Each year, the Horror Writers Association presents the Bram Stoker Awards™ for Superior Achievement in the field of horror writing, named in honor of Bram Stoker, author of the seminal horror work Dracula. Since 1987, the approximately 700 members of the HWA have recommended, nominated and voted on the greatest works of horror and dark fantasy of the previous calendar year, making the Bram Stoker Awards the most prestigious award in the field of horror literature. For the first time in 2011, half the nominees were chosen by juries.
The awards are presented in eleven categories: Novel, First Novel, Young Adult Novel, Graphic Novel, Long Fiction, Short Fiction, Screenplay, Fiction Collection, Anthology, Non-fiction, and Poetry Collection. The organization’s Active and Lifetime members will select the winners from this list of nominees; and the Awards will be presented at a gala banquet on Saturday evening, March 31, at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The nominees below reflect an amendment in the list of Short Fiction nominees. After the Preliminary Ballot was completed and the initial list of nominees issued one work was found to be ineligible and was replaced by the work which received the next highest number of votes in the relevant Preliminary Ballot. The list below reflects the final nominees.
This year’s nominees in each category are:
Superior Achievement In A Novel
- A Matrix Of Angels by Christopher Conlon (Creative Guy Publishing)
- Cosmic Forces by Greg Lamberson (Medallion Press)
- Floating Staircase by Ronald Malfi (Medallion Press / Thunderstorm Books)
- Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle Books)
- Not Fade Away by Gene O’Neill (Bad Moon Books)
- The German by Lee Thomas (Lethe Press)
Superior Achievement In A First Novel
- Isis Unbound by Allyson Bird (Dark Regions Press)
- Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs (Night Shade Books)
- The Lamplighters by Frazer Lee (Samhain Horror)
- The Panama Laugh by Thomas Roche (Night Shade Books)
- That Which Should Not Be by Brett J. Talley (JournalStone)
Superior Achievement In A Young Adult Novel
- Ghosts of Coronado Bay, A Maya Blair Mystery by J. G. Faherty (JournalStone)
- The Screaming Season by Nancy Holder (Razorbill)
- Rotters by Daniel Kraus (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)
- Dust and Decay by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
- A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness (Candlewick / Walker)
- This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel (Simon & Schuster / David Fickling Books)
Superior Achievement In A Graphic Novel
- Anya’s Ghost by Vera Brosgol (First Second)
- Locke & Key Volume 4 by Joe Hill (IDW Publishing)
- Green River Killer by Jeff Jensen (Dark Horse)
- Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine by Jonathan Maberry (Marvel)
- Baltimore Volume I: The Plague Ships by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (Dark Horse)
- Neonomicon by Alan Moore (Avatar Press)
Superior Achievement In Long Fiction
- 7 Brains by Michael Louis Calvillo (Burning Effigy Press)
- “Roots and All” by Brian Hodge (A Book of Horrors)
- “The Colliers’ Venus (1893)” by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Naked City: New Tales of Urban Fantasy)
- Ursa Major by John R. Little (Bad Moon Books)
- Rusting Chickens by Gene O’Neill (Dark Regions Press)
- “The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine” by Peter Straub (Conjunctions: 56)
Superior Achievement In Short Fiction
- “Her Husband’s Hands” by Adam-Troy Castro (Lightspeed Magazine, October 2011)
- “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” by Stephen King (The Atlantic Magazine, May 2011)
- “Hypergraphia” by Ken Lillie-Paetz (The Uninvited, Issue #1)
- “Graffiti Sonata” by Gene O’Neill (Dark Discoveries #18)
- “Home” by George Saunders (The New Yorker Magazine, June 13, 2011)
- “All You Can Do Is Breathe” by Kaaron Warren (Blood and Other Cravings)
Superior Achievement In A Screenplay
- True Blood, episode #44: “Spellbound” by Alan Ball (HBO)
- The Walking Dead, episode #13: “Pretty Much Dead Already” by Scott M. Gimple (AMC)
- The Walking Dead, episode #9: “Save the Last One” by Scott M. Gimple (AMC)
- Priest by Cory Goodman (Screen Gems)
- The Adjustment Bureau by George Nolfi (Universal Pictures)
- American Horror Story, episode #12: “Afterbirth” by Jessica Sharzer (20th Century Fox Television)
Superior Achievement In A Fiction Collection
- Voices: Tales of Horror by Lawrence C. Connolly (Fantasist Enterprises)
- Red Gloves by Christopher Fowler (PS Publishing)
- Two Worlds and In Between: The Best of Caitlin R. Kiernan (Volume One) by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Subterranean)
- Monsters of L.A. by Lisa Morton (Bad Moon Books)
- The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)
- Multiplex Fandango by Weston Ochse (Dark Regions Press)
Superior Achievement In An Anthology (Editing)
- NEHW Presents: Epitaphs edited by Tracy L. Carbone (NEHW)
- Ghosts By Gaslight edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers (Harper Voyager)
- Blood And Other Cravings edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor Books)
- Supernatural Noir edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse)
- Tattered Souls 2 edited by Frank J. Hutton (Cutting Block Press)
- Demons: Encounters with the Devil and his Minions, Fallen Angels and the Possessed edited by John Skipp (Black Dog and Leventhal)
Superior Achievement In Non-Fiction
- Halloween Nation: Behind the Scenes of America’s Fright Night by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne (Pelican Publishing)
- Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu edited by Gary William Crawford, Jim Rockhill and Brian J. Showers (Hippocampus Press)
- Starve Better by Nick Mamatas (Apex Publications)
- Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies by Matt Mogk (Gallery Books)
- The Gothic Imagination by John C. Tibbetts (Palgrave Macmillan)
- Stephen King: A Literary Companion by Rocky Wood (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers)
Superior Achievement In A Poetry Collection
- How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend by Linda Addison (Necon Ebooks)
- At Louche Ends: Poetry for the Decadent, the Damned & the Absinthe-Minded by Maria Alexander (Burning Effigy Press)
- Surrealities by Bruce Boston (Dark Regions Press)
- Shroud of Night by G. O. Clark (Dark Regions Press)
- The Mad Hattery by Marge Simon (Elektrik Milk Bath Press)
- Unearthly Delights by Marge Simon (Sam’s Dot)
