HWA Bram Stoker Award® Member Recommendations

My work among the company of masters!

The premier horror award has to be the Bram Stoker Award®, managed by the Horror Writer’s Association. I mean, look at that trophy! The little door opens and your name and winning publication are engraved inside. That’s so cool! I’ve long coveted one and just maybe one day I’ll win one. Twice now I’ve made the preliminary ballot (for Crow Shine and The Gulp), but I’ve yet to be a finalist or take home the prize. One day.

The awards are decided by a strange and occult combination of jury reading and public vote. A jury reads all work submitted and they put their top 5 in each category onto the preliminary ballot. Then HWA members add their favourite stuff to the Recommended Reading List, and the 5 there with the most votes in each category also make the preliminary ballot. Therefore, the prelim ballot lists ten works in each category.

Following that, HWA members vote first to reduce the preliminary ballot of ten down to shortlists of 5 or 6. Any work on those shortlists is then considered a Bram Stoker Award® Finalist. Then the members vote again on the shortlists to decide the winner. Pretty wild, huh?

This year, I'm so pleased to see THE FALL: Tales From The Gulp 2, "Gulpepper Curios" (from The Fall), and my latest novel, SALLOW BEND, all on the Recommended Reading list. What an honour. Truly sharing company with the year's most amazing horror. I don’t know if any will make it onto the preliminary ballot, or even further to the shortlists, but it’s so cool to see that people enjoy my stuff enough to recommend it.

I’ll link to the list below - have a look through and see if there’s anything you’ve missed this year. It really is a smorgasbord of amazing writing.

(Also, if you're an HWA member, be sure to add your recommendations of stuff you’ve loved. And don't forget that the entries with the most recommendations make the preliminary ballot, so if something is already there, it's still important that you recommend again it if you loved it!)

Check out the list here: https://horror.org/members-only/documents/rec-files2/2022/recs-members-only2022.php