The 2024 Bram Stoker Awards feature a high-profile showdown of familiar names for Superior Achievement in a Novel as the Horror Writers Association announced its Final Ballot on February 23.
Overall, 65 works of fiction and nonfiction published in 2024 were nominated in 13 categories. Winners will be announced on June 14 during the annual awards banquet at StokerCon 2025 in Stamford, Connecticut. The Horror Writers Association has presented the awards for superior achievement in horror and dark fiction since 1987.
The Novel category showcases five heavyweights of horror who have a combined total of 12 wins and 22 nominations on their list of Bram Stoker Awards accomplishments.
Gabino Iglesias returns to the Final Ballot and gets a chance at a second win in three years with House of Bone and Rain. His novel The Devil Takes You Home won the 2022 Bram Stoker Award.
Stephen Graham Jones receives his fourth nomination in the past five years in the Novel category with I Was a Teenage Slasher. He won back-to-back Stokers for his novels My Heart Is a Chainsaw (2021) and The Only Good Indians (2020). He was previously nominated in the Novel category for Don’t Fear the Reaper (2023) and Mongrels (2016).
Gwendolyn Kiste earns her second nom in the Novel category with The Haunting of Velkwood. She was previously nominated for Reluctant Immortals (2022). Her debut novel Rust Maidens won a Stoker for Superior Achievement in a First Novel at the 2018 awards.
Josh Malerman collects his sixth nomination in the Novel category with Incidents Around the House. Malerman’s other five novels to reach the Final Ballot are Daphne (2022), Malorie (2020), Inspection (2019), Unbury Carol (2018), and Black Mad Wheel (2017). His debut novel Bird Box was nominated for Superior Achievement in a First Novel at the 2014 awards.
Paul Tremblay garners his fourth nomination in the Novel category with Horror Movie. He previously won for The Cabin at the End of the World (2018) and A Head Full of Ghosts (2015). His other nomination in the Novel category was for Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (2016). Tremblay’s debut novel The Little Sleep was nominated for Superior Achievement in a First Novel at the 2009 awards.
That’s a brief breakdown of the nominees for Superior Achievement in a Novel. Without further ado, here are the rest of the nominees. Visit bramstokerawards.horror.org for the complete press release.
Superior Achievement in an Anthology
Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror edited by Sofia Ajram
We Mostly Come Out at Night: 15 Queer Tales of Monsters, Angels & Other Creatures edited by Rob Costello
Discontinue If Death Ensues: Tales from the Tipping Point edited by Carol Gyzander and Anna Taborska
Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners edited by Doug Murano and Michael Bailey
Mother Knows Best: Tales of Homemade Horror edited Lindy Ryan
Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection
Not a Speck of Light by Laird Barron
A Sunny Place for Shady People by Mariana Enriquez
The Dead Spot: Stories of Lost Girls by Angela Sylvaine
Old Monsters Never Die by Tim Waggoner
Love is a Crematorium and Other Tales by Mercedes M. Yardley
Superior Achievement in a First Novel
Midnight Rooms by Donyae Coles
Hollow Girls by Jessica Drake-Thomas, Jessica
This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer
The Eyes Are the Best Part by Monika Kim
Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan
Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel
The Fox Maidens by Robin Ha
Tender by Beth Hetland
Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees by Patrick Horvath
H. P. Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu by Gou Tanabe
Chrysanthemum Under the Waves by Maggie Umber
Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram
Rest Stop by Nat Cassidy
Kill Your Darling by Clay McLeod Chapman
“All The Parts of You That Won’t Easily Burn” by Eric LaRocca, from This Skin Was Once Mine and Other Disturbances
Hollow Tongue by Eden Royce
Superior Achievement in Long Non-Fiction
Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold on Us by Anna Bogutskaya
American Scary: A History of Horror, from Salem to Stephen King and Beyond by Jeremy Dauber
I Spit on Your Celluloid: The History of Women Directing Horror Movies by Heidi Honeycutt
Horror for Weenies: Everything You Need to Know About the Films You’re Too Scared to Watch by Emily C. Hughes
No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction that Transcends the Tropes edited by Cassandra O’Sullivan Sachar
Superior Achievement in a Middle Grade Novel
The Curse of Eelgrass Bog by Mary Averling
The Witch in the Woods by Michaelbrent Collings
The No-Brainer’s Guide to Decomposition by Adrianna Cuevas
There’s Something Sinister in Center Field by Robert P. Ottone
The Creepening of Dogwood House by Eden Royce
Superior Achievement in Poetry
The Dark Between the Twilight by Jamal Hodge
Mexicans on the Moon: Speculative Poetry from a Possible Future by Pedro Iniguez
Fox Spirit on a Distant Cloud by Lee Murray
Melancholia: A Book of Dark Poetry by Sumiko Saulson
Imitation of Life by L. Marie Wood
Superior Achievement in a Screenplay
Heretic by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods
Nosferatu by Robert Eggers, Henrik Galeen, and Bram Stoker
The Substance by Coralie Fargeat
Longlegs by Osgood Perkins
I Saw the TV Glow by Jane Schoenbrun
Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
“Versus Versus” by Laird Barron, from Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manner
“And She Had Been So Reasonable” by Rachel Bolton, from Apex Magazine Issue 147
“To the Wolves” by Sasha Brown, from Weird Horror #9
“Ten Thousand Crawling Children” by R.A. Busby, from Nightmare Magazine January 2024
“She Sheds Her Skin” by Raven Jakubowski, from Nightmare Magazine November 2024
Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction
“Screamin’ in the Rain: The Orchestration of Catharsis in William Castle’s The Tingler“ by Michael Arnzen, from What Sleeps Beneath
“The Horror of Donna Berzatto and Her Feast of the Seven Fishes” by Vince Liaguno, from You’re Not Alone in the Dark
“Hidden Histories: The Many Ghosts of Disney’s Haunted Mansion” by Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock, from Disney Gothic: Dark Shadows in the House of Mouse
“Jackson and Haunting of the Stage” by Kevin J. Wetmore Jr., from Journal of Shirley Jackson Studies Vol. 2 No. 1
“Blacks in Film and Cultivated Bias” by Lisa Wood, from No More Haunted Dolls: Horror Fiction that Transcends the Tropes
Superior Achievement in a YA Novel
Clown in a Cornfield 3: The Church of Frendo by Adam Cesare
A Place for Vanishing by Ann Fraistat
Come Out, Come Out by Natalie C. Parker
The Losting Fountain by Lora Senf
The Blonde Dies First by Joelle Wellington
For more information on the 2024 Final Ballot and StokerCon 2025, visit the HWA or the Bram Stoker Awards.
LIONEL RAY GREEN 