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!

Remembering Rocky Wood

Photo courtesy of Rocky Wood Official Website

Rocky Wood, the president of the Horror Writers Association, died on December 1, 2014, after battling ALS, often referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, since 2010. If you watch the video of the 2014 Bram Stoker Awards banquet, you will see Rocky Wood in attendance in a wheelchair, remaining, as always, extremely active in support of horror writers in spite of his debilitating illness.


Rocky Wood was considered the foremost authority on Stephen King, and he published extensive research on King, as well as a collection of his previously unpublished works.  He won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction for Stephen King: A Literary Companion. King once commented that Rocky Wood knew his work better than he himself did. In fact, King called upon Rocky Wood's research skills to ensure continuity between The Shining and Doctor Sleep.

Rocky Wood also wrote graphic novels, and he won a Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement on a Graphic Novel in 2012 for Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times, which examined the witch hunting phenomenon in Europe and New England.

Lisa Morton, a long-time friend and admirer of Rocky who co-authored his award-winning graphic novel on witch hunts, is the new HWA president. In an open letter to HWA members, she speaks of his kindness, his strong support for women's rights, and his devotion to charities, including his work at local animal shelters. Ms. Morton describes him as a master of organization, who worked tirelessly to encourage young writers and to expand the HWA volunteer base and membership. 

To share condolences with his family, please visit the guestbook at his official website.

R.I.P. Rocky Wood, 1959-2014.

Stephen Jones and R.L. Stine Recognized for Their Lifetime Achievements

           

The Horror Writers Association has announced that Stephen Jones, the distinguished British editor, and R.L. Stine, renowned for his best-selling Goosebumps series, are this year's winners of the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award.


The awards will be presented on May 10, 2014, as part of the Bram Stoker Awards® Banquet at the World Horror Convention 2014 in Portland, Oregon. For more information on this year's awards and convention, please visit http://www.horror.org/stokers2014/laa.html.

Past Bram Stoker Award Winner Bentley Little

As promised in my last post, I'll be looking at some past Bram Stoker Award winners (in no particular order) over the next two months. This week's post features the prolific novelist and short story writer Bentley Little. I've read only one of his novels, but it stayed with me, and he's definitely on my "to-read more of" list.

Various biographies of Bentley Little point out that he was born a month after his mother attended the world premiere of Psycho. (Is there a horror gene?)

His first novel The Revelation, which he wrote as his M.A. thesis and later published, won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel in 1990. He was also among the Best Novel nominees in 1993 for The Summoning.


In a special issue of Cemetery Dance Magazine devoted to Bentley Little, the author discusses why he enjoys writing horror fiction:

. . . Horror fiction offers an author the broadest possible canvas on which to work. I have all of the real-world subjects at my disposal that a mainstream writer does—plus the infinite realm of the supernatural. Creatively, there's nothing else that comes close to this sort of scope, which is why there is nothing I would rather be than a horror writer.

(from Cemetery Dance Magazine #64)

Little writes in the tradition of Stephen King and Dean Koontz, and he manages to make small towns and seemingly mundane situations (like belonging to a homeowners' association) downright terrifying. Stephen King has described him as "the horror poet laureate".  Little's most recent novel is The Influence, which was published in October 2013.

If you're interested in learning more about Bentley Little and his novels, please visit the Internet Speculative Fiction Database.

Horror Writers Association Announces Preliminary Ballots for 2013 Bram Stoker Awards

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced its preliminary ballots for the 2013 Bram Stoker Awards:

Superior Achievement in a Novel 
Michaelbrent Collings – Darkbound (Amazon Digital Services)
Michaelbrent Collings – The Colony: Genesis (Amazon Digital Services)
John Harwood – The Asylum (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Joe Hill – NOS4A2 (William Morrow)
Stephen King – Doctor Sleep (Scribner)
Lisa Morton – Malediction (Evil Jester Press)
Fuminori Nakamura – Evil and the Mask (Soho Crime)
Sarah Pinborough and F. Paul Wilson – A Necessary End (Shadowridge Press)
Christopher Rice – The Heavens Rise (Gallery Books)
Gord Rollo – Only the Thunder Knows (JournalStone) 

Superior Achievement in a First Novel 
L.C. Barlow – Pivot (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
Michael Bray – Whisper (Horrific Tales Publishing)
J. Lincoln Fenn – Poe (47North)
Geoffrey Girard – Cain’s Blood (Touchstone)
Kate Jonez – Candy House (Evil Jester Press)
Christian A. Larsen – Losing Touch (Post Mortem Press)
John Mantooth – The Year of the Storm (Berkley Trade)
Rena Mason – The Evolutionist (Nightscape Press)
Jonathan Moore – Redheads (Samhain Publishing)
Royce Prouty – Stoker’s Manuscript (G.P. Putnam’s Sons) 

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel 
Charles Day – The Adventures of Kyle McGerrt: Hunt for the Ghoulish Bartender (Blood Bound Books)
Patrick Freivald – Special Dead (JournalStone)
Kami Garcia – Unbreakable (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
Geoffrey Girard – Project Cain (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Hannah Jayne – Truly, Madly, Deadly (Sourcebooks Fire)
Tom Leveen – Sick (Harry N. Abrams)
Joe McKinney – Dog Days (JournalStone)
Cat Winters – In the Shadow of Blackbirds (Harry N. Abrams) 

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel 
Ed Brubaker – Fatale Book Three: West of Hell (Image Comics)
Caitlin R. Kiernan – Alabaster: Wolves (Dark Horse Comics)
Brandon Seifert – Witch Doctor, Vol. 2: Mal Practice (Image Comics)
Cameron Stewart – Sin Titulo (Dark Horse Comics)
Paul Tobin – Colder (Dark Horse Comics) 


Superior Achievement in Long Fiction 
Dale Bailey – “The Bluehole” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2013)
Gary Braunbeck – “The Great Pity” (Chiral Mad 2, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
James Chambers – Three Chords of Chaos (Dark Quest Books)
Benjamin K. Ethridge – “The Slaughter Man” (Limbus, Inc., JournalStone)
Gregory Frost – “No Others Are Genuine” (Asimov’s Science Fiction, Oct./Nov. 2013)
Greg F. Gifune – House of Rain (DarkFuse)
Eric J. Guignard – Baggage of Eternal Night (JournalStone)
Dustin LaValley – The Deceived (Thunderstorm Books)
Rena Mason – East End Girls (JournalStone)
S.P. Miskowski – Astoria (Omnium Gatherum) 

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction 
Colleen Anderson – “The Book With No End” (Bibliotheca Fantastica, Dagan Books)
Michael Bailey – “Primal Tongue” (Zippered Flesh 2, Smart Rhino Publications)
Max Booth III – “Flowers Blooming in the Season of Atrophy” (Chiral Mad 2, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
Patrick Freivald – “Snapshot” (Blood & Roses, Scarlett River Press)
David Gerrold – “Night Train to Paris” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Jan./Feb. 2013)
Lisa Mannetti – “The Hunger Artist” (Zippered Flesh 2, Smart Rhino Publications)
Samuel Marolla – “Black Tea” (Black Tea and Other Tales, Mezzotints)
Helen Marshall – “The Slipway Grey” (Chilling Tales, EDGE Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing)
John Palisano – “The Geminis” (Chiral Mad 2, CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform)
Michael Reaves – “Code 666” (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, March/April 2013)

 Superior Achievement in a Screenplay 
Fabien Adda and Fabrice Gobert – The Returned: “The Horde” (Ramaco Media I, Castelao Pictures)
Brad Falchuk – American Horror Story: Asylum: “Spilt Milk” (Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, Ryan Murphy Productions)
Bryan Fuller – Hannibal: “Apéritif” (Dino De Laurentiis Company, Living Dead Guy Productions, AXN: Original X Production, Gaumont International Television)
Daniel Knauf – Dracula: “A Whiff of Sulfur” (Flame Ventures, Playground, Universal Television, Carnival Films)
Glen Mazzara – The Walking Dead: “Welcome to the Tombs” (AMC TV) 


Superior Achievement in an Anthology 
R.J. Cavender and Boyd E. Harris (ed.) – Horror Library: Volume 5 (Cutting Block Press)
Marc Ciccarone (ed) – Blood Rites: An Invitation to Horror (Blood Bound Books)
Eric J. Guignard (ed.) – After Death… (Dark Moon Books)
Michael Knost and Nancy Eden Siegel (ed.) – Barbers & Beauties (Hummingbird House Press)
Ross E. Lockhart (ed.) – Tales of Jack the Ripper (Word Horde)
Lori Michelle (ed.) – Bleed (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing)
Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (ed.) – The Grimscribe’s Puppets (Miskatonic River Press)
Jeani Rector (ed.) – Shadow Masters: An Anthology from the Horror Zine (Imajin Books)
Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson (ed.) – Dark Visions: A Collection of Modern Horror, Volume One (Grey Matter Press) 

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection 
Nathan Ballingrud – North American Lake Monsters: Stories (Small Beer Press)
Laird Barron – The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All and Other Stories (Night Shade Books)
Max Booth III – They Might Be Demons (Dark Moon Books)
Kenneth W. Cain – Fresh Cut Tales: A Collection of Dark Fiction (Distressed Press)
James Dorr – The Tears of Isis (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing)
K. Trap Jones – The Crossroads: A Collection of Narrative Horror (Hazardous Press)
Caitlin R. Kiernan – The Ape’s Wife and Other Stories (Subterranean)
Chantal Noordeloos – Deeply Twisted (TMH Publishing)
Gene O’Neill – Dance of the Blue Lady (Bad Moon Books)
Reggie Oliver – Flowers of the Sea (Tartarus Press)
S. P. Somtow - Bible Stories for Secular Humanists (Diplodocus Press) 


Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction 
Barbara Brodman and James E. Doan (ed.) – Images of the Modern Vampire: The Hip and the Atavistic (Fairleigh Dickinson)
Gary William Crawford (ed.) – Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror (Scarecrow Press)
William F. Nolan – Nolan on Bradbury: Sixty Years of Writing about the Master of Science Fiction (Hippocampus Press)
Jarkko Toikkanen – The Intermedial Experience of Horror: Suspended Failures (Palgrave Macmillan)
Robert H. Waugh (ed.) – Lovecraft and Influence: His Predecessors and Successors (Scarecrow Press)
Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock (ed.) – The Works of Tim Burton: Margins to Mainstream (Palgrave Macmillan) 


Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection 
Vincenzo Bilof – The Horror Show (Bizarro Pulp Press)
Bruce Boston – Dark Roads: Selected Long Poems 1971-2012 (Dark Renaissance Books)
G.O. Clark – Scenes Along the Zombie Highway (Dark Regions Press)
David C. Kopaska-Merkel – Luminous Worlds (Dark Regions Press)
Helen Marshall – The Sex Lives of Monsters (Kelp Queen Press)
Marge Simon and Sandy DeLuca – Dangerous Dreams (Elektrik Milk Bath Press)
Marge Simon, Rain Graves, Charlee Jacob, and Linda Addison – Four Elements (Bad Moon Books/Evil Jester Press)
Bryan Thao Worra – Demonstra: A Poetry Collection (Innsmouth Free Press)
Stephanie M. Wytovich – Hysteria: A Collection of Madness (Raw Dog Screaming Press) 


If six or more works appear on a preliminary ballot, voting proceeds by active and lifetime members of the HWA to determine a final ballot. If there are five or less works appearing on a preliminary ballot, as is the case with the graphic novel and screenplay categories above, these works progress automatically to the final ballot, but are NOT considered nominees until the final ballot results are announced by the HWA on February 23, 2014.

Over the next month or so, we'll look at past recipients of the Bram Stoker Awards.

And stay tuned for the HWA announcement of the final ballot results!
 

 

Master of Horror, Bram Stoker

Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula

This is the third in a series of posts featuring masters of horror. In this post, I'll discuss Bram Stoker, the author of Dracula.


 Bram Stoker's Dracula

Although Bram Stoker was not the first Victorian-era writer to deal with the vampire theme, his 1897 novel Dracula is recognized as a classic in terms of its pervasive influence on the horror genre. Stoker was a prolific short story and novel writer, as well as the business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London. He was also a member of the literary staff of London's Daily Telegraph.

Prior to writing Dracula, Stoker spent several years researching European folklore and mythological stories of vampires. Like Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Stoker's novel is epistolary in form, using a series of letters and different points of view to recount the story of Count Dracula, who attains immortality by draining the blood of his victims. Dracula also deals with the themes of man's desire for immortality versus the transitory nature of his existence; his lust for forbidden knowledge; and the epic battle of good versus evil. 

The Legacy of Dracula
The legacy of this novel has been immense. The vampire has become synonymous with horror in the popular imagination, and the concept of the “Undead” (which was the original title of the novel), an evil entity that cannot be destroyed but rises up again and again, is central to the horror genre. There have been over two hundred films based on the Dracula character. In literature, the novel has influenced such diverse writers as Stephen King and Anne Rice. The Horror Writers Association bestows the Bram Stoker Awards each year for excellence in horror writing.

Internet Resources

 If you would like to [re]discover Dracula, please see the Bram Stoker website at http://bramstoker.org/ for copies of his works, as well as biographical information. Dracula is in the public domain and is available for free download through various sites on the Internet.