The Horror Writers Association Releases the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards® Final Ballot

The short-listed works include exceptional writing which highlight the creativity and talent in the dark fiction community.

COLUMBUS, OH, UNITED STATES, February 26, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The Horror Writers Association (HWA) announces the Final Ballot for the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards^®. The works showcase the vast array of creativity and talent in today’s dark fiction writing community. After evaluation of the long-listed works, the list on the Final Ballot are officially referred to as Bram Stoker Awards^® Nominees. Winners are announced at the annual Bram Stoker Awards^® Gala, presented at StokerCon, June 12 to June 15, 2025, in Stamford Connecticut at the Hilton Stamford Hotel.

Laura Blackwell, administrative co-chair for the Bram Stoker Awards^®, says, “Congratulations to all the writers whose work appears on the Bram Stoker Awards^® Final Ballot.”

With more than 2,000 members, the HWA is the premier writers’ organization in the horror and dark fiction genre. The HWA has presented the Bram Stoker Awards^® in various categories since 1987. The HWA Board and the Bram Stoker Awards^® Committee extend their congratulations to all those appearing on the Bram Stoker Awards^® Final Ballot.

The 2024 Bram Stoker Awards^® Final Ballot:

Superior Achievement in an Anthology
Ajram, Sofia — Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror (Ghoulish Books)
Costello, Rob — We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures (Running Press)
Gyzander, Carol and Taborska, Anna — Discontinue If Death Ensues: Tales from the Tipping Point (Flame Tree Publishing)
Murano, Doug and Bailey, Michael — Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners (Bad Hand Books)
Ryan, Lindy — Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror (A Women in Horror Anthology) (Black Spot Books)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection
Barron, Laird — Not a Speck of Light (Bad Hand Books)
Enriquez, Mariana — A Sunny Place for Shady People (Penguin)
Sylvaine, Angela — The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls (Dark Matter Ink)
Waggoner, Tim — Old Monsters Never Die (Winding Road Stories)
Yardley, Mercedes M. — Love is a Crematorium and Other Tales (Cemetery Dance)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Coles, Donyae — Midnight Rooms (Amistad)
Drake-Thomas, Jessica — Hollow Girls (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Kiefer, Jenny — This Wretched Valley (Quirk Books)
Kim, Monika — The Eyes Are the Best Part (Erewhon Books)
Ryan, Lindy — Bless Your Heart (Minotaur Books)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel
Ha, Robin (writer/artist) — The Fox Maidens (HarperCollins Children’s Books)
Hetland, Beth (writer/artist) — Tender (Fantagraphics Books)
Horvath, Patrick (writer/artist) — Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees (Penguin Random House)
Tanabe, Gou (writer/artist) — H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu (Dark Horse Books)
Umber, Maggie (writer/artist) — Chrysanthemum Under the Waves (Maggie Umber LLC)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
Ajram, Sofia — Coup de Grâce (Titan Books)
Cassidy, Nat — Rest Stop (Shortwave Publishing)
Chapman, Clay McLeod — Kill Your Darling (Bad Hand Books)
LaRocca, Eric — “All The Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn” (This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances) (Titan Books)
Royce, Eden — Hollow Tongue (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction
Bogutskaya, Anna — Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold on Us (Faber & Faber)
Dauber, Jeremy — American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill)
Honeycutt, Heidi — I Spit on Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies (Headpress)
Hughes, Emily C. — Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You’re Too Scared to Watch (Quirk Books)
Sachar, Cassandra O’Sullivan, ed. — No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction that Transcends the Tropes (Vernon Press)

Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel
Averling, Mary — The Curse of Eelgrass Bog (Razorbill)
Collings, Michaelbrent — The Witch in the Woods (Shadow Mountain Publishing)
Cuevas, Adrianna — The No-Brainer's Guide to Decomposition (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Ottone, Robert P. — There's Something Sinister in Center Field (Cemetery Gates Media)
Royce, Eden — The Creepening of Dogwood House (Walden Pond Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers)

Superior Achievement in a Novel
Iglesias, Gabino — House of Bone and Rain (Mulholland Books in US; Titan Books in UK)
Jones, Stephen Graham — I Was a Teenage Slasher (S&S/Saga Press in US; Titan Books in UK)
Kiste, Gwendolyn — The Haunting of Velkwood (S&S/Saga Press)
Malerman, Josh — Incidents Around the House (Del Rey)
Tremblay, Paul — Horror Movie (William Morrow in US; Titan Books in UK)

Superior Achievement in Poetry
Hodge, Jamal — The Dark Between the Twilight (Crystal Lake Publishing)
Iniguez, Pedro — Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future (Space Cowboy Books)
Murray, Lee — Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud (The Cuba Press)
Saulson, Sumiko — Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry (Bludgeoned Girls Press)
Wood, L. Marie — Imitation of Life (Falstaff Books)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay
Beck, Scott and Woods, Bryan — Heretic (A24, Shiny Penny, Beck/Woods)
Eggers, Robert; Galeen, Henrik; and Stoker, Bram — Nosferatu (Focus Features, Maiden Voyage Pictures, Studio 8)
Fargeat, Coralie — The Substance (Working Title Film, Good Story, Blacksmith)
Perkins, Osgood — Longlegs (C2 Motion Picture Group, Cweature Features, Oddfellow Entertainment)
Schoenbrun, Jane — I Saw the TV Glow (A24, Fruit Tree, Smudge Films)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
Barron, Laird — “Versus Versus” (Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners) (Bad Hand Books)
Bolton, Rachel — “And She Had Been So Reasonable” (Apex Magazine Issue 147) (Apex Book Company)
Brown, Sasha — “To the Wolves” (Weird Horror #9) (Undertow Publications)
Busby, R. A. — “Ten Thousand Crawling Children” (Nightmare Magazine January 2024) (Adamant Press)
Jakubowski, Raven — “She Sheds Her Skin” (Nightmare Magazine November 2024) (Adamant Press)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction
Arnzen, Michael — “Screamin’ in the Rain: The Orchestration of Catharsis in William Castle’s The Tingler” (What Sleeps Beneath)
Liaguno, Vince — “The Horror of Donna Berzatto and Her Feast of the Seven Fishes” (You’re Not Alone in the Dark) (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Weinstock, Jeffrey Andrew — “Hidden Histories: The Many Ghosts of Disney’s Haunted Mansion” (Disney Gothic: Dark Shadows in the House of Mouse) (Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.)
Wetmore, Kevin J., Jr. — “Jackson and Haunting of the Stage” (Journal of Shirley Jackson Studies Vol. 2 No. 1) (Shirley Jackson Society)
Wood, Lisa — “Blacks in Film and Cultivated Bias” (No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction that Transcends the Tropes) (Vernon Press)

Superior Achievement in a YA Novel
Cesare, Adam — Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo (HarperCollins Children's Books)
Fraistat, Ann — A Place for Vanishing (Delacorte Press)
Parker, Natalie C. — Come Out, Come Out (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Senf, Lora — The Losting Fountain (Union Square & Co.)
Wellington, Joelle — The Blonde Dies First (Simon & Schuster)

Please refer to this list as the Final Ballot for the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards^®. This list is considered the Official Bram Stoker Awards^® Nominees. The winners of this season’s awards will be announced at the annual Bram Stoker Awards^® Gala at StokerCon. If one’s work appears on this ballot and you would like to offer it voting members of the HWA, please see the website for important information and instructions.

Important Dates Regarding the Bram Stoker Awards:

February 28: The Final Ballot is dispatched. Active and Lifetime Members in good standing as of January 31 can cast their votes.

March 15: The 2025 Bram Stoker Recommendation form goes live and the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards Juries open to Submissions. Members should hold any Recommendations for works published in the calendar year 2025 until the form is live.

March 15: The Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot closes at midnight U.S. Pacific Time. Any ballots received after this cutoff will be discarded.

June 14: The 2024 Bram Stoker Awards will be announced during the Annual Bram Stoker Awards Banquet held during StokerCon^® 2025 in Stamford, Connecticut. 

Bookings and information for StokerCon^® are available, and banquet tickets, which are separate from the Convention Membership, will soon be available for purchase through Eventbrite. See the StokerCon website for updates.

About the Horror Writers Association:

The Horror Writers Association (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. Founded in the late 1980s, it now has more than 2,000 members around the world and is the oldest and most respected professional organization for creators of horror fiction. The HWA encourages public interest in and appreciation of horror and dark fantasy literature and hosts an annual professional conference, StokerCon. HWA is also dedicated to recognizing and promoting diversity in the horror genre and practices a strict anti-harassment policy at all of its events. Learn more on the HWA website.

Please direct any questions regarding the Final Ballot for the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards^® to the Vice President of HWA and/or the Chair of the Bram Stoker Awards^® through the HWA contact page on the HWA website.

Desiree Duffy
Black Chateau
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