The 2019 Bram Stoker Award Finalists

The 2019 Bram Stoker Awards® Final Ballot Special Internet Mailer

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is pleased to release the Final Ballot for the 2019 Bram Stoker Awards®. The HWA (see http://www.horror.org/) is the premier writers organization 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 https://www.thebramstokerawards.com/).

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

2019 Bram Stoker Awards® Final Ballot

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Goingback, Owl – Coyote Rage (Independent Legions Publishing) – WINNER
Malerman, Josh – Inspection (Del Rey)
Miskowski, S.P. – The Worst is Yet to Come (Trepidatio Publishing)
Murray, Lee – Into the Ashes (Severed Press)
Wendig, Chuck – Wanderers (Del Rey)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

Amor, Gemma – Dear Laura (Independently Published)
Guignard, Eric J. – Doorways to the Deadeye (JournalStone)
Lane, Michelle Renee – Invisible Chains (Haverhill House Publishing)
Read, Sarah – The Bone Weaver’s Orchard (Trepidatio Publishing) – WINNER
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)
Gardner, Liana – Speak No Evil (Vesuvian Books)
Marshall, Kate Alice – Rules for Vanishing (Viking Books for Young Readers)
Nzondi – Oware Mosaic (Omnium Gatherum) – WINNER
Salomon, Peter Adam – Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds (PseudoPsalms Press)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Bunn, Cullen – Bone Parish Vol. 2 (BOOM! Studios)
Doran, Colleen and Gaiman, Neil – Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples (Dark Horse Books) – WINNER
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

LaValle, Victor – Up from Slavery (Weird Tales Magazine#363) (Weird Tales Inc.) – WINNER
Manzetti, Alessandro – The Keeper of Chernobyl (Omnium Gatherum)
Taborska, Anna – The Cat Sitter (Shadowcats) (Black Shuck Books)
Tantlinger, Sara – To Be Devoured (Unnerving)
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 Magazine Nov. 2019, Issue 86) – WINNER
Landry, Jess – “Bury Me in Tar and Twine” (Tales of the Lost Volume 1: We All Lose Something!) (Things in the Well Publishing)
O’Quinn, Cindy – “Lydia” (The Twisted Book of Shadows) (Twisted Publishing)
Waggoner, Tim – “A Touch of Madness”(The Pulp Horror Book of Phobias) (LVP Publications)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

Chiang, Ted – Exhalation: Stories (Knopf)
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) – WINNER

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

Aster, Ari – Midsommar (B-Reel Films, Square Peg)
Duffer, Matt and Duffer, Ross– 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)
Peele, Jordan – Us (Monkeypaw Productions, Perfect World Pictures, Dentsu, Fuji Television Network, Universal Pictures) – WINNER

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

Brozek, Jennifer – A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods (Pulse Publishing)
Datlow, Ellen – Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories (Gallery/Saga Press) – WINNER
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)
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)
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) – WINNER

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

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) – WINNER
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)
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)
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)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

Addison, Linda D. and Manzetti, Alessandro – The Place of Broken Things (Crystal Lake Publishing) – WINNER
Cade, Octavia – Mary Shelley Makes a Monster (Aqueduct Press)
Lynch, Donna – Choking Back the Devil (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Scalise, Michelle – Dragonfly and Other Songs of Mourning (LVP Publications)
Simon, Marge and Dietrich, Bryan D. – The Demeter Diaries (Independent Legions Publishing)
Wytovich, Stephanie M. – The Apocalyptic Mannequin (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Works appearing on this Ballot are Bram Stoker Award® Nominees for Superior Achievement in their Category, e.g., Novel, and everyone may refer to them as such immediately after the announcement.

Important Notes for those Appearing on the Final Ballot:

If your work appears on the Final Ballot (i.e., you are the author, agent, editor, publisher, or publicist) and you wish to provide a link allowing Voting Members to read the work, there will be a SPECIAL FINAL BALLOT INTERNET MAILER issued on or around February 25.

If your work was listed on the Special Preliminary Ballot Internet Mailer it will be relisted automatically and you need not email or query.

If it was not on the Special Preliminary Ballot IM, please email the Internet Mailer editor at imailer@horror.org with the details as soon as you can, but no later than February 24 (links will not be accepted for this Special IM after February 25). You may offer to send electronic copies; provide reading copies on a website; or provide physical copies. Anyone validly representing a work appearing on the Final Ballot may submit via this method, whether or not they are HWA members (this includes the author, agent, editor, publisher, or publicist of the work).

Do NOT spam Voting Members; this is a severe breach of etiquette – Active and Lifetime (voting) members tend to notice such breaches and may consider them when determining which works to vote for on the Ballot.

If your work appears on the Final Ballot, 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). 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”.

February 28: Stoker Final ballot dispatched – please note only Active and Lifetime Members can vote. If you are an Active or Lifetime Member and do NOT receive your electronic ballot link by March 1, please first check your spam/junk mail filter, make sure your email address is updated in Wild Apricot, then write the Ballotmaster at ballotmaster@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.

March 15: The 2020 Bram Stoker Awards® Recommendation sheet goes live and the 2020 Bram Stoker Awards® Juries open to Submissions. Members should hold any Recommendations for works published in the calendar year 2020 until the HWA Bram Stoker Award® Recommendations list is live.

Members wishing to submit work published in 2020 to the relevant Jury should read the information at the Bram Stoker Awards® website before doing so here: https://www.thebramstokerawards.com/submissions/

March 15: The Bram Stoker Awards® final ballot closes at 11:59pm U.S. Pacific Standard Time. Any ballots received after this time will be discarded.

April 18: The 2019 Bram Stoker Awards® announced during the Annual Bram Stoker Awards Banquet® held during the StokerCon™ 2020 in Scarborough, England.

Bookings and information at: https://stokercon-uk.com/ Note: Banquet Tickets are separate from the Convention Membership and should be purchased directly from the website.

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

Any questions regarding your voting ballot to ballotmaster@horror.org

Your membership/account information to admin@horror.org

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