RA for All is at StokerCon and I Have All the Details and Even Some Goodies for Everyone, No Matter Where You Are This Weekend

Click here to enter the StokerCon 2025 website

StokerCon 205 begins today in Stamford, CT. Here is what is going on over the next few days and ways you can get in on the fun from home.

I got there yesterday and will be presenting on a panel today-- Thursday-- about how to be a better juror for the Stoker Awards. My part is that I have created a training video for those who want to serve on a jury.

Friday the 13th is Librarians' Day which is a full day of CE training for library workers and Konrad Stump and I are overseeing a great team.

Librarians' Day is Sponsored by The University of Pittsburgh Libraries, LibraryReads, and NoveList and there are representatives from all three organizations there as part of the day. You can click here to see the full StokerCon Librarians' Day schedule.

Most of the day are panels but there is a Book Buzz and I have the link with the panelists and their picks. Thanks to Emily Vinci for organizing the panel and making the great slides. There are 24 horror books coming soon, all picked by Horror experts. These slides are collection development and horror suggestion GOLD! And we are sharing them with all of you.

Please note, we will also be encouraging everyone to vote for these titles for LibraryReads as well. Their release dates are on the slides. You should consider voting for thees titles as well. Click here for those slides. Click here for directions from LibraryReads on how to vote.

Saturday, the library team is giving a panel for HWA members about how to work with your library better. I will be in the audience for that one, but I did a version of this panel as part of a pre-taped virtual presentation. We are hoping to use that pre-recorded video to help connect libraries and authors going forward. Look for more information about that coming soon.

Saturday night the Bram Stoker Awards will be broadcast live on YouTube here. You can watch past awards shows there as well. Please note, these are the 2024 Bram Stoker Award presented in 2025. 

And here is the BIG NEWS-- I am giving the keynote address for the ceremony. It is entitled, "Why We Need Horror Authors in the Fight For the Freedom to Read." It is a plea to the authors to get their butts to their local library and school board meetings to speak up for the freedom to read BEFORE there are problems in their communities.

The blogs will be off until Monday, but I will be back with the full text of my keynote address so that everyone can use it to help inspire others in their communities to speak out as well. More about that Monday.

Please go to the StokerCon 2025 website to learn more about the full slate of actives and panels.

#HorrorForLibraries Giveaway: Lucky Day by Chuck Tingle

Today I have an ARC of a book which I starred in the June 2025 issue of Booklist and it is a title all libraries should be ordering. Details below but first, here are the rules on how to enter:

1. You need to be affiliated with an American Library. My rationale behind that is that I will be encouraging you to read these books and share them with patrons. While many of them are advanced reader copies that you cannot add to your collections, if you get the chance to read them, my hope is that you will consider ordering a copy for your library and give away the ARC away as a prize or pass it on to a fellow staff member.
2. If you are interested in being included in any giveaway at any time, you must email me at zombiegrl75 [at] gmail [dot] com with the subject line "#HorrorForLibraries." In the body of the email all you have to say is that you want to be entered and the name of your library.
3. Each entry will be considered for EVERY giveaway. Meaning you enter once, and you are entered until you win. I will randomly draw a winner on Fridays sometime after 5pm central. But only entries received by 5pm each week will be considered for that week. I use Random.org and have a member of my family witness the "draw"based off your number in the Google Sheet.
4. If you win, you are ineligible to win again for 4 weeks; you will have to re-enter after that time to be considered [I have a list of who has won, when, and what title]. However, if you do not win, you carry over into the next week. There is NO NEED to reenter.

Click here for the previous giveaway. Our winner was Juli from Utah. Now on to this week's giveaway. 

I had the opportunity to read and review one of the most hotly anticipated books of the summer and I can tell you, it is worth the hype. I gave it a star in the June 2025 issue of Booklist. You can access that review along with a lot of bonus info on the main blog here. But below I have the draft review and my three words.  

STAR

Lucky Day

By Chuck Tingle July 2025. 304p. Tor Nightfire, $27.99 (9781250398659);

e-book (9781250398666). First published June 1, 2025 (Booklist).

Tingle’s latest is an absurd romp, but underneath the off-the-wall mayhem lies his most sophisticated work to date. Vera, a statistics professor, is celebrating the release of her first book– about a casino in Las Vegas where, impossibly, the odds are tipped in the visitor’s favor– when the world experiences the Low Probability Event [LEP], a convergence of the most unlikely things that kills almost 8 million people. Four years later, as Vera is still struggling to come to terms with what happened, Federal LEP Agent Layne convinces her to join the investigation into how the casino is involved. Vera must overcome her own worst fears and use her mathematical gifts to rebalance the scales of luck before it is too late. Tingle brilliantly allows the more bonkers and visceral scenes to give readers the space and time necessary to emotionally handle the existentially bleak and terrifying reality staring them in the face. Even if “nothing” matters, readers know not to fear because love always wins when Tingle is in charge. For fans of satirical, tongue-firmly- planted-in-cheek speculative works as wide ranging as Everett’s Dr. No, Fforde’s Lost in a Good Book, and the novels of Jason Pargin.

Three Words That Describe This Book: existentially terrifying, absurdly fun, bleak undertones despite love winning

Get on this book. It is Tingle's best Nightfire novel to date. I also think it is a great introduction to the ideas and concepts of Cosmic Horror as well.

Thank you to Anthony at Tor Library Marketing for the ARC to give away to one of you. 

Enter once and you are entered going forward. Speaking of going forward, there will be no giveaway next week because I will be at StokerCon. 

However, I will also be getting some more ARCs while there too. Plus I have many from the June LJ column already. In other words, I have lots of big name books to give away. Including ARCs of WHY I LOVE HORROR which I will sign and personalize for people. AND, to make up for nothing next week, I will have at least 2 giveaways in 2 weeks. So get those entries in!

See you back here on the 19th. Good luck!