Kevin Wetmore is a six-time Bram Stoker Award nominated author, as well as many other things. He is an actor, director, stage combat choreographer, stand-up comedian, and professor at Loyola Marymount University. Oh, and he's a writer. Kinda obvious, really. He is the author of such books as Eaters of the Dead, Post-9/11 Horror in American CInema, and Devil's Advocates: The Conjuring, as well as over one hundred book chapters and articles on everything from Godzilla to scarecrows. He has hosted the Bram Stoker Award Ceremony for the past few years, is co-chair of the HWA Los Angeles chapter, and also runs a Shakespeare festival in Los Angeles. Weird, huh? All of which has earned him the privilege of writing his author bios in the third person. Learn more at www.SomethingWickedThisAwayComes.com.

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This Year's Keynote Speaker: Becky Spratford

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Becky Spratford [MLIS] is a Readers' Advisor in Illinois specializing in serving patrons ages 13 and up. She trains library staff all over the world on how to match books with readers through the local public library. She runs the critically acclaimed RA training blog RA for All. She is under contract to provide content for EBSCO’s NoveList database and writes reviews for Booklist and a horror review column for Library Journal. Becky is a 22 year locally elected Library Trustee [still serving], a former Board member for the Reaching Across Illinois Library System, and currently on the Executive Board of the Illinois Library Association. Known for her work with horror readers, Becky is the author of The Reader’s Advisory Guide to Horror, Third Edition [ALA Editions, 2021]. She is on the Shirley Jackson Award Advisory Board and is a proud member of the Horror Writers Association and currently serves as the Association’s Secretary and organizer of their annual Librarians’ Day. You can follow Becky on Twitter @RAforAll.​

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The 2024 Bram Stoker Awards® Ballot

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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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)

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Note to nominees: If you would like to offer your work to voting members during the reading period ending March 15, please send a link to stokerchair@horror.org as soon as possible, no later than February 25. You may post the fact that your work is available to be read for Bram Stoker Award consideration ONCE, and only once, on the HWA Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Horrorwritersassoc/; and on the HWA Discord here: http://discord.gg/qXNWT2MCEK. If you had already posted your work in these places prior to the announcement of the Preliminary Ballot, you are entitled to post it again. The Discord and Facebook page are open to members and nonmembers alike. Nonmembers may also email stokerchair@horror.org for help with this.

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February 28: The Final Ballot is dispatched. Please note only Active and Lifetime Members in good standing as of January 31 can vote. If you are an Active or Lifetime Member and do NOT receive your electronic ballot link by March 3, please first check your spam/junk mail filter, make sure your email address is updated in Wild Apricot, and then email ballotmaster@horror.org with a brief message about the issue. Note that ballots are sent to the same email address as the Newsletter and the Internet Mailer. It is the responsibility of each Member to keep their email address up to date in Wild Apricot or by advising the HWA Director at director@horror.org of any issues with their membership account. Late ballots cannot be accepted under any circumstances.

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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.

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Members wishing to submit work published in 2025 to the relevant Jury should read the information at the Bram Stoker Awards website at http://www.thebramstokerawards.com/submissions/ before doing so.

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

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

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Bookings and information for StokerCon® are available at: https://www.stokercon2025.com/.

Note: Banquet Tickets are separate from the Convention Membership and will soon be available for purchase at Eventbrite. Click “Tickets” to see the Banquet option as an add-on to your existing registration or an option for a new registration.

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Please direct any questions about the ballot to stokerchair@horror.org. Questions about StokerCon should go to info@stokercon.com. Questions about the HWA should go to director@horror.org. 

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The convention also  currently plans to livestream the award ceremony. Details to come.

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IN THE MEANTIME PLEASE ENJOY THE RECORDED LIVE STREAM OF

THE 2023 AWARDS CEREMONIES.