2018 Bram Stoker Awards preliminary ballot

The Horror Writers Association have announced the Preliminary Ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards®. I am absolutely thrilled to be included in the Fiction Collection Category with “All the Fabulous Beasts”, alongside writers whose work I admire.

Congratulations to everyone on the list.

Votes will be cast on the preliminary ballot and a nominee shortlist announced in February 2019. The winners will be announced in May at StokerCon2019 in Michigan.

Superior Achievement in a Novel
del Toro, Guillermo and Kraus, Daniel – The Shape of Water (Feiwel & Friends)
Di Orazio, Paolo – Dark Mary (Independent Legions Publishing)
Katsu, Alma – The Hunger (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
King, Stephen – The Outsider (Scribner)
Maberry, Jonathan – Glimpse (St. Martin’s Press)
Malerman, Josh – Unbury Carol (Del Rey)
Manzetti, Alessandro – Naraka (Independent Legions Publishing)
Oates, Joyce Carol – Hazards of Time Travel (Ecco)
Reid, Iain – Foe (Gallery/Scout Press)
Saadawi, Ahmed – Frankenstein in Baghdad: A Novel (Penguin Books)
Stoker, Dacre and Barker, J.D. – Dracul (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Tremblay, Paul – The Cabin at the End of the World (William Morrow)
Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Barsa, Michael – The Garden of Blue Roses (Underland Press)
Fine, Julia – What Should Be Wild (Harper)
Gordon, Jerry – Breaking the World (Apex Book Company)
Grau, T.E. – I Am the River (Lethe Press)
Kiste, Gwendolyn – The Rust Maidens (Trepidatio Publishing)
Lieske, Ryan – Fiction (Burning Willow Press, LLC)
Lye, Harriet Alida – The Honey Farm: A Novel (Liveright)
Setchfield, Nick – The War in the Dark (Titan Books)
Sorensen, Chris – The Nightmare Room (Harmful Monkey Press)
Stage, Zoje – Baby Teeth (St. Martin’s Press)
Tremblay, Tony – The Moore House (Twisted Publishing)
Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel
Alameda, Courtney – Pitch Dark (Feiwel & Friends)
Ernshaw, Shea – The Wicked Deep (Simon Pulse-Simon & Schuster)
Heidicker, Christian McKay – Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Ireland, Justina – Dread Nation (Balzer + Bray)
Kane, Dani – Wormholes: Book One of Axles and Allies (Barking Deer Press)
Legrand, Claire – Sawkill Girls (Katherine Tegen Books)
Maberry, Jonathan – Broken Lands (Simon & Schuster)
Snyman, Monique – The Night Weaver (Gigi Publishing)
Watson, Mary – The Wren Hunt (Bloomsbury Publishing)
White, Kiersten – The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein (Delacorte Press)
Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel
Ahmed, Saladin – Abbott (BOOM! Studios)
Antone, Alex and Wielgosz, Dave James – Cursed Comics Cavalcade (DC Comics)
Azzarello, Brian – Moonshine Vol. 2: Misery Train (Image Comics)
Bellaire, Jordie – Redlands Volume 1: Sisters by Blood (Image Comics)
Bunn, Cullen – Bone Parish (BOOM! Studios)
Hammond, Warren and Viola, Joshua – Denver Moon: Metamorphosis (Hex Publishers LLC)
LaValle, Victor – Victor LaValle’s Destroyer (BOOM! Studios)
Lemire, Jeff – Gideon Falls Volume 1: The Black Barn (Image Comics)
Liu, Marjorie – Monstress Volume 3: Haven (Image Comics)
Pichetshote, Pornsak – Infidel (Image Comics)
Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
Bailey, Michael – Our Children, Our Teachers (Written Backwards)
Feldman, Stephanie – The Barrens (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, May/June 2018)
Fracassi, Philip – Shiloh (Lovecraft eZine Press)
Hill, Joe – You Are Released (Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales) (Scribner)
Kelley, Brent Michael – Cruce Roosters (Omnium Gatherum)
Kurtz, Ed – Black’s Red Gold (At the Mercy of Beasts) (JournalStone)
Malik, Usman T. – Dead Lovers on Each Blade, Hung (Nightmare Magazine Issue #74)
Mason, Rena – The Devil’s Throat (Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror) (Adrenaline Press)
Matthews, Mark – Body of Christ (Wicked Run Press)
Smith, Angela Yuriko – Bitter Suites (Createspace)
Sullivan, Todd – Shape Shifting Priestess of the 1,000 Year War (Schlock! Horror!) (HellBound Books Publishing LLC)
Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
Deady, Tom – “All Summers End” (Unnerving Magazine, Issue #8) (Unnerving)
Eldridge, Tori – “Life After Breath”(Running Wild Anthology of Stories Volume 2) (Running Wild Press)
English, Kary – “Cold, Silent, and Dark” (Undercurrents: An Anthology of What Lies Beneath) (WordFire Press)
Fawver, Kurt – “The Gods in Their Seats, Unblinking” (Vastarien: A Literary Journal Issue 1, Vol. 1) (Grimscribe Press)
Herrman, Heather – “The Woman in the Blue Dress” (Dark Screams: Volume Ten) (Hydra)
Landry, Jess – “Mutter” (Fantastic Tales of Terror) (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Murray, Lee – “Dead End Town”(Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2) (IFWG Publishing International)
Neugebauer, Annie – “Glove Box” (The Dark City Crime & Mystery Magazine Volume 3, Issue 4-July 2018)
Power, Kit – “Fish Hooks” (New Fears 2) (Titan Books)
Robertson, Andrew – “Her Royal Counsel”(Alice Unbound: Beyond Wonderland) (Exile Editions)
Taff, John F.D. – “A Winter’s Tale” (Little Black Spots) (Grey Matter Press)
Ward, Kyla Lee – “And in Her Eyes the City Drowned” (Weirdbook #39) (Wildside Press)
Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection
Carmen, Christa – Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked (Unnerving)
Files, Gemma – Spectral Evidence (Trepidatio Publishing)
Guignard, Eric J. – That Which Grows Wild (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Iglesias, Gabino – Coyote Songs (Broken River Books)
Niveau, Thana – Octoberland (PS Publishing Ltd)
O’Neill, Gene – Frozen Shadows: And Other Chilling Stories (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Sharma, Priya – All the Fabulous Beasts (Undertow Publications)
Smith, John Claude – Occasional Beasts: Tales (Omnium Gatherum)
Snyder, Lucy A. – Garden of Eldritch Delights (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Taff, John F.D. – Little Black Spots (Grey Matter Press)
Waggoner, Tim – Dark and Distant Voices: A Story Collection (Nightscape Press)
Superior Achievement in a Screenplay
Aster, Ari – Hereditary (PalmStar Media)
Averill, Meredith – The Haunting of Hill House: The Bent-Neck Lady, Episode 01:05 (Amblin Television, FlanaganFilm, Paramount Television)
Averill, Meredith – The Haunting of Hill House: Screaming Meemies, Episode 01:09 (Amblin Television, FlanaganFilm, Paramount Television)
Cosmatos, Panos and Stewart-Ahn, Aaron – Mandy (SpectreVision)
Dyson, Jeremy and Nyman, Andy – Ghost Stories (Warp Films, Altitude Film Entertainment, Catalyst Global Media in association with Lionsgate)
Fradley, Jeff, McBride, Danny and Green, David Gordon – Halloween (Blumhouse Productions, Miramax, Night Blade Holdings, Rough House Pictures, Trancas International Films, Universal Pictures)
Garland, Alex – Annihilation (DNA Films, Paramount Pictures, Scott Rudin Productions, Skydance Media)
Heisserer, Eric – Bird Box (Bluegrass Films, Chris Morgan Productions, Universal Pictures)
Ray, Billy and Smith, Mark L. – Overlord (Bad Robot, Paramount Pictures)
Woods, Bryan, Beck, Scott, and Krasinski, John – A Quiet Place (Platinum Dunes, Sunday Night)
Superior Achievement in an Anthology
Chambers, James, Grey, April, and Masterson, Robert – A New York State of Fright: Horror Stories from the Empire State (Hippocampus Press)
Datlow, Ellen – The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea (Night Shade Books)
Dewar, Simon – Suspended in Dusk II (Grey Matter Press)
Guignard, Eric J. – A World of Horror (Dark Moon Books)
Murano, Doug – Welcome to the Show (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Murray, Lee – Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror (Adrenaline Press)
Neal, David T. and Scott, Christine M. – The Fiends in the Furrows: An Anthology of Folk Horror (Nosetouch Press)
O’Regan, Marie – Phantoms: Haunting Tales from Masters of the Genre (Titan Books)
Ward, D. Alexander – Lost Highways: Dark Fictions from the Road (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Worthen, Lyn – Quoth the Raven (Camden Park Press)
Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction
Connolly, John – Horror Express (PS Publishing)
Cutchins, Dennis R. and Perry, Dennis R. – Adapting Frankenstein: The Monster’s Eternal Lives in Popular Culture (Manchester University Press)
Gambin, Lee – The Howling: Studies in the Horror Film (Centipede Press)
Hopton, Sarah Beth – Woman at the Devil’s Door: The Untold True Story of the Hampstead Murderess (Red Lightning Books)
Ingham, Howard David – We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror (Room 207 Press)
Jones, Darryl – Sleeping with the Lights On: The Unsettling Story of Horror (Oxford University Press)
Mynhardt, Joe and Johnson, Eugene – It’s Alive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Phillips, Kendall R. – A Place of Darkness: The Rhetoric of Horror in Early American Cinema (University of Texas Press)
Poole, W. Scott – Wasteland: The Great Ward and the Origins of Modern Horror (Counterpoint)
Wetmore Jr., Kevin J. – Uncovering Stranger Things: Essays on Eighties Nostalgia, Cynicism and Innocence in the Series (McFarland)
Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection
Boston, Bruce – Artifacts (Independent Legions Publishing)
Clark, G.O. – The Comfort of Screams (Alban Lake Publishing)
Cowen, David E. – Bleeding Saffron (Weasel Press)
Fletcher, Joe – The Hatch (Brooklyn Arts Press)
Lynch, Donna – Witches (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Shepard, Oliver – Thirteen Nocturnes (Ikonograph Press)
Simon, Marge and Manzetti, Alessandro – War (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Tantlinger, Sara – The Devil’s Dreamland (Strangehouse Books)
West, Jacqueline – Candle and Pins: Poems on Superstitions (Alban Lake Publishing)
Wren, Twyla – Gwendolyn Witch and Other Macabria (Independently Published)

The Thousand Demon Tree by Jeffrey Alan Love

If you’ve read my blog, you’ll know I’m a fan of Jeffrey Alan Love. I’ve overused words like mythic to describe his work but it’s true of his new book, “The Thousand Demon Tree”.

Jeffrey taps the primal and eternal for this story of becoming and a terrible battle. A lone man comes, led by ravens, to take up a sword. He is directed by a skull-headed figure, a star bursting in the darkness of its eye socket, before our warrior encounters his enduring, cyclical fate. It’s a story that could be from the birth of time or end of days.

It’s succinct. The tale is clear but it’s full of space and mystery, which piques the imagination. Black is rarely so eloquent. The darkness churns. Love’s night sky is textured and suggestive of faces, a pair of figure seated in one corner of the double spread, tiny in the vastness. As the story advances, the pages burn with the addition of red and then yellow.

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A quick note on Flesk Publications- the production of this book is superb. I have the duluxe edition and the binding and paper quality is just gorgeous.

My previous posts including interviews with Jeffrey Alan Love.

Jeffrey Alan Love is an award-winning artist and writer. He is the author of THE THOUSAND DEMON TREE and NOTES FROM THE SHADOWED CITY. Winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist, the British Fantasy Award for Best Artist, a gold medal from the Society of Illustrators, a Silver Spectrum Fantastic Art Award, and two Academy of British Cover Design Awards, he has been nominated for the Kate Greenaway Medal, The British Science Fiction Award and the Chesley Award. His clients have included Walker Books, DC Comics, Image Comics, The New York Times, The Washington Post, TIME, The New Yorker, Scholastic, HarperCollins, Tor, Gollancz, Ballantine Books, Candlewick Books, Small Beer Press, Del Rey and others. Born in South Carolina, he has lived in Germany, Texas, North Carolina, Nebraska, South Korea, Hawaii, Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, and California.

https://www.fleskpublications.com/

https://www.jeffreyalanlove.com/

 

Best of the Year for Vector by Dev Agarwal

A huge thanks to Dev Agarwal for including “All the Fabulous Beasts” in his round-up of 2018 for Vector. I am thrilled to be included in a list of writers that includes Aliette de Boddard, Rosanne Rabinowitz, Tim Major, Charles Stross, Christopher Priest, Penny Jones and Georgina Bruce.

Vector is the critical journal of the British Science Fiction Association, publishing articles and features on genre fiction across the world, with some focus on UK science fiction. Vector publishes two to three issues per year.

Read the full article here.

 

 

The British Invasion at Undertow Publications

Mike Kelly of Undertow Publications has gone crazy for New Year with a sale.

We are busy working on our 2019 releases, but thought we’d kick-off the new year with a sale from our back catalogue–specifically from our U.K.-based scribes. We’re offering the following five books in Trade paperback editions in a bundle and combination offer:

“All the Fabulous Beasts,” by Priya Sharma
“Skein and Bone,” by V.H. Leslie
“Almost Insentient, Almost Divine,” by DP Watt
“The Dream Operator,” by Mike O’Driscoll
“I Will Surround You,” by Conrad Williams

You can choose any combination of books you like.

Any 5 for $60.
Any 4 for $50.
Any 3 for $40.
Any 2 for $30.

Prices include shipping. Simply remit payment via PayPal (in U.S. funds) to:
undertowbooks@gmail.com. Be sure to indicate the books you want, and also a mailing address.