I learned yesterday that my short story, “Petrified,” which was published last year in Desolate Souls, the souvenir program book for the 2008 World Horror Convention, made HWA’s final Stoker ballot in the category Superior Achievement in Short Fiction.

This marks my fourth such nomination—my first was back in 1998 for 1997’s story “A Plague on Both Your Houses”—but this nod differs from all the rest in that it’s my first Stoker-nominated piece not to contain zombies. So all of you haters of the shambling undead can finally relax.

Here are the finalists in my category:

“Petrified” by Scott Edelman (Desolate Souls)
“The Lost” by Sarah Langan (Cemetery Dance Publications)
“The Dude Who Collected Lovecraft” by Nick Mamatas and Tim Pratt (Chizine)
“Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment” by M. Rickert (Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction)
“Turtle” by Lee Thomas (Doorways)

You’ll note that this is the second consecutive year I’m competing against Lee Thomas, and we all know what happened last year in Salt Lake City …

As you can see, Lee Thomas took on Gary Braunbeck, while I tackled Nicholas Kaufmann. But this year, that Thomas dude and I plan on going head to head! Come watch us face off June 12-14 during the Stoker Awards Weekend in Burbank.

My apologies to all my LiveJournal friends for mentioning this news on Twitter and over at Facebook before coming here to share. To make it up to you, I’m letting you be the first to know that you can download a copy of “Petrified” here to see what the fuss is about.