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On the Night Border on Bram Stoker Award Preliminary Ballot

I’m honored and thrilled to see that On the Night Border, published by Raw Dog Screaming Press, appears on the Bram Stoker Awards® Preliminary Ballot! It’s wonderful to see this collection continue to receive such a positive response from readers and the horror community! Congratulations to all those whose work appears on the ballot. This is a pretty amazing list, which I’ve posted here in full, and if you’re looking for some great horror you will certainly find it here.

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)

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)

Jones, Stephen – Best New Horror #29 (PS 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: The Definition of Body is Buried (Raw Dog Screaming Press) 

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Carl Kolchak Approves!

I took Kolchak the Night Stalker: The Forgotten Lore of Edgar Allan Poe to the New York Comic Con last weekend–and crossed paths with Carl Kolchak in the flesh! Carl was thrilled to see his adventures chronicled in the graphic novel and happily posed for a quick snap. Kolchak is back, baby!

Carl Kolchak picks up a copy of Kolchak the Night Stalker: The Forgotten Lore of Edgar Allan Poe at NY Comic Con 2018.

Kolchak the Night Stalker: The Forgotten Lore of Edgar Allan Poe and other books on display at the Horror Writers Association booth at the 2018 New York Comic Con.

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The HWA’s Silver Hammer!

It’s with great honor I announce that I will be this year’s recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Silver Hammer Award! Many thanks to Lisa Morton and the board of the HWA.

From the HWA:

The Horror Writers Association announces James Chambers as the 2016 Silver Hammer Award recipient. Chambers will receive the award at StokerCon 2017 held on the Queen Mary in Long Beach, CA. “I enjoy the work I do for the HWA,” Chambers commented, “and I appreciate the opportunity to pitch in and help out the group and other writers.”

HWA presents the Silver Hammer Award in recognition of extraordinary volunteerism by a member who dedicates valuable time and effort to the organization. The award is determined by HWA’s Board of Trustees. Chambers has a long history of offering his time, services, and industry expertise to the international writers’ organization. He committed a tremendous amount of time to HWA in 2016, then took on a further role as co-chair of 2018 StokerCon. HWA President, Lisa Morton, stated: “I just can’t imagine the HWA without him.”

For the full press release, click here!

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An Interview with Emma Audsley of The Horrifically Horrifying Blog

Last month the Horror Writers Association newsletter published my interview with Emma Audsley as part of the Fresh Blood interview series, which spotlights new members. Emma Audsley is editor of The Horrifically Horrifying Blog and founder of Screaming Spires Publishing. I interviewed Emma via e-mail about her work as an author, editor, and joining the HWA for the following article, originally published in the HWA Newsletter, October 2013, Volume 23, Issue 159.

Emma Audsley traces her love of horror back to her childhood years, growing up in a Royal Air Force (RAF) camp until age six when she moved to Manchester. One constant in her life was her love of reading and especially of the horror genre. “Bram Stoker had lead onto Stephen King and just swept me away after that! I’d grown up writing little stories.”

The horror genre is the only genre that has kept her interest throughout her life. The genre attracts Emma because it allows her to “explore all of the central and essential aspects of life safely. This can offer you a deeper perspective upon those aspects that are usually a little tricky to explore head on; death, loss, threats to survival, insanity. You can oversee a character’s plight through the most terrible things that could ever possibly imagine and allow your brain to formulate ideas upon which they could fight back, or perish depending on how you want the ending to be!”

Her love of books and stories led her to study literature and psychology in college. Then, about seven years ago, she returned to the pursuit of writing and editing, reading the work of some of her author friends. After offering advice on their works in progress, she moved on to beta reading and critiquing their work. A course on editing and copy writing followed, and she continued reading for friends, or as Emma put it, “using them as guinea pigs…willing guinea pigs, don’t worry!”

Her first paid edit work came after she completed her course when she connected with David Youngvist of Dark Continents Press. Emma worked on Southern Fried Ghosts, David’s non-fiction collection of accounts of supposed actual hauntings in the American South, a region with a rich tradition of supernatural and ghostly folklore. In addition to editing, Emma contributed some research to the project.

“I love to help,” Emma says about editing. “I’m happy to go above and beyond my call to assist a writer when they’re doing it for the right reasons. It’s a scary thing, releasing your own work, especially if the writer is new to the field. When creativity is to flourish it needs all the essentials to grow, I just help with the watering and pruning… I try to close the gap between editors, agents, and mentors to offer all the support I can.”

After settling into freelance editing novels for a while, Emma decided to challenge herself yet again.

“I started The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog in October 2011, on Halloween just to be as corny as I could get!” Online at http://thehorrificallyhorrifyinghorrorblog.com/, The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog boasts the goal of “Inspiring Ghouls of the Fictional World of Horror Everywhere.” The blog features reviews of books and movies, author interviews, writing resources, articles on writing, picture prompts for writers, and several other features.

With the blog up and running, Emma took another big step, making the leap from editor to publisher when she founded Screaming Spires Publishing in the summer of 2012. “I’m currently editing our first anthology When Darkness Calls, a charity publication. It’s to benefit children with autism, something very close to my heart as my own two children are autistic.” Calling on the many friends she’d made through her editing work and The Horrifically Horrifying Blog, Emma found it easy to assemble her first anthology. “I had many friends who wanted to contribute. I’d asked some friends, such as Gary McMahon, Graham Masterton, Allison Littlewood, and Ramsey Campbell if they would consider contributing a short story of good old-fashioned horror…they all came through for me.”

Co-editor of the anthology, Mark Waddington, “started out the same way I did; editing for fun! Donnie Light offered his services as the formatter. As for the cover art and press logo Daniele Serra has been a lifesaver. I’ve always admired his work and when I’d asked for his help he had the initial cover ideas ready in an hour. Ellen Datlow has been a wealth of knowledge too. She’s a great friend and advisor.” With work moving ahead steadily, When Darkness Calls is scheduled for publication this December as Screaming Spire’s inaugural release.

Emma’s work on the anthology has coincided with a difficult time in her life, and she credits the friendship and support of those involved with the project as helping her through it. “I had to have an operation in a cancer unit in late October [2012]. I’d been told it was secondary skin cancer, a melanoma. Thankfully it wasn’t secondary. The surgeons got all of it. But there was a problem with the surgery and some nerves in my leg were severed accidentally. The anthology, my family, and my friends all came through for me, supporting me all the way through being in a wheelchair permanently.” Now starting physical therapy, Emma hopes to regain at least partial use of her leg. There are no guarantees of success, but so far she’s attended a couple of book launches walking with a knee brace and a walking stick.

Another personal challenge for her as an editor and publisher stems from a head injury she received during a physical attack back in 2000. “I developed epilepsy. It’s uncontrollable. My only hope of a more “normal” life will be CAN surgery. Obviously seizures take your consciousness away, and this does get in the way of my working life. But I work around it, over the years I’ve developed little tips and tricks in maintaining my health and well-being to the best of my abilities. That’s what you just have to do; adapt, adopt, and change anything you can. But it is possible to still do what you yearn to do, there’s nothing like a strong will to get you to where you need to be.”

 Most recently, Emma has endorsed a book by Craig Saunders, The Walls of Madness, published by Crowded Quarantine.

Although Emma admits, “I never seem to finish my own fiction!” she has accomplished much in only a few years, overcoming major health issues to launch two publishing ventures and earn a reputation as an excellent editor. Her next big project on the horizon is a collaborative novel with some of her anthology contributors to be written in 2014.

Emma joined the HWA to become more active in the horror community. The HWA is “such a fantastic source of information and support for writers and professionals with everything to offer. From support and advice on every aspect of writing, to the overseeing of projects, and the awards ceremony is, of course, the highlight… I think it’s great to have such a strong association with so many other professionals involved making sure the pulse of the genre stays strong and steady.”

“I want to become more involved practically within the HWA, it’s vital to keep writers doing what they do best. What would we do without these fantastical worlds they create? Obviously I’d like to…further my skills and capabilities whilst being fully supported within the structure of the association, offer help to writers in need, and help the HWA go from strength to strength, become a part of the  various programs on offer in support of professionals and those seeking to develop their own voice within the genre. Maybe join the board one day? <smiles cheekily>.”

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Halloween Haunts Update

If you haven’t checked out the Halloween Haunts event running this month on the Horror Writers Association Dark Whispers blog, hop over there fast before Halloween is over and all the good candy is gone! Some great posts are still to come, with more book giveaways and a B&N Nook loaded with free novels to be given away on Halloween. The entire month of posts, interviews, and excerpts are still available on the site. And if you missed my Halloween tale, The Dead Have the Best Candy, which kicked things off, you still find it here.

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Halloween with the Horror Writers Association

For about the last two months, I’ve been working on a special project for the Horror Writers Association: HWA Halloween Haunts.

Thirty-one special blog posts for the thirty-one days of October. Horror writers blogging about Halloween and the HWA, about the nuts and bolts of writing, about their books and projects, all to celebrate Halloween and horror writing for the month of October. I’ve been working with a great group of writers–novelists, short fiction writers, poets, screenwriters, non-fiction writers–all of whom have generously donated their time, words, pictures, and in some cases books and e-books that we’ll be giving away throughout the month. It launches today on the HWA blog, Dark Whispers.

The first post is mine, The Dead Have the Best Candy, a true Halloween story.

With posts and interviews from people such as Bruce Boston, Ellen Datlow, Gabreille Faust, Don D’Auria, Nancy Holder, John Hornor Jacobs, Jonathan Maberry and Janice Bashman, Nick Mamatas, Lisa Morton, Weston Ochse, Norman Prentiss, Anne K. Schwader, Matthew Warner, and many others, Halloween Haunts will be the scariest thing going on the Web this Halloween. I encourage you to drop by, check it out, and enter for a giveaway.