Bram Stoker Award® Nominees

The Horror Writers Association has released a list of nominees for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards® to highlight the best of horror fiction for 2015. The nominees are as follows:

Superior Achievement in a Novel

• Clive Barker – The Scarlet Gospels (St. Martin’s Press)
• Michaelbrent Collings – The Deep (self-published)
• JG Faherty – The Cure (Samhain Publishing)
• Patrick Freivald – Black Tide (JournalStone Publishing)
• Paul Tremblay – A Head Full of Ghosts (William Morrow)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• Courtney Alameda – Shutter (Feiwel & Friends)
• Nicole Cushing – Mr. Suicide (Word Horde)
• Brian Kirk – We Are Monsters (Samhain Publishing)
• John McIlveen – Hannahwhere (Crossroad Press)
• John Claude Smith – Riding the Centipede (Omnium Gatherum)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• Jennifer Brozek – Never Let Me Sleep (Permuted Press)
• Michaelbrent Collings – The Ridealong (self-published)
• John Dixon – Devil’s Pocket (Simon & Schuster)
• Tonya Hurley – Hallowed (Simon & Schuster)
• Maureen Johnson – The Shadow Cabinet (Penguin)
• Ian Welke – End Times at Ridgemont High (Omnium Gatherum)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• Cullen Bunn – Harrow County, Vol. 1: Countless Haints (Dark Horse Comics)
• Victor Gischler – Hellbound (Dark Horse Books)
• Robert Kirkman – Outcast, Vol. 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him (Image Comics)
• Scott Snyder – Wytches, Vol. 1 (Image Comics)
• Sam Weller, Mort Castle, Chris Ryall, & Carlos Guzman (editors) – Shadow Show: Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury (IDW Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• Gary A. Braunbeck – "Paper Cuts" (Seize the Night) (Gallery Books)
• Lisa Mannetti – "The Box Jumper" (Smart Rhino Publications)
• Norman Partridge – "Special Collections" (The Library of the Dead) (Written Backwards)
• Mercedes M. Yardley – "Little Dead Red" (Grimm Mistresses) (Ragnarok Publications)
• Scott Edelman – "Becoming Invisible, Becoming Seen" (Dark Discoveries #30)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• Kate Jonez – All the Day You’ll Have Good Luck (Black Static #47)
• Gene O’Neill – The Algernon Effect (White Noise Press)
• John Palisano – Happy Joe’s Rest Stop (18 Wheels of Horror) (Big Time Books)
• Damien Angelica Walters – Sing Me Your Scars (Sing Me Your Scars) (Apex Publications)
• Alyssa Wong – Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers (Nightmare Magazine #37)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• Guillermo del Toro & Matthew Robbins – Crimson Peak (Legendary Pictures)
• John Logan – Penny Dreadful: And Hell Itself My Only Foe (Showtime)
• John Logan – Penny Dreadful: Nightcomers (Showtime)
• David Robert Mitchell – It Follows (Northern Lights Films)
• Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement – What We Do in the Shadows (Unison Films)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• Michael Bailey – The Library of the Dead (Written Backwards)
• Ellen Datlow – The Doll Collection: Seventeen Brand-New Tales of Dolls (Tor Books)
• Christopher Golden – Seize the Night (Gallery Books)
• Nancy Kilpatrick and Caro Soles – nEvermore! (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing)
• Jonathan Maberry – The X-Files: Trust No One (IDW Publishing)
• Joseph Nassise and Del Howison – Midian Unmade (Tor Books)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• Gary A. Braunbeck – Halfway Down the Stairs (JournalStone Publishing)
• Nicole Cushing – The Mirrors (Cycatrix Press)
• Taylor Grant – The Dark at the End of the Tunnel (Cemetery Dance Publications)
• Gene O’Neill – The Hitchhiking Effect (Dark Renaissance Books)
• Lucy A. Snyder – While the Black Stars Burn (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

• Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks (ed.) – The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales: The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)
• Stephen Jones – The Art of Horror (Applause Theatre & Cinema Books)
• Michael Knost – Author’s Guide to Marketing with Teeth (Seventh Star Press)
• Joe Mynhardt & Emma Audsley (editors) – Horror 201: The Silver Scream (Crystal Lake Publishing)
• Danel Olson – Studies in the Horror Film: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (Centipede Press)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• Bruce Boston – Resonance Dark and Light (Eldritch Press)
• Alessandro Manzetti – Eden Underground (Crystal Lake Publishing)
• Ann Schwader – Dark Energies (P’rea Press)
• Marge Simon – Naughty Ladies (Eldritch Press)
• Stephanie M. Wytovich – An Exorcism of Angels (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

The awards will be handed out during the inaugural StokerCon™ in Las Vegas, Nevada, on May 14, 2016. In addition, life-time achievement awards will be presented to George A. Romero and Alan Moore. For more information, please visit the Horror Writers Association website.

Congratulations to all of the nominees!

New TV Series Based on Romero's Empire of the Dead

 

If you're a fan of George A. Romero and the cult classic Night of the Living Dead, you'll be pleased to know that a television series based on his Marvel graphic novel series Empire of the Dead is forthcoming. The graphic novel has not only zombies, but vampires. Romero is co-writer and co-executive producer for the new series.

It will be interesting to see how this new series compares to The Walking Dead, of which Romero has been outwardly dismissive.

Stay tuned for more information...

(Source: Horror News Network:  http://www.horrornewsnetwork.net/articles/12930-george-a-romero-s-empire-of-the-dead-getting-tv-series-cannes?Itemid=101)

Upcoming Horror Fiction

 Here are some upcoming horror novels for spring and summer that you might like to check out.

Within These Walls by Ania Ahlborn - This supernatural thriller questions how far an individual would go for success, and what  he would be capable of if the promise of forever was real. (Release Date: April 21)

Also by the same author, Brother, the tale of a teenager trying to break free of his family's deeply-disturbing traditions that involve missing young girls and screams in the night. (Release Date: September 8).

Deep in the heart of Appalachia stands a crooked farmhouse miles from any road. The Morrows keep to themselves, and it’s served them well so far. When girls go missing off the side of the highway, the cops don’t knock on their door. Which is a good thing, seeing as to what’s buried in the Morrows’ backyard.

But nineteen-year-old Michael Morrow isn’t like the rest of his family. He doesn’t take pleasure in the screams that echo through the trees. Michael pines for normalcy, and he’s sure that someday he’ll see the world beyond West Virginia. - See more at: http://books.simonandschuster.co.uk/Brother/Ania-Ahlborn/9781476783734#sthash.b1oKsOJ3.dpuf

Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero and Susanna Sparrow - This novel is based on the cult movie classic of the same name and is being re-issued with an introduction by Simon Pegg. Zombies have overpowered the living and ravaged the world. Society has collapsed as humans race to save themselves. There are four survivors with nowhere to hide who must face a final showdown with these monsters. (Release Date: June 2)

[Adapted from a post on The Baryon Review (Barry R. Hunter) and supplemented by book descriptions from Barnes & Noble]

Stay tuned for more new releases next week!:

The Legacy of Richard Matheson

Richard Matheson has died at the age of 87, but his literary influence will continue to live on. Ray Bradbury called Matheson one of the most important writers of the 20th century. In 2012 the Horror Writers Association bestowed a Bram Stoker Award on Matheson for the "vampire novel of the century", I am Legend. This novel had three screen adaptations, as well as inspiring George  A. Romero's 1968 classic,  Night of the Living Dead. Stephen King, who cites Matheson as his greatest influence, dedicated his novel Cell to Matheson and Romero. Harlan Ellison has acknowledged his huge debt to Richard Matheson, and the younger Spielberg was indebted to Matheson for writing the story and screenplay for Spielberg's 1971 film Duel. More recently, Joe Hill and Stephen King co-authored a story entitled “Throttle,” which was inspired by Matheson's story. Matheson adapted Edgar Allan Poe stories for film director Roger Corman and wrote 16 episodes of The Twilight Zone.  He also wrote the screenplay for the movie The Incredible Shrinking Man, which was based upon his novel, originally entitled The Shrinking Man. In addition to his well-known novels, he was credited as a writer on at least 80 film and television productions over his career, which spanned seven decades.

 Matheson saw the potential for horror in everyday life and once stated that there were "no crypt[s] or castles or H.P. Lovecraft-type environments [in his works]. They were just about normal people who had something bizarre happening to them in the neighborhood.”


For tributes to Richard Matheson, please see his obituary in The Guardian at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/25/richard-matheson-i-am-legend and the books blog at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2013/jun/25/i-am-legend-author-richard-matheson.