The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced JournalStone as a Supporting Sponsor for the Bram Stoker Awards™ Weekend 2013. The Weekend Convention will be held at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans, Louisiana from 13-16 June 2013.

Christopher C. Payne, President of JournalStone said, “It is both an honor and a pleasure to support the HWA. The members and Board have been instrumental in supporting JournalStone‘s fledgling endeavor as a new publishing company. I can only hope that we as a publisher continue to live up to the expectations of the HWA and all of its members.”

HWA President Rocky Wood welcomed JournalStone’s support: “This sponsorship from genre publisher JournalStone is greatly appreciated by HWA, and I am sure by all our members. JournalStone has proven to be a highly professional and innovative genre publisher, with a strong horror line, at a time when the publishing industry is in flux. We look forward to welcoming them in New Orleans.”

There are a number of other sponsorship opportunities for the Weekend available – for more details contact president@horror.org.

Midnight Echo, the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers’ Association, has announced the line up for issue 7: The Taboo issue, due out on May 31. So if you like your addictions, your fetishes and all the other things you’ve been told not to like, slip on your latex gloves and take a peek inside. They’d love to indulge in your secret pleasures … and terrors.

Editor: Daniel Russell

Cover Art: Joshua Hoffine

Fiction

• Commode by Shaun Hamilton
• Driven by Anthony Ferguson
• Saturday Night at the Milk Bar by Gary Kemble
• Symmetry Fades by Rick McQuiston
• The Hunting Room by Kia Groom
• Brand New Day by G. N. Braun
• Dead Inertia by Sean Rodgers
• Just Some Good Old Boys Sitting Around the Fire Talking Shit by A.J Brown
• Parlour Party by Michael Penkas
• The Case of the Kissing Corpse by Jack Skelter
• My First Horror Show by Ed Higgins
• I Like to Share by Ron Jon
• Ghosts of You by Lee Battersby
• See Jane Mesmerised! by Tom McLaughlin
• The Final Degustation of Doctor Ernest Blenheim by Andrew J. McKiernan
• What the Dark Does by Graham Masterton

Poetry

• Cat by Michelle Scalise
• Pain and Pin Me Sweetly, My Love by Kurt Newton
• Pleasure me by Bec Mirr

Comic

Allure of the Ancients – The Key to His Kingdom by Mark Farrugia and Greg Chapman

Interviews

• Graham Masterton
• Joe R. Lansdale
• Joshua Hoffine

Art

• Greg Hughes
• Jason Paulos
• Joshua Hoffine

Plus a special tribute to Paul Haines.

Pre-orders for the limited edition print run can be made on the Midnight Echo website.

The Australian Horror Writers’ Association (AHWA) and creators of Midnight Echo magazine are pleased to announce that a new short story by horror legend Graham Masterton will be appearing in issue 7.

Masterton has published more than 35 horror novels in his career, his debut being The Manitou in 1976 which became an instant bestseller and was made into a motion picture. He has been awarded numerous awards and recently had a special issue of Cemetery Dance in his name.

“Graham Masterton has been a hero of mine since I first read him as a teenager. He is iconic within both the horror genre and the larger literature scene, especially here in Australia and in Europe. To have Graham in Midnight Echo is a great honour, and hopefully begins a new era for the vanguard magazine of the AHWA,” says Geoff Brown, AHWA President.

Graham’s story, “What the Dark Does,” in Midnight Echo #7 explores childhood fears that follow us into our adult lives … particular the terror of the dark, what it hides and our reluctance to reveal this childish phobia.

In addition to Graham’s story, acclaimed horror photographer and artist, Joshua Hoffine, will be providing cover art.

“Horror tells us that our belief in security is delusional, and that the monsters are all around us,” says Hoffine.

With submissions closed and the remaining stories being read, final selections will be made in the next two weeks and contracts sent to those who make the table of contents.

World Fantasy Convention 2013 has announced that Academy Award and World Fantasy Award-winning illustrator Alan Lee will be the Artist Guest of Honour in Brighton.

Alan Lee began his career working as a commercial artist, contributing work to dozens of paperback book covers, including reissues of The Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories edited by Robert Aickman and R. Chetwynd-Hayes. After moving in the mid-1970s to a small village on the edge of Dartmoor, in Devon, he shared a studio with Brian Froud and together they created the groundbreaking illustrated book Faeries.

The success of this picture book gave the artist the freedom to spend several years bringing the Celtic myth of The Mabinogion to life, and he went on to create the delicate watercolour illustrations for Castles by David Day, Michael Palin’s The Mirrorstone (in collaboration with Richard Seymour), The Moon’s Revenge by Joan Aiken and Merlin Dreams by Peter Dickinson, along with numerous book cover designs.

However, Alan Lee is best known for his association with perhaps the greatest fantasy author of all time, illustrating the 1,200-page centenary edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. Artist and author soon became inextricably linked through such collaborations as Tolkien’s World: Paintings of Middle-Earth, the 1993 J.R.R. Tolkien Calendar (and many subsequent editions), Realms of Tolkien: Images of Middle-Earth, a new edition of The Hobbit, The Children of Húrin, Tales from the Perilous Realm and David Day’s non-fiction study Tolkien’s Ring.

The artist’s work for Rosemary Sutcliff’s Black Ships Before Troy received the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award in 1993 for distinguished work in the illustration of children’s books in the UK. In 1998 he won the World Fantasy Award for Best Artist.

Alan Lee has also enjoyed an equally successful career as a conceptual designer for movies, and his credits include Legend, Erik the Viking, the Jane Yolen-scripted Merlin and the Dragons, the 2005 King Kong and the 1998 TV mini-series Merlin.

Director Peter Jackson contacted the artist to work on his acclaimed cinematic trilogy of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers and The Return of the King. After being nominated for The Two Towers the year before, in 2004 Alan Lee won an Oscar for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration for his work on The Return of the King. The artist is currently based in New Zealand, where he is working again with Jackson on the eagerly-anticipated prequels The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Hobbit: There and Back Again.

“I’m very flattered to be asked to be Artist Guest of Honor,” says Alan Lee, “and happy to accept the invitation. I’m meant to be finishing on The Hobbit movies some time this year. My work on the The Lord of the Rings films went on for six years beyond what I was originally anticipating, but even if I am still involved I can arrange my annual trip back to England to coincide with the convention. I look forward to seeing everyone in 2013!”

Alan Lee joins previously announced Author Guests of Honour Richard Matheson and Richard Christian Matheson, along with Master of Ceremonies China Miéville, in the picturesque and vibrant seaside town of Brighton, on the south coast of England, over the weekend of October 31 – November 3, 2013.

Other authors, editors, agents and artists already registered include Joe Abercrombie, John Joseph Adams, Peter Atkins, Ben Baldwin, James Barclay, Simon Bestwick, Joshua Bilmes, Holly Black, James P. Blaylock, Ginjer Buchanan, Pat Cadigan, Ramsey Campbell, Ted Chiang, Vincent Chong, Donna Condon, John Peyton Cooke, Paul Cornell, Peter Crowther, Benoit Domis, John R. Douglas, Hal Duncan, Alistair Durie, Les Edwards, Jo Fletcher, Stephen Gallagher, Mark Gascoigne, Barry Goldblatt, Christopher Golden, Jon Courtenay Grimwood, Liza Groen Trombi, Karen Haber, Joe Haldeman, Lee Harris, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Robert Hood, John Jerrold, Stephen Jones, S.T. Joshi, Michael Kelly, Nancy Kilpatrick, Jay Lake, Samantha Lee, Tim Lebbon, Alison Littlewood, Karen Lord, Brian Lumley, Len Maynard, Farah Mendlesohn, James Minz, Thomas Monteleone, Howard Morhaim, Mark Morris, Lisa Morton, Kim Newman, Stan Nicholls, Garth Nix, Jana Oliver, Jonathan Oliver, Reggie Oliver, Rosalie Parker, Sarah Pinborough, Charles Preploec, John L. Probert, Tina Rath, Lynda E. Rucker, R.B. Russell, Mark Samuels, Darrell Schweitzer, John Silbersack, Robert Silverberg, Mick Sims, Angela Slatter, Michael Marshall Smith, Cat Sparks, S.M. Stirling, Simon Strantzas, Steve Upham, Gordon Van Gelder, Mark Van Name, F. Paul Wilson, Stephen Woodworth and Rio Youers and many others . . .

Additional information can be found on the World Fantasy Convention 2012 website.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA) has announced Jeremy Wagner as the Sponsor for the Bram Stoker Vampire Novel of the Century Award.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA), the horror genre’s peak body for writers and publishing professionals, will be giving the Bram Stoker Vampire Novel of the Century Award in conjunction with the Bram Stoker Family Estate and the Rosenbach Museum & Library. The Award marks the centenary of the death in 1912 of Abraham (Bram) Stoker, the author of Dracula; and also celebrates the 25th Anniversary of the Association.

Full details of both the Banquet and ‘Celebrate HWA Day’ are at the HWA dedicated website, Stokers 2012. Details of the iconic Bram Stoker Award™, which has been won by such notable authors as Stephen King, Peter Straub, Joe Lansdale, Thomas Harris, Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, Harlan Ellison and George R R Martin, are at: HWA Stokers

HWA President Rocky Wood welcomed Wagner’s support for this major Award: “This generous commitment from Jeremy Wagner is greatly appreciated by HWA and I am sure by all our members. This special one-time Award recognizes the importance of both Bram Stoker and the vampire novel to the horror genre.”

Wagner’s first novel, The Armageddon Chord, peaked at #4 on the B&N Paperback Best-seller list and has already garnered a Hiram Award. Publisher’s Weekly said The Armageddon Chord is, “Entertaining … electrified by breakneck pacing…” and Bram Stoker Award-winning author Peter Straub says, “Jeremy is a pretty impressive dude.” He is a proud member of the HWA. For more about the author visit: Jeremy Wagner.

Wagner commented, “It’s my honor to be the Sponsor of the Bram Stoker Vampire Novel of the Century Award. This is my second year as a Bram Stoker Award sponsor and I’m delighted to donate and be a part of it all. HWA has given its members, including myself, so much for the last 25 years … it gives me great joy to give something back to this extraordinary organization. Happy Anniversary HWA!”

A Jury, chaired by Leslie S. Klinger, one of the world’s foremost authorities on Dracula, will announce their six nominees for the Award this month. To qualify, a work must have been originally published in any language during the years 1912-2011, but must have been published in English as well. Although there are numerous excellent series of vampire fiction, the Jury will select a single book, not a body of work. The winner of the Award will be announced during the Bram Stoker Awards™ Banquet at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, on March 31, 2012.

The Horror Writers Association is the premiere writers’ organization in the horror genre, with almost 700 members. It has presented the Bram Stoker Awards™ in various categories since 1987.

Midnight Echo Issue 6, the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association, is out. This edition is a themed issue, with all stories being science fiction horror.

Nine stories are set in the far future and taking place in the distant reaches of space. Inside you’ll discover a strange world with a planetary ring forged from organic matter, bizarre aliens cataloguing and collecting humans to populate their idea of paradise, Lovecraftian horrors come to life in the heart of a comet, cybernetic monsters hunting humans in the hull of an abandoned star ship, and paranoid space explorers pushed to their limits at the frontier of an uncharted universe. This issue also includes the 2011 Australian Horror Writers Association’s Flash Fiction and Short Story Award winning entries.

• “Earthworms” by Cody Goodfellow
• “Trawling the Void” by Alan Baxter
• “Out Hunting For Teeth” by Joanne Anderton
• “Graveyard Orbit” by Shane Jiraiya Cummings
• “Surgeon Scalpelfingers” by Helen Stubbs
• “Silver-Clean” by Jenny Blackford
• “The Wanderer in the Darkness” by Andrew J McKiernan
• “Winds of Nzambi” by David Conyers & David Kernot
• “Duncan Checks Out” by Nicholas Stella
• “Dead Low” by Cat Sparks
• “More Matter, Less Art” by Stephen Dedman
• “Seeds” by Mark Farrugia

The issue features an in depth interview with Charles Stross, one of the most imaginative and insightful science fiction authors writing today. Stross has been honoured with two Hugo awards and Locus Reader awards, and has published more than a dozen novels, including Saturn’s Children and The Fuller Memorandum. He talks to David Conyers for Midnight Echo about his Lovecrafitan science fiction horror series, The Laundry, and his latest novel, Rule 34.

A second interview is with Chris Moore, world renowned British science fiction artist best known for his striking covers for Orion Publishing’s SF Masterworks series. Insights are gained into Moore’s process for achieving his striking and imaginative art, and the many changes he has been facing in the publishing industry since he began illustrating in the 1970s.

The cover for Midnight Echo 6, ‘Strange Behaviour,’ is a creation of talented UK artist, Paul Drummond, who will be well-known to readers of Interzone and Jupiter for his striking depictions of star ships, futuristic humans and robots. Featured interior illustrators include Steve Gilberts, David Lee Ingersoll, Olivia Kernot and Nathan Wyckoff.

Midnight Echo 6: The Science Fiction Horror Special, has been edited by South Australian trio, David Kernot (editor of Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine), Jason Fischer (Writers of the Future winner and Aurealis nominee), and David Conyers (author of The Eye of Infinity, The Spiraling Worm and co-editor of Cthulhu Unbound 3).

Read an interview with the editors: The Editors

Order online for only $1.99: Midnight Echo Issue 6

The British Fantasy Society is currently embroiled in controversy regarding the administration of their 40-year-old British Fantasy Awards.

The awards were announced last week at FantasyCon in Brighton and have been drawing criticism since then, culminating in Sam Stone, the winner of the best novel award making an announced that she is returning the award.

The biggest attack on the awards was delivered by editor and anthologist Stephen Jones, who posted a lengthy blog decrying the organization of the BFAs and making several allegations against awards co-ordinator and British Fantasy Society chairman David Howe.

Jones said the awards were weighted towards the small presses rather than “mainstream” publishing, and said: “To put it bluntly, this year’s results made a mockery of the British Fantasy Award and everything it has always stood for. Even if you ignore the embarrassing ceremony and clichéd platitudes, few of these awards actually reflected genuine quality or what is happening in mainstream genre publishing today.”

Jones drew attention to the fact that several awards were given to books published by an imprint called Telos – which is co-run by the coordinator of the BFAs, David Howe. Jones said: “Without any proof, I’m not accusing anybody of doing anything underhand. But there is certainly a strong case for the BFS chairman to have removed himself from the entire process once it became apparent how many of his own titles and those of his partner were on the initial nomination list.”

Howe’s partner is Sam Stone, who won the August Derleth award for best novel for Demon Dance, published by speculative fiction publisher Murky Depths. Stone – the first woman to win the award since Tanith Lee in 1980 – responded to the furore yesterday on her own blog, saying that while the FantasyCon weekend was “one of the proudest moments of my life”, she was giving back the award.

Now, following the allegations concerning the administration of the British Fantasy Awards, David Howe has resigned from his position on the British Fantasy Society despite exoneration of any wrong-doing from the organization. Ramsey Campbell, the President of the organization, notes that Howe had stepped up to procure the awards, but had nothing to do with the nominations or tabulations of results and has thanked Howe for his service, particularly regarding the past year.

Official BFS Statement Concerning Awards

Following the recent public allegations made regarding this year’s British Fantasy Awards, The British Fantasy Society Committee would like to state for the record that it is our firm belief that no corruption or wrongdoing took place during the administration of the British Fantasy Awards, and that in this respect all awards should still stand as presented. We confirm that the summation of the votes cast was performed electronically and once the results were checked they were confirmed and verified by another member of the committee.

As Chairman of the Society, David’s responsibilities made him duty bound to fill in for committee members if they were unable to perform their nominated tasks, and in this case he was forced to step in when the actual awards administrator was unable to continue due to personal issues. Having to organise the awards at short notice, and with no-one else on the Committee able to assist due to time constraints, David was obliged to organise everything connected with the presentation of the Awards.

David did not have any involvement with the nominations, short listing or the voting process, other than the with the awards administration (procuring the statuettes, plaques, etc) and we are happy that the voting/counting process was 100% accurate within the scope of the current rules. We therefore completely exonerate David from any wrongdoing in the administration of the 2011 Awards.

David has worked extremely hard for the society this past year and has, we believe, raised the profile of the BFS significantly with the changes he has instigated and the work he has put in. We are very sorry, therefore that this situation, and the words of members of the society aimed personally at David, have forced him into a position to tender his resignation. The Committee regretfully respects his decision to stand down.

There are several issues, notably the awards procedure, that need to be addressed going forward in order to maintain the integrity of the society. These measures are already being discussed and will be announced and implemented as soon as practicable.

Ramsey Campbell
President, British Fantasy Society

Statement to Members of the BFS from Graham Joyce

Following this week’s events I have agreed to take on the role Acting Chair until an Emergency General Meeting can be staged in December. It will be my responsibility to organise and service the EGM, where elections will be held for a new Chairperson ratified by the membership.

The Chairperson and new members of the committee will be elected at the EGM to fill the current vacancies.

A formal set of the Society’s accounts will be presented to the EGM.

Meanwhile I will charge the committee with a priority agenda, which will include overhauling the Awards system; identifying and recommending new committee members; ensuring that proper records of meetings, decisions and accounts are transparent to all members of the society; and seeking to enfranchise a wider “Fantasy” base for the Society.

The proposed Corby Fantasycon will not now go head and we are looking for an alternative for 2012. The situation at this moment is fluid and we will attempt to keep members informed.

Whatever has happened recently, we should remind ourselves that in a time of serious economic downturn we had in Brighton our best-ever supported convention with well over 500 members. That’s astonishing. It proves that there is growing support for the Society and an appreciation of all that it offers. There are a number of things we need to address but right now we are looking for people who want to roll up their sleeves to restore and develop the reputation of the Society in its 40th year.

The EGM will in all probability take place before the next London Open Night. We look to the membership to help and support us in going forward.

Graham Joyce
Acting Chair