A toast to all of the StokerCon 2021 Organizers and Bram Stoker Award Winners and Finalists!

On May 24, 2021May 24, 2021 By PatriciaIn Books, Fiction, News, Videos, WritingLeave a comment

A bottle of Bocelli Prosecco and the base of a wine glass

Before COVID, I’d planned on going to Denver in April and/or May. A year ago, I hoped to make StokerCon 2021 my first StokerCon. I’m not in Denver. Neither was StokerCon. However, this first Virtual StokerCon was still my first, and it was fabulous. I’m still distilling all of the wonderful panels and presentations, so no wrap-up here, but a huge shoutout and thank you to Brian Matthews, James Chambers, and all of the others involved in putting on this massive event, including the panelists and presenters. Thank you for all of your work, and I hope your families recognize you as you return to “real life.”

Author readings for the con were pre-recorded, and now that it’s over, I can share my reading of “In Loco Parentis,” from my collection The Cuckoo Girls. It’s short!

The Cuckoo Girls didn’t win the Bram Stoker Award for Fiction Collection, but I’m still so thrilled with the nomination, it might as well have. In truth, I was so surprised at making the preliminary ballot and so shocked at making the final ballot that winning might have done me in—so it’s a good thing the award went to the talented Lee Murray for her amazing collection Grotesque: Monster Stories. Check it out.

No matter how far away you live, there’s a good chance you heard my screams when EV Knight’s win for First Novel was announced. Not only is her debut novel, The Fourth Whore wonderful, I’ve had the privilege of reading her next, Children of Demeter, coming in August from Raw Dog Screaming Press. You want this one, folks.

The complete list of winners and finalists is below. Get ready for some book shopping!

Next year, StokerCon will be in Denver, and once again, I’m hoping to be there.

The 2020 Bram Stoker Awards®

Superior Achievement in a Novel

WINNER: Jones, Stephen Graham – The Only Good Indians (Gallery/Saga Press)
Katsu, Alma – The Deep (G.P. Putnam’s Sons)
Keisling, Todd – Devil’s Creek (Silver Shamrock Publishing)
Malerman, Josh – Malorie (Del Rey)
Moreno-Garcia, Silvia – Mexican Gothic (Del Rey; Jo Fletcher Books)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel

WINNER: Knight, EV – The Fourth Whore (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Hall, Polly – The Taxidermist’s Lover (CamCat Publishing, LLC)
Harrison, Rachel – The Return (Berkley)
Jeffery, Ross – Tome (The Writing Collective)
Reed Petty, Kate – True Story (Viking; riverrun)

Superior Achievement in a Graphic Novel

WINNER: Holder, Nancy (author), Di Francia, Chiara (artist), and Woo, Amelia (artist) – Mary Shelley Presents (Kymera Press)
Archer, Steven (author/artist) – The Masque of the Red Death (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Brody, Jennifer (author) and Rivera, Jules (artist) – Spectre Deep 6 (Turner)
Douek, Rich (author) and Cormack, Alex (artist) – Road of Bones (IDW Publishing)
Manzetti, Alessandro (author) and Cardoselli, Stefano (artist/author) – Her Life Matters: (Or Brooklyn Frankenstein) (Independent Legions Publishing)
Niles, Steve (author), Simeone, Salvatore (author), and Kudranski, Szymon (artist) – Lonesome Days, Savage Nights (TKO Studios)

Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel

WINNER: Cesare, Adam – Clown in a Cornfield (HarperTeen)
Kraus, Daniel – Bent Heavens (Henry Holt and Company/Macmillan)
Snyman, Monique – The Bone Carver (Vesuvian Books)
Thomas, Aiden – Cemetery Boys (Swoon Reads/Macmillan)
Waters, Erica – Ghost Wood Song (HarperTeen)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction

WINNER: Jones, Stephen Graham – Night of the Mannequins (Tor.com)
Iglesias, Gabino – Beyond the Reef (Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror) (Wicked Run Press)
Kiste, Gwendolyn – The Invention of Ghosts (Nightscape Press)
Landry, Jess – I Will Find You, Even in the Dark (Dim Shores Presents Volume 1) (Dim Shores)
Pinsker, Sarah – Two Truths and a Lie (Tor.com)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction

WINNER: Malerman, Josh – “One Last Transformation” (Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors) (Written Backwards)
Arcuri, Meghan – “Am I Missing the Sunlight?” (Borderlands 7) (Borderlands Press)
Fawver, Kurt – “Introduction to the Horror Story, Day 1” (Nightmare Magazine Nov. 2020 (Issue 98))
O’Quinn, Cindy – “The Thing I Found Along a Dirt Patch Road” (Shotgun Honey Presents Volume 4: Recoil) (Down and Out Books)
Ward, Kyla Lee – “Should Fire Remember the Fuel?” (Oz is Burning) (B Cubed Press)

Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection

WINNER: Murray, Lee – Grotesque: Monster Stories (Things in the Well)
Koja, Kathe – Velocities: Stories (Meerkat Press)
Langan, John – Children of the Fang and Other Genealogies (Word Horde)
Lillie, Patricia – The Cuckoo Girls (Trepidatio Publishing)
Taborska, Anna – Bloody Britain (Shadow Publishing)

Superior Achievement in a Screenplay

WINNER: Whannell, Leigh – The Invisible Man (Universal Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, Goalpost Pictures, Nervous Tick Productions)
Amaris, Scarlett and Stanley, Richard – Color Out of Space (SpectreVision)
Green, Misha – Lovecraft Country, Season 1, Episode 1: “Sundown” (Affeme, Monkeypaw Productions, Bad Robot Productions, Warner Bros. Television Studios)
Green, Misha and Ofordire, Ihuoma – Lovecraft Country, Season 1, Episode 8: “Jig-a-Bobo” (Affeme, Monkeypaw Productions, Bad Robot Productions, Warner Bros. Television Studios)
LaManna, Angela – The Haunting of Bly Manor, Season 1, Episode 5: “The Altar of the Dead” (Intrepid Pictures, Amblin Television, Paramount Television Studios)

Superior Achievement in a Poetry Collection

WINNER: Sng, Christina – A Collection of Dreamscapes (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Manzetti, Alessandro – Whitechapel Rhapsody: Dark Poems (Independent Legions Publishing)
McHugh, Jessica – A Complex Accident of Life (Apokrupha)
Pelayo, Cynthia – Into the Forest and All the Way Through (Burial Day Books)
Tantlinger, Sara – Cradleland of Parasites (Rooster Republic Press)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology

WINNER: Murray, Lee and Flynn, Geneve – Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women (Omnium Gatherum Media)
Bailey, Michael and Murano, Doug – Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors (Written Backwards)
Kolesnik, Samantha – Worst Laid Plans: An Anthology of Vacation Horror (Grindhouse Press)
Tantlinger, Sara – Not All Monsters: A Strangehouse Anthology by Women of Horror (Rooster Republic Press)
Yardley, Mercedes M. – Arterial Bloom (Crystal Lake Publishing)

Superior Achievement in Non-Fiction

WINNER: Waggoner, Tim – Writing in the Dark (Guide Dog Books/Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Florence, Kelly and Hafdahl, Meg – The Science of Women in Horror: The Special Effects, Stunts, and True Stories Behind Your Favorite Fright Films (Skyhorse)
Heller-Nicholas, Alexandra – 1000 Women in Horror (BearManor Media)
Keene, Brian – End of the Road (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Peirse, Alison – Women Make Horror: Filmmaking, Feminism, Genre (Rutgers University Press)
Wetmore, Jr. Kevin J. – The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Adaption (McFarland)

Superior Achievement in Short Non-Fiction

WINNER: Waggoner, Tim – “Speaking of Horror” (The Writer)
Jackson Joseph, Rhonda – “The Beloved Haunting of Hill House: An Examination of Monstrous Motherhood” (The Streaming of Hill House: Essays on the Haunting Netflix Adaptation) (McFarland)
Pelayo, Cynthia – “I Need to Believe” (Southwest Review Volume 105.3)
Robinson, Kelly – “Lost, Found, and Finally Unbound: The Strange History of the 1910 Edison Frankenstein” (Rue Morgue Magazine, June 2020)
Sng, Christina – “Final Girl: A Life in Horror” (Interstellar Flight Magazine, October 2020)

Out with the Old, In with the New

On January 6, 2019March 9, 2019 By PatriciaIn News, Story Sales, Writing1 Comment

I’ve been sporadic (to put it mildly) about blogging. It’s a new year, but I’m going to skip the good intentions and promises to do better this year. However, it’s traditional to look back and look ahead when the calendar turns over, so in an effort to prove I can do traditional, here goes.

Night view outside the Adam and Eve, reputed to be the oldest pub in Norwich, England.

In 2018, I wrote some new short stories and submitted stories both new and old. Rejection occurred (of course), but two were accepted (more on that later). Definitely one for the win column.

I left one job and found another. Big win. In between, I worked three days at a Dairy Queen, but that’s a story for another time. A time with alcohol. Lots and lots of alcohol.

I went to Europe twice. Norwich remains a favorite city, and I’ve added Düsseldorf to the list. How can this be anything but a win?

The publisher of my two novels, The Ceiling Man and Ghosts in Glass Houses (by my much nicer alter ego, Kay Charles) stopped accepting and publishing new books. However, they didn’t completely close-up shop, and both books are still available. This makes me much luckier than the many authors whose books lost their homes in the shuttering of too many publishers last year. (Note: The Kindle version of Ghosts is on sale in the US for 99¢ through Wednesday, January 9th.) Not a win, but not a total loss either.

In Düsseldorf bin ich als die Katzenfrau von Maya bekannt.

Tantor Media offered me a contract for the audio rights to The Ceiling Man, and I gladly took it. A win.

I remembered to get my flu shot. Another win.

There were a few more ups and downs but overall, despite horrible happenings in the world, my little corner of the universe wasn’t so bad. I’ll take it. And I am grateful to all who helped make it a good year.

♦

Looking forward to this year, I’m excited.

Tantor’s audio edition of The Ceiling Man is scheduled for release on January 29th. (As I write this, the cover image at that link is a placeholder.) It should be available through Audible, Amazon, iTunes, and all the other usual audiobook outlets. It may even show up in Overdrive or Hoopla—check your local library.

A restaurant window in Cologne. Yes, we ate there.

On February 22nd, C.M. Muller’s new anthology Twice-Told: A Collection of Doubles will be released. It includes my story, “Zwillingslied.” I’ve read the proofs on this one folks, and it’s not to be missed. Twenty-two original takes on the doppelgänger theme and all of them wonderful. (Well, at least 21 are. Not so sure about that “Zwillingslied.”)

Sometime in 2019, date to be announced, “That’s What Friends Are For” will appear in David Longhorn’s Supernatural Tales. This weird little haunted house story has netted me the best rejection letters ever. The kind you read to make yourself feel better when the writing isn’t going well. (Yes, that sort of rejection letter does exist!) I am so glad it’s found a home and a wonderful home at that.

♦

The first thing I did in 2019 was pull out a piece of knitting I started on June 8, 2015 and put away a month later in frustration over what turned out to be an error in the pattern.

You could point out all the errors (mine—the pattern’s been corrected) and half-assed fixes, but please don’t.

I intended to unravel it and use the wool for something else. Instead, I decided to finish it. It was complicated enough that I couldn’t listen to an audiobook or watch a movie or otherwise multitask while working. Which made it a contemplative experience. Which is not necessarily good thing for a pathological over-thinker. (Okay, I will make a New Year’s resolution: No more introspection for the next 365 days.)

Somewhere along the line, with all the unknitting, ripping out, and reknitting, the mistakes I tried to fix and those I decided to ignore, and the hole that appeared while I was neglecting and avoiding it, the thing became a metaphor for my entire life.

After three and a half years, I finished it.

And I’m going to wear the hell out of it, badly applied patch and all.

Happy New Year all.

Beer, Two New Indie Books You Should Read, and a Really, Really Big Sloth

On April 3, 2018March 9, 2019 By PatriciaIn Books, Fun, ReadingLeave a comment

I’m a bad little blogger and haven’t been around much. I have no excuse other than, well, life. It happens and sometimes gets in the way.

And sometimes, it’s good. I spent March traveling and may or may not have consumed six months worth of beer in three weeks. But it was pretty. Here’s a picture taken outside the Adam and Eve, reputed to be the oldest pub in Norwich, England.

The Adnams Southwold Bitter is lovely.

All the traveling gave me lots of time to read. What else do you do when trapped on an airplane? Amongst others, I read two recent indie releases. One was released shortly before I left, the other shortly before my return. Sometimes, the universe is kind. I love me some Gothic Horror and highly recommend both books.

Read on the flight to Norwich:

High Lonesome Sound is a new direction for author Jaye Wells (The Prospero’s War series), and one I hope she continues to explore.

“In the sleepy mountain town of Moon Hollow, Virginia, there is a church with a crooked steeple. No one will say for sure how it got that way, but it’s the reason the whole town gathers every Decoration Day to honor the dead.

This year, there are two fresh graves up on Cemetery Hill, a stranger’s come to town, and the mountain’s song is filled with dark warnings.

The good people of Moon Hollow are about to learn that some secrets are too painful to bear, and some spirits are too restless to stay buried.”—from the Amazon description

This is a story that will leave you shivering in the dead of summer.—Cherie Priest, author of The Family Plot

Read on the flight home:

From Scott A. Johnson (the Stanley Cooper Chronicles) comes Shy Grove: A Ghost Story. Texas Gothic, and right up my alley!

“When Gary’s crazy aunt Ester dies, he inherits her house in the forgotten town of Shy Grove. Along with his wife and son, he moves into the house to catalogue her belongings, as well as try to work on their relationships. But from the first night, strange things happen in the house. Whispers in empty rooms, shadows in corridors, and changes in Gary’s personality hint that there is something wrong.

And not just with the house…

Shy Grove: A Ghost Story is southern gothic horror that builds a sense of creeping dread.”—from the Amazon description

Scott A. Johnson doesn’t just see the world differently… He sees an entirely different world.— Gary Braunbeck, author of In Silent Graves

Borrow for free with Kindle Unlimited or purchase it at Amazon

Neither of the above are affiliate links and I get nothing (other than the enjoyment of reading and a severe case of envy because I really want to write a gothic ghost story myself) out of them. I just think you should read the books. However, in the self-interest category, the Kindle edition of my novel The Ceiling Man happens to currently be on sale for 99¢ in the US and Canada. And, as always, it’s free to borrow on Kindle Unlimited.

A supernatural creature arrives in the small, fictional town of Port Massasauga and sets his sights on Abby, a girl with psychic powers similar to his own, in Lillie’s gripping debut…Lillie sidesteps horror clichés and presents characters who don’t make eye-rolling decisions…horror fans should expect an entertaining novel that’s tough to put down.—Publishers Weekly/Booklife

Get it at Amazon

Seems like I’m forgetting something…oh, yeah! I promised you a giant sloth. Here you go. a photo of a Megatherium americanum taken at the Natural History Museum, London. I left that big boy behind, but I did come home with Darwin socks.