The quintet of talented authors vying for Superior Achievement in a Novel at the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards already have 22 nominations and four wins among them, but all five are looking for their first win in the most notable category of the night.

Released by the Horror Writers Association on February 23, the Final Ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards features more than 60 nominees in 13 categories of fiction and non-fiction published last year.

The five titles contending for Superior Achievement in a Novel are The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias; The Fervor by Alma Katsu; Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste; Daphne by Josh Malerman; and Sundial by Catriona Ward.

The Devil Takes You Home is Iglesias’s third work to make the Final Ballot. Iglesias was previously nominated in 2020 for Long Fiction (“Beyond the Reef”) and in 2018 for Fiction Collection (Coyote Songs).

The Fervor is Katsu’s third novel to reach the Final Ballot. Katsu was previously nominated in 2020 for The Deep and in 2018 for The Hunger.

Reluctant Immortals is Kiste’s sixth work featured on the Final Ballot. Kiste has won three Bram Stoker Awards, two in 2019 for Short Fiction (“The Eight People Who Murdered Me (Excerpt from Lucy Westenra’s Diary)” and Short Non-Fiction (“Magic, Madness, and Women Who Creep: The Power of Individuality in the Work of Charlotte Perkins Gilman”) and one in 2018 for First Novel (The Rust Maidens). Kiste was also nominated in 2020 for Long Fiction (The Invention of Ghosts) and in 2017 for Fiction Collection (And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe).

Daphne is Malerman’s ninth Final Ballot nod and sixth in a Novel category. From 2017 through 2020, Malerman received four consecutive nominations for his novels Malorie, Inspection, Unbury Carol, and Black Mad Wheel. Malerman was also nominated in 2017 for Fiction Collection (Goblin), in 2016 for Long Fiction (The Jupiter Drop (You, Human)), and in 2014 for First Novel (Bird Box). Malerman won a Bram Stoker Award in 2020 for Short Fiction (“One Last Transformation”).

Sundial is Ward’s first Final Ballot appearance.

Last year, Stephen Graham Jones won a second consecutive Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel with My Heart Is a Chainsaw after winning in 2020 for The Only Good Indians.

Here are the 2022 Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot nominees for the other categories. Visit the Bram Stoker Awards website for complete information.

Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Adams, Erin – Jackal
Cañas, Isabel – The Hacienda
Jones, KC – Black Tide
Nogle, Christi – Beulah
Wilkes, Ally – All the White Spaces

Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel
Dawson, Delilah S. – Camp Scare
Kraus, Daniel – They Stole Our Hearts
Malinenko, Ally – This Appearing House
Senf, Lora – The Clackity
Stringfellow, Lisa – A Comb of Wishes

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel
Aquilone, James (editor) – Kolchak: The Night Stalker: 50^th Anniversary
Gailey, Sarah (author) and Bak, Pius (artist) – Eat the Rich
Manzetti, Alessandro (author) and Cardoselli, Stefano (artist/author) – Kraken Inferno: The Last Hunt
Tynion IV, James (author) and Dell’Edera, Werther (artist) – Something is Killing the Children, Vol. 4
Young, Skottie (author) and Corona, Jorge (artist) – The Me You Love in the Dark

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel
Fraistat, Ann – What We Harvest
Jackson, Tiffany D. – The Weight of Blood
Marshall, Kate Alice – These Fleeting Shadows
Ottone, Robert P. – The Triangle
Schwab, V.E. – Gallant
Tirado, Vincent – Burn Down, Rise Up

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
Allred, Rebecca J. and White, Gordon B. – And in Her Smile, the World
Carmen, Christa – “Through the Looking Glass and Straight into Hell” (Orphans of Bliss: Tales of Addiction Horror)
Hightower, Laurel – Below
Katsu, Alma – The Wehrwolf
Knight, EV – Three Days in the Pink Tower

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
Dries, Aaron – “Nona Doesn’t Dance” (Cut to Care: A Collection of Little Hurts)
Gwilym, Douglas – “Poppy’s Poppy” (Penumbric Speculative Fiction Magazine, Vol. V, No. 6)
McCarthy, J.A.W.  – “The Only Thing Different Will Be the Body” (A Woman Built by Man)
Taborska, Anna – “A Song for Barnaby Jones”
Taborska, Anna – “The Star” (Great British Horror 7: Major Arcane)
Yardley, Mercedes M. – “Fracture” (Mother: Tales of Love and Terror)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection
Ashe, Paula D. – We Are Here to Hurt Each Other 
Joseph, RJ – Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted
Khaw, Cassandra – Breakable Things
Thomas, Richard – Spontaneous Human Combustion
Veres, Attila – The Black Maybe

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay
Cooper, Scott – The Pale Blue Eye
Derrickson, Scott and Cargill, C. Robert – The Black Phone

Duffer Brothers, The – Stranger Things: Episode 04.01 “Chapter One: The Hellfire Club”
Garland, Alex – Men
Goth, Mia and West, Ti – Pearl

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection
Bailey, Michael and Simon, Marge – Sifting the Ashes
Lynch, Donna – Girls from the County 
Pelayo, Cynthia – Crime Scene
Saulson, Sumiko – The Rat King: A Book of Dark Poetry
Sng, Christina – The Gravity of Existence

Superior Achievement in an Anthology
Datlow, Ellen – Screams from the Dark: 29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous
Hartmann, Sadie and Saywers, Ashley – Human Monsters: A Horror Anthology
Nogle, Christi and Becker, Willow – Mother: Tales of Love and Terror
Ryan, Lindy – Into the Forest: Tales of the Baba Yaga
Tantlinger, Sara – Chromophobia: A Strangehouse Anthology by Women in Horror

Superior Achievement in Non–Fiction
Cisco, Michael – Weird Fiction: A Genre Study
Hieber, Leanna Renee and Janes, Andrea – A Haunted History of Invisible Women: True Stories of America’s Ghosts
Kröger, Lisa and Anderson, Melanie R. – Toil and Trouble: A Women’s History of the Occult
Waggoner, Tim – Writing in the Dark: The Workbook
Wytovich, Stephanie M. – Writing Poetry in the Dark

Superior Achievement in Short Non–Fiction
Murray, Lee – “I Don’t Read Horror (& Other Weird Tales)” (Interstellar Flight Magazine)
Pelayo, Cynthia – “This is Not a Poem” (Writing Poetry in the Dark)
Wetmore, Jr., Kevin J. – “A Clown in the Living Room: The Sinister Clown on Television” (The Many Lives of Scary Clowns: Essays on Pennywise, Twisty, the Joker, Krusty and More)
Wood, L. Marie – “African American Horror Authors and Their Craft: The Evolution of Horror Fiction from African Folklore” (Conjuring Worlds: An Afrofuturist Textbook for Middle and High School Students)
Wood, L. Marie, “The H Word: The Horror of Hair” (Nightmare Magazine, No. 118)

With more than 1,800 members, the HWA has presented the awards for superior achievement in the horror and dark fiction genres since 1987. Winners will be announced on June 17 at the annual Bram Stoker Awards Banquet held during StokerCon 2023 in Pittsburgh, Penn. Visit stokercon.com for more details.

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