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Bram Stoker Final Ballot for 2018– It’s Here!

The Horror Writers Association published the final ballot for the Bram Stoker Award. Winners will be announced May 11. Stay tuned while we try to get as many of these read and reviewed before then as we can!

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LOS ANGELES – Feb. 23, 2019 – PRLog — The Horror Writers Association announces the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards® Final Ballot. The HWA is the premier organization for writers of horror and dark fantasy. “This year’s nominees demonstrate a continued lineup of quality work in the horror genre,” said Lisa Morton, HWA President. “Our members and awards juries have again chosen truly outstanding works of literature, cinema, non-fiction, and poetry.”

The presentation of the Bram Stoker Awards® will occur during the 4th annual StokerCon™, to be held at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The gala presentation will happen on Saturday night, May 11th. Tickets to the banquet and the convention are on sale to the public at http://stokercon2019.org/. The awards presentation will also be live-streamed online via the website.

Named in honor of the author of the seminal horror novel Dracula, the Bram Stoker Awards® are presented annually for superior achievement in writing in eleven categories, including traditional works of various lengths, poetry, screenplays, and non-fiction. Previous winners include Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, George R. R. Martin, Joyce Carol Oates, and Neil Gaiman. The HWA is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it. The HWA formed in 1985 with the help of many of the field’s greats, including Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and Joe R. Lansdale. The HWA is home to the prestigious Bram Stoker Award® and the annual StokerCon™ horror convention.

We proudly provide the list of talented nominees who reached the final ballot below for each category.

Superior Achievement in a Novel

Katsu, Alma – The Hunger (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Maberry, Jonathan – Glimpse (St. Martin’s Press)
Malerman, Josh – Unbury Carol (Del Rey)
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

Fine, Julia – What Should Be Wild (Harper)
Grau, T.E. – I Am the River (Lethe Press)
Kiste, Gwendolyn – The Rust Maidens (Trepidatio Publishing)
Stage, Zoje – Baby Teeth (St. Martin’s Press)
Tremblay, Tony – The Moore House (Twisted Publishing)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

Ireland, Justina – Dread Nation (Balzer + Bray)
Legrand, Claire – Sawkill Girls (Katherine Tegen Books)
Maberry, Jonathan – Broken Lands (Simon & Schuster)
Snyman, Monique – The Night Weaver (Gigi Publishing)
White, Kiersten – The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein (Delacorte Press)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

Ahmed, Saladin – Abbott (BOOM! Studios)
Azzarello, Brian – Moonshine Vol. 2: Misery Train (Image Comics)
Bunn, Cullen – Bone Parish (BOOM! Studios)
LaValle, Victor – Victor LaValle’s Destroyer (BOOM! Studios)
Liu, Marjorie – Monstress Volume 3: Haven (Image Comics)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

Bailey, Michael – Our Children, Our Teachers (Written Backwards)
Hill, Joe – You Are Released (Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales) (Scribner)
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)
Smith, Angela Yuriko – Bitter Suites (CreateSpace)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

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)
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

Files, Gemma – Spectral Evidence (Trepidatio Publishing)
Guignard, Eric J. – That Which Grows Wild (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Iglesias, Gabino – Coyote Songs (Broken River Books)
Snyder, Lucy A. – Garden of Eldritch Delights (Raw Dog Screaming 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)
Garland, Alex – Annihilation (DNA Films, Paramount Pictures, Scott Rudin Productions, Skydance Media)
Heisserer, Eric – Bird Box (Bluegrass Films, Chris Morgan Productions, Universal 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)
Guignard, Eric J. – A World of Horror (Dark Moon Books)
Murray, Lee – Hellhole: An Anthology of Subterranean Terror (Adrenaline Press)
Ward, D. Alexander – Lost Highways: Dark Fictions from the Road (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

Connolly, John – Horror Express (PS Publishing)
Gambin, Lee – The Howling: Studies in the Horror Film (Centipede Press)
Ingham, Howard David – We Don’t Go Back: A Watcher’s Guide to Folk Horror (Room 207 Press)
Mynhardt, Joe and Johnson, Eugene – It’s Alive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life (Crystal Lake Publishing)
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)
Cowen, David E. – Bleeding Saffron (Weasel Press)
Lynch, Donna – Witches (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Simon, Marge and Manzetti, Alessandro – War (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Tantlinger, Sara – The Devil’s Dreamland (Strangehouse Books)

HWA is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it. The HWA formed in 1985 with the help of many of the field’s greats, including Dean Koontz, Robert McCammon, and Joe Lansdale. Today, with over 1,500 members around the globe, it is the oldest and most respected professional organization for the much-loved writers who have brought you the most enjoyable sleepless nights of your life. The HWA is the home of the prestigious Bram Stoker Award® and the creator of the annual StokerCon™ convention.

Posted on February 24, 2019 by Kirsten, Reply

Book Review: The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste

The Rust Maidens by Gwendolyn Kiste

Journalstone. 2018

ISBN-13: 978-1947654440

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition

If there’s someone out there who is unfamiliar with Gwendolyn Kiste’s gorgeous prose of the macabre, The Rust Maidens would be a great place to start. After last year’s stellar collection, And Her Smile Will Untether The Universe, Kiste steps out with her debut novel, which rattles the soul in a disturbing, yet beautiful read.

Set in Cleveland in 1980, this tale unwinds in a muted, depressive state that feels utterly claustrophobic, brought to life by Kiste’s exquisite, yet unobtrusive, prose. A group of girls in the neighborhood has contracted an illness that defies logic and science. What begins as something relatively innocuous, dripping water from their bodies, becomes much more dangerous and frightening: skin breaking open, revealing glass-like shards and rusted metal where bones should be. The horror is quiet here, like the best of Shirley Jackson and Charles Grant, as Kiste dissects the rotting body of the area which mirrors the internal strife of the people who live within the crumbling town.

The dual narrative of our protagonist, Phoebe, past and present, is a haunting one, as she returns home to revisit the bones of what she escaped long ago. The mystery of what happened to her best friend and cousin Jacqueline looms large over both timelines. The true antagonists of this novel are vague, and should be: the women who strive to hold power of the lives on Denton Street, the government agents who appear to investigate, the Rust Maidens themselves, the self-destruction of the town.

To give away more would strip away the power of this beautifully written novel by one of the best new writers out there today, a tale both unsettling and gut-wrenching. Kiste wraps her story in a veneer that feels like a mix of rust with the dust that has settled over the dying town, and the emotional heft between the covers weighs down on the reader like the crush of a rust-riddled steel beam, suffocating in mood but resulting in a story that begs to be read and savored. Kiste is a star, and The Rust Maidens is a slam dunk as a finalist for this year’s Stoker Award.

Highly recommended for lovers of any any genre.

Reviewed by David Simms

Posted on February 17, 2019 by Kirsten, Reply

Musings: Valentw’een Dinner Dates

Maybe you are cynical about Valentine’s Day, or just not into cutesy pink hearts and Valentine’s tchotckes that basically have no purpose except to commemorate an arbirtrarily chosen date but that you can’t get rid of. Like my son got me this giant plush white bear holding an embroidered plush heart…

There are options. Maybe you celebrate Galentine’s Day, and go out with your girlfriends. Or, alternatively, if you love a good scare, you could take some inspiration from artist Brandy Stark, and celebrate Valentwe’en. Brandy celebrates by holding an art show and a ghost tour. On the Valentwe’en Facebook page, she writes:

While the normal person celebrates Valentine’s Day with roses, romance, and chocolates, we who embrace Valentwe’en enjoy a time of dark romance, the Grim Cupid, and cuddling with fellow creatures of the night. For those who have longed for a second Halloween, your entreaties have been answered! Valentwe’en offers the fun of bonding for couples merged with the thrill of supernatural intrusions. It is a true collision of these two candy-filled holidays, a spiraling combination of love and death, sweetness and suspense. Valentwe’en falls on the first full moon of February or it may be held February 13th. It consists of offering black flowers to one’s love (especially black calla lilies), Halloween-themed candy, and becoming entranced by movies from genres of horror, dark romance, or dark romantic comedy. This holiday is still evolving, so the rest of the celebration is up to you!

Not being a person who does a great job tracking the phases of the moon or even dates on a calendar, my plan is to celebrate today. I’m a laid-back sort of person (meaning that I forgot to make plans) but it’s just me and two tweens on a school night, so Oreo fudge and a mildly scary family movie are about all I’ll be up to. If you want to put a little more energy into it, here are some literary ideas you can explore with the one you love (or at least love to eat candy with).

One thing that’s pretty awesome is that there are many Gothic and horror-themed books that have been made into movies and that also involve a memorable meal. One of the most interesting of these is Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris, which was made into a movie that was originally released on Valentine’s Day, and has a well-known line from Hannibal Lecter:

Well, okay, maybe that is not the dinner you want to recreate. You could come up with a nice Italian red, though. You all might need that more than dinner while watching this movie, anyway.

If you want to prepare something more elegant, you will find a carefully researched, surprisingly elaborate meal fit for a vampire when Diana Bishop first invites Matthew Clairmont to dinner, in chapter 12 of A Discovery of Witches, the first book in the All Souls Trilogy by Deborah Harkness: smoked salmon with dill, capers, and gherkins; Riesling; thinly sliced raw vension; beets with shaved Parmesan; red wine; seared rabbit spiced with rosemary, celery, pepper; a biscuit made from ground chestnuts; berries, cheese, and roasted chestnuts. Diana may not know true love, but the meal truly is a labor of love. Matthew manages to consume everything except the beets. Although I do know people who would be delighted to eat their meat raw, if your company doesn’t belong to that group, they might still go for the smoked salmon, berries, cheese, and nuts, with plenty of wine. “Wine tastes wonderful,” Matthew says, and so long as you have plenty of that, you can stream A Discovery of Witches, now on Shudder and Sundance Now, with the one you love.

Maybe you’d rather have a night out? It would take some planning, because you’d have to get there, and reservations are suggested, but you could have a night out at The Beetle House, a Halloween/Tim Burton-themed restaurant with locations in New York and Los Angeles. I’m not sure how unique the dishes actually are, but their names are catchy, and it sounds like the waitstaff dresses in character. Chef Zach Neil said,

“The idea was simple. Create a space where people who love Halloween, horror films, and Gothic dark music can gather for a meal and drinks. A safe space where it really feels like Halloween all year round and people can come and enjoy good food, good drinks, listen to good music, and feel completely comfortable to be as freaky as they want to be. This would be my home for the freaks, weirdos, and grown up Goth kids of the city.”

Zach also has a cookbook now, The Nightmare Before Dinner, so if you can’t get out to the coasts, you can at least recreate the food (and with planning, the atmosphere). Treat yourselves with a macabre meal and follow it up with the Tim Burton movie of your choice. Or any scary movie.

Whatever you choose, we hope you go into it with your whole heart, like Horatio, here. Happy Valentwe’en from all of us at Monster Librarian.
Happy Valentwe'en!