The Horror Writers Association has just released its preliminary ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards, which will be given out at this year’s World Horror Convention, held March 27-30, 2008 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Active HWA members will now vote from this list to create the final ballot. Awards will be given out in the categories of Superior Achievement in a Novel, Long Fiction, Short Fiction, Anthology, Collection, Nonfiction, and Poetry. Congratulations to all the potential nominees.

I’m extremely pleased to be able to say that two of the 12 stories on the preliminary ballot in the Long Fiction category were written by yours truly. Here’s the final dozen:

“Afterward, There Will Be A Hallway” by Gary Braunbeck (Five Strokes to Midnight)
“Almost the Last Story by Almost the Last Man” by Scott Edelman (Postscripts)
“Survival of the Fittest” by Scott Edelman (Summer Chills)
“You Never Got Used to the Needle” by John Everson (Needles and Sins)
“Blood Coven” by Angeline Hawkes & Christopher Fulbright (Dead Letter Press)
“General Slocum’s Gold” by Nicholas Kaufmann (Burning Effigy Press)
“Placeholders” by John R. Little (Necessary Evil Press)
“Blood Wish” by Michael McBride (Delirium Books)
“Frayed” by Tom Piccirilli (Creeping Hemlock Press)
“Lost in Translation” by Gord Rollo (NYX Books)
“An Apiary of White Bees” by Lee Thomas (Inferno)
“Trolling Lures” by Steve Vernon (Hard Roads)

My thanks go out to all those HWA members who liked my stories enough to recommend them. Now that voting is about to begin, if there are any active HWA members out there who’d like to receive copies of either of these two stories for further consideration, please let me know. Voting closes February 10, and the final ballot is to be mailed by February 15. I have no idea what will happen next, but that gives me three weeks or so to be happy and hopeful.