As it does each year at this time, the Horror Writer’s Association (HWA) has announced this year’s nominees for the coveted Stoker Award.

In case you aren’t familiar with the coolness that is the Stoker, it is named in honor of the man himself, Bram Stoker, and awards are presented annually for superior writing in eleven categories including traditional fiction 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, if that tells you anything.

Basically, this is the Oscars for us horror bibliophiles, only with a much more progressive wardrobe.

In addition, far better than a stoic naked dude dipped in a coating that is comprised of less “gold” each year, the Stoker award is a creepy mansion whose door opens to review a plaque with the winner’s name engraved.

So without further ado, the 2016 Stoker nominees are…

Superior Achievement in a Novel

• Clive Barker – The Scarlet Gospels (St. Martin’s Press)
• Michaelbrent Collings – The Deep (self-published)
• JG Faherty – The Cure (Samhain Publishing)
• Patrick Freivald – Black Tide (JournalStone Publishing)
• Paul Tremblay – A Head Full of Ghosts (William Morrow)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

• Courtney Alameda – Shutter (Feiwel & Friends)
• Nicole Cushing – Mr. Suicide (Word Horde)
• Brian Kirk – We Are Monsters (Samhain Publishing)
• John McIlveen – Hannahwhere (Crossroad Press)
• John Claude Smith – Riding the Centipede (Omnium Gatherum)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

• Jennifer Brozek – Never Let Me Sleep (Permuted Press)
• Michaelbrent Collings – The Ridealong (self-published)
• John Dixon – Devil’s Pocket (Simon & Schuster)
• Tonya Hurley – Hallowed (Simon & Schuster)
• Maureen Johnson – The Shadow Cabinet (Penguin)
• Ian Welke – End Times at Ridgemont High (Omnium Gatherum)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

• Cullen Bunn – Harrow County, Vol. 1: Countless Haints (Dark Horse Comics)
• Victor Gischler – Hellbound (Dark Horse Books)
• Robert Kirkman – Outcast, Vol. 1: A Darkness Surrounds Him (Image Comics)
• Scott Snyder – Wytches, Vol. 1 (Image Comics)
• Sam Weller, Mort Castle, Chris Ryall, & Carlos Guzman (editors) – Shadow Show: Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury (IDW Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

• Gary A. Braunbeck – “Paper Cuts” (Seize the Night, Gallery Books)
• Lisa Mannetti – The Box Jumper (Smart Rhino Publications)
• Norman Partridge – “Special Collections” (The Library of the Dead, Written Backwards)
• Mercedes M. Yardley – “Little Dead Red” (Grimm Mistresses, Ragnarok Publications)
• Scott Edelman – “Becoming Invisible, Becoming Seen” (Dark Discoveries #30)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

• Kate Jonez – “All the Day You’ll Have Good Luck” (Black Static #47)
• Gene O’Neill – The Algernon Effect (White Noise Press)
• John Palisano – “Happy Joe’s Rest Stop” (18 Wheels of Horror, Big Time Books)
• Damien Angelica Walters – “Sing Me Your Scars” (Sing Me Your Scars, Apex Publications)
• Alyssa Wong – “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” (Nightmare Magazine #37)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

• Guillermo del Toro & Matthew Robbins – Crimson Peak (Legendary Pictures)
• John Logan – Penny Dreadful: “And Hell Itself My Only Foe” (Showtime)
• John Logan – Penny Dreadful: “Nightcomers” (Showtime)
• David Robert Mitchell – It Follows (Northern Lights Films)
• Taika Waititi & Jemaine Clement – What We Do in the Shadows (Unison Films)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

• Michael Bailey – The Library of the Dead (Written Backwards)
• Ellen Datlow – The Doll Collection: Seventeen Brand-New Tales of Dolls (Tor Books)
• Christopher Golden – Seize the Night (Gallery Books)
• Nancy Kilpatrick and Caro Soles – nEvermore! (Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy Publishing)
• Jonathan Maberry – The X-Files: Trust No One (IDW Publishing)
• Joseph Nassise and Del Howison – Midian Unmade (Tor Books)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

• Gary A. Braunbeck – Halfway Down the Stairs (JournalStone Publishing)
• Nicole Cushing – The Mirrors (Cycatrix Press)
• Taylor Grant – The Dark at the End of the Tunnel (Cemetery Dance Publications)
• Gene O’Neill – The Hitchhiking Effect (Dark Renaissance Books)
• Lucy A. Snyder – While the Black Stars Burn (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

• Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks (ed.) – The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales: The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers)
• Stephen Jones – The Art of Horror (Applause Theatre & Cinema Books)
• Michael Knost – Author’s Guide to Marketing with Teeth (Seventh Star Press)
• Joe Mynhardt & Emma Audsley (editors) – Horror 201: The Silver Scream (Crystal Lake Publishing)
• Danel Olson – Studies in the Horror Film: Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (Centipede Press)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

• Bruce Boston – Resonance Dark and Light (Eldritch Press)
• Alessandro Manzetti – Eden Underground (Crystal Lake Publishing)
• Ann Schwader – Dark Energies (P’rea Press)
• Marge Simon – Naughty Ladies (Eldritch Press)
• Stephanie M. Wytovich – An Exorcism of Angels (Raw Dog Screaming Press)

The presentation of the Bram Stoker Awards will occur during the inaugural StokerCon in Las Vegas, Nevada on the evening of Saturday, May 14, 2016. Goth Chick News will be hitting up “The Big Cheese” for some petty cash and the keys to the zeppelin, but assuming the answer is the standard one when we suggest such “absurdities,” thankfully the awards presentation will also be live-streamed online.

“The nominees for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards® have produced work that is certain to leave a mark on the horror and dark fantasy genre for years to come,” said Lisa Morton, HWA President and multiple Bram Stoker Award winner. “Once again, our members and awards juries have selected outstanding standard bearers for the genre.”

We reported on the winners of the 2015 Bram Stoker Award here, and last year’s nominees here.

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