: A History (Reaktion Books)

Kröger, Lisa and Anderson, Melanie R. – Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction(Quirk Books)

Stobbart, Dawn – Videogames and Horror: From Amnesia to Zombies, Run! (University of Wales Press)

Tibbetts, John C. – The Furies of Marjorie Bowen (McFarland)

Volk, Stephen – Coffinmaker’s Blues: Collected Writings on Terror (PS Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

Clasen, Mathias – Evolution, Cognition, and Horror: A Précis of Why Horror Seduces (Journal of Cognitive Historiography Vol 4, No 2)

Hurley, Gavin F. – Between Hell and Earth: Rhetorical Appropriation of Religious Space within Hellraiser (The Spaces and Places of Horror, Vernon Press)

Kiste, Gwendolyn – Magic, Madness, and Women Who Creep: The Power of Individuality in the Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman (Vastarien: A Literary Journal Vol. 2, Issue 1)

Liaguno, Vince A. – Slasher Films Made Me Gay: The Queer Appeal and Subtext of the Genre (LGBTQ+ Horror Month: 9/1/2019, Ginger Nuts of Horror)

Mann, Craig Ian – The Beast Without: The Cinematic Werewolf as a (Counter)Cultural Metaphor (Horror Studies Journal Volume 10.1)

Renner, Karen J. – The Evil Aging Women of American Horror Story (Elder Horror: Essays on Film’s Frightening Images of Aging, McFarland) 

Robinson, Kelly – Film’s First Lycanthrope: 1913’s The Werewolf (Scary Monsters Magazine #114)

Waggoner, Tim – Riding Out the Storms (Writing in the Dark)

Weich, Valerie E. – Lord Byron’s Whipping Boy: Dr. John William Polidori and the 200th Anniversary of The Vampyre(Famous Monsters of Filmland, Issue #291)

Worth, Aaron – From the Books of Wandering: Fin-De-Siècle Poetics of a Supernatural Figure (The Times Literary Supplement)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Addison, Linda D. and Manzetti, Alessandro – The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Cade, Octavia – Mary Shelley Makes a Monster (Aqueduct Press)

Coffman, Frank – The Coven’s Hornbook & Other Poems (Bold Venture Press)

Crum, Amanda – Tall Grass (Independently Published) 

Davitt, Deborah L. – The Gates of Never (Finishing Line Press)

Lynch, Donna – Choking Back the Devil (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Mitchell, Zoe – Hag (Indigo Dreams Publishing)

Scalise, Michelle – Dragonfly and Other Songs of Mourning(LVP Publications)

Simon, Marge and Dietrich, Bryan D. – The Demeter Diaries(Independent Legions Publishing)

Ward, Kyla Lee – The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities(P’rea Press)

Wytovich, Stephanie M. – The Apocalyptic Mannequin (Raw Dog Screaming Press) 

Please note these works must NOT be referred to as “Bram Stoker Award® Nominees” until the Final Ballot is formally announced on February 23, 2020. 

Our voting members will vote on these Preliminary Ballots, beginning February 1, 2020 with voting closing on February 15, 2020. (Only Active and Lifetime Members are eligible to vote.) Active members must have paid their 2020 dues and be in good standing as of 1/31/2020 to be eligible to vote. Renewals after that date will NOT be eligible. Log into your Wild Apricot account and pay your dues. If you’re a voting member and haven’t renewed your dues, please do so now or before January 31, 2020 if you wish to receive a ballot and vote for the 2019 awards. 

Works appearing on the Preliminary Ballot are NOT “Bram Stoker Award® Nominees” and authors, editors, publishers, and others should not refer to any of these works as such – doing so is a severe breach of etiquette. Do NOT spam Voting Members, this is also a severe breach of etiquette and voting members tend to notice such breaches and may consider them when determining which works to vote for on the Ballot.

The Preliminary Ballot will be sent to Lifetime and Active Members on February 1, 2020. If you are an Active or Lifetime Member and do NOT receive your electronic Ballot link by February 3rd, please first check your spam/junk mail filter, make sure your email address is updated in Wild Apricot, and then email Brad C. Hodson at admin@horror.org with a brief message about the issue. Note that Ballots are sent to the same email address as the Newsletter and the Internet Mailer. It is the responsibility of Members to keep their email address up to date in Wild Apricot or by advising the administrator of any issues with your membership account at admin@horror.org. Late Ballots cannot be accepted under any circumstances.

If your work (you are the author, agent, editor, publisher, or publicist) appears on the ballot and you wish to provide a link allowing Voting Members only to read the work, there will be a SPECIAL PRELIMINARY BALLOT INTERNET MAILER issued on or around January 25. Please email the Internet Mailer editor at imailer@horror.org with the details as soon as possible but no later than January 25 (links will not be accepted for this Special IM after January 25). You may offer contact information to send electronic copies, provide reading copies on a website,or list a link for download. Anyone validly representing a work appearing on the Preliminary Ballot may submit via this method whether they are HWA members or not (this includes the author, agent, editor, publisher or publicist of the work). 

You may also post the fact that your work is available to be read for Bram Stoker Award® consideration ONCE, and only once, here: http://www.horrorwritersassociation.org/login-forum/(Bram Stoker Eligible Work). If you had already posted your work here prior to the announcement of the Preliminary Ballot you ARE entitled to post it again. Note: Only members may post at this Forum but members are encouraged to post on behalf of non-members who may appear on the Ballot. You may also offer your work for Bram Stoker Award® consideration ONCE, and only once, here: http://hwa46.wildapricot.org/page-1683782 Listed in the Wild Apricot menu as “Works for Consideration”. 

The Final Ballot (Bram Stoker Award® Nominees for the 2019calendar year) will be announced on February 23, 2020. With that announcement, there will be dates and instructions listed for the Nominees and Voting Membership. 

Please direct any questions regarding the Preliminary Ballot to stokerchair@horror.org

Any questions regarding your membership/account information to admin@horror.org

If your work appears on the Preliminary Ballot and you have any questions or want to provide information for the Special Preliminary Ballot Internet Mailer write to imailer@horror.org