2019 Stoker Awards Preliminary Ballot

Superior Achievement in a Novel

• Coyote Rage, Owl Goingback (Independent Legions)
• Unamerica, Cody Goodfellow (King Shot)
• Black Heart Boys’ Choir, Curtis M. Lawson (Wyrd Horror)
• The Murder of Jesus Christ, John R. Little (Bad Moon)
• Inspection, Josh Malerman (Del Rey)
• The Worst is Yet to Come, S.P. Miskowski (Trepidatio)
• Highway Twenty, Michael J Moore (Hellbound)
• Into the Ashes, Lee Murray (Severed)
• The Reddening, Adam L.G. Nevill (Ritual Limited)
• The Fearing, John F.D. Taff (Grey Matter)
• Wanderers, Chuck Wendig (Del Rey)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• Dear Laura, Gemma Amor (self-published)
• Remains, Andrew Cull (IFWG)
• Grind Your Bones to Dust, Nicholas Day (Excession)
• Doorways to the Deadeye, Eric J. Guignard (JournalStone)
• Stoker’s Wilde, Steven Hopstaken & Melissa Prusi (Flame Tree)
• Invisible Chains, Michelle Renee Lane (Haverhill House)
• Ration, Cody T Luff (Apex)
• Tinfoil Butterfly, Rachel Eve Moulton (MCD x FSG Originals)
• The Bone Weaver’s Orchard, Sarah Read (Trepidatio)
• The Luminous Dead, Caitlin Starling (Harper Voyager)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• Here There Are Monsters, Amelinda Bérubé (Sourcebooks Fire)
• Five Midnights, Ann Dávila Cardinal (Tor Teen)
• Winterwood, Shea Ernshaw (Simon Pulse)
• The Tenth Girl, Sara Faring (Imprint)
• Speak No Evil, Liana Gardner (Vesuvian)
• Teeth in the Mist, Dawn Kurtagich (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Rules for Vanishing, Kate Alice Marshall (Viking Books for Young Readers)
• Oware Mosaic, Nzondi (Omnium Gatherum)
• Eight Minutes, Thirty-Two Seconds, Peter Adam Salomon (PseudoPsalms)
• Last Things, Jacqueline West (Greenwillow)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• “Like Ripples on a Blank Shore”, J.S. Breukelaar (Collision)
• “Adrenaline Junkies”, Ray Cluley (The Porcupine Boy and Other Anthological Oddities)
• Ivy Day, Pam Jones (Spaceboy)
• “Up from Slavery”, Victor LaValle (Weird Tales #363)
• The Keeper of Chernobyl, Alessandro Manzetti (Omnium Gatherum)
• Rites of Extinction, Matt Serafini (Grindhouse)
• Anonyma, Farah Rose Smith (Ulthar)
• “The Cat Sitter”, Anna Taborska (Shadowcats)
• To Be Devoured, Sara Tantlinger (Unnerving)
• “Ring of Fire”, Richard Thomas (The Seven Deadliest)
• Into Bones Like Oil, Kaaron Warren (Meerkat)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• “The Book of Last Words”, Greg Chapman (This Sublime Darkness and Other Dark Stories)
• “The Eight People Who Murdered Me, (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)”, Gwendolyn Kiste (Nightmare 11/19)
• “Bury Me in Tar and Twine”, Jess Landry (Tales of the Lost Volume 1: We All Lose Something!)
• “Anniversary”, John R. Little (Dark Tides)
• “The Elevator Game”, Brooke MacKenzie (Who Knocks? #2)
• “Lydia”, Cindy O’Quinn (The Twisted Book of Shadows)
• “Where Gods Dance”, Ben Serna-Grey (Apex 3/19)
• “A Touch of Madness”, Tim Waggoner (The Pulp Horror Book of Phobias)
• “Glass Eyes in Porcelain Faces”, Jack Westlake (Black Static 7-8/19)
• “Birds of Passage”, Gordon B. White (Twice-Told)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• On the Night Border, James Chambers (Raw Dog Screaming)
• Exhalation, Ted Chiang (Knopf)
• Song for the Unraveling of the World, Brian Evenson (Coffee House)
• Where Carrion Gods Dance, Brad C. Hodson (Washington Park)
• A Cathedral of Myth and Bone, Kat Howard (Saga)
• Rare Birds, L.S. Johnson (Traversing Z)
• Lady Bits, Kate Jonez (Trepidatio)
• Sefira and Other Betrayals, John Langan (Hippocampus)
• Out of Water, Sarah Read (Trepidatio)
• Growing Things and Other Stories, Paul Tremblay (Morrow)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• The Seven Deadliest, Patrick Beltran & D. Alexander Ward, eds. (Cutting Block)
• A Secret Guide to Fighting Elder Gods, Jennifer Brozek, ed. (Pulse)
• Sharp & Sugar Tooth: Women Up to No Good, Octavia Cade, ed. (Upper Rubber Boot)
• Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Saga)
• The Twisted Book of Shadows, Christopher Golden & James A. Moore, eds. (Twisted)
• Pop the Clutch: Thrilling Tales of Rockabilly, Monsters, and Hot Rod Horror, Eric J. Guignard, ed. (Dark Moon)
• Tales of the Lost Volume 1: We All Lose Something!, Eugene Johnson & Steve Dillon, eds. (Things in the Well)
• Mountains of Madness Revealed, Darrell Schweitzer, ed. (PS)
• Nox Pareidolia, Robert S. Wilson, ed. (Nightscape)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

• Horror and Religion: New Literary Approaches to Theology, Race, and Sexuality, Eleanor Beal & Jonathan Greenaway, eds. (University of Wales Press)
• Gender, Sexuality, and Queerness in American Horror Story: Critical Essays, Harriet E.H. Earle, ed. (McFarland)
• Drafts of Dracula, Robert Eighteen-Bisang & Elizabeth Miller, eds. (Tellwell Talent)
• Reading the Bible with Horror, Brandon R. Grafius (Lexington/Fortress Academic)
• Masks in Horror Cinema: Eyes Without Faces , Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (University of Wales Press)
• Shapeshifters: A History, John B. Kachuba (Reaktion)
• Monster, She Wrote: The Women Who Pioneered Horror and Speculative Fiction, Lisa Kröger & Melanie R. Anderson (Quirk)
• Videogames and Horror: From Amnesia to Zombies, Run!, Dawn Stobbart (University of Wales Press)
• The Furies of Marjorie Bowen, John C. Tibbetts (McFarland)
• Coffinmaker’s Blues: Collected Writings on Terror, Stephen Volk (PS)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

• “Evolution, Cognition, and Horror: A Précis of Why Horror Seduces”, Mathias Clasen (Journal of Cognitive Historiography 10/14/19)
• “Between Hell and Earth: Rhetorical Appropriation of Religious Space within Hellraiser”, Gavin F. Hurley (The Spaces and Places of Horror)
• “Magic, Madness, and Women Who Creep: The Power of Individuality in the Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman”, Gwendolyn Kiste (Vastarien Spring ’19)
• “Slasher Films Made Me Gay: The Queer Appeal and Subtext of the Genre”, Vince A. Liaguno (Ginger Nuts of Horror 9/1/2019)
• “The Beast Without: The Cinematic Werewolf as a (Counter) Cultural Metaphor”, Craig Ian Mann (Horror Studies Spring ’19)
• “The Evil Aging Women of American Horror Story“, Karen J. Renner (Elder Horror: Essays on Film’s Frightening Images of Aging)
• “Film’s First Lycanthrope: 1913’s The Werewolf“, Kelly Robinson (Scary Monsters Fall ’19)
• “Riding Out the Storms”, Tim Waggoner (Writing in the Dark 5/20/19)
• “Lord Byron’s Whipping Boy: Dr. John William Polidori and the 200th Anniversary of The Vampyre“, Valerie E. Weich (Famous Monsters of Filmland 10/19)
• “From the Books of Wandering: Fin-De-Siècle Poetics of a Supernatural Figure”, Aaron Worth (The Times Literary Supplement 12/19)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• The Place of Broken Things, Linda D. Addison & Alessandro Manzetti (Crystal Lake)
• Mary Shelley Makes a Monster, Octavia Cade (Aqueduct)
• The Coven’s Hornbook & Other Poems, Frank Coffman (Bold Venture)
• Tall Grass, Amanda Crum (self-published)
• The Gates of Never, Deborah L. Davitt (Finishing Line)
• Choking Back the Devil, Donna Lynch (Raw Dog Screaming)
• Hag, Zoe Mitchell (Indigo Dreams)
• Dragonfly and Other Songs of Mourning, Michelle Scalise (LVP)
• The Demeter Diaries, Marge Simon & Bryan D. Dietrich (Independent Legions)
• The Macabre Modern and Other Morbidities, Kyla Lee Ward (P’rea)
• The Apocalyptic Mannequin, Stephanie M. Wytovich (Raw Dog Screaming)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• Bone Parish Vol. 2, Cullen Bunn, Jonah Scharf & Alex Guimarães (BOOM!)
• Bone Parish Vol. 3, Cullen Bunn, Jonah Scharf & Alex Guimarães (BOOM!)
• Redneck Volume 3: Longhorns, Donny Cates, Lisandro Estherren & Dee Cunniffe (Image)
• Neil Gaiman’s Snow, Glass, Apples, Neil Gaiman & Colleen Doran (Dark Horse)
• Rob Guillory’s Farmhand Volume 1: Reap What Was Sown, Rob Guillory (Image)
• Gideon Falls Book 2: Original Sins, Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino & Dave Stewart (Image)
• Gideon Falls Book 3: Stations of the Cross, Jeff Lemire, Andrea Sorrentino & Dave Stewart (Image)
• Monstress Volume 4: The Chosen, Marjorie Liu & Sana Takeda (Image)
• Calcutta Horror, Alessandro Manzetti, Stefano Cardoselli & Poppy Z. Brite (Independent Legions)
• H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness, The First Volume, Gou Tanabe (Dark Horse Manga)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• Doctor Sleep
• The Lighthouse
• Midsommar
• Ready or Not
• Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark
• Stranger Things, “The Battle of Starcourt”
  
• Tigers Are Not Afraid
• Us
• Velvet Buzzsaw
• The Wind