Archive for the 'Stoker News' Category

The Bram Stoker Awards™ are a staple and institution among horror writers and horror fans around the globe. As the Horror Writers Association and its members gather to celebrate the exemplary fiction, poetry and scripts of 2011, we at the Tales to Terrify podcast want to show our support for this award by bringing the Short Fiction nominees to a wider audience.

Tales to Terrify has made a commitment to showcase only the best in horror fiction and raise the public profile of the short story as a format. We wish to represent the world wealth of this genre and with this goal in mind, we could not ignore the significance of The Bram Stoker Awards™.

Without further ado, Tales to Terrify is proud to announce The Bram Stoker Awards Short Fiction Initiative. It is a great honor and privilege to host two consecutive shows reserved entirely for the nominees in the Superior Achievement in Short Fiction category.

The initiative will begin with our Show number 10 on Friday, the 16th of March, and will end with our 11th show on Friday, the 23rd of March. Please find enclosed the show program with the nominees below:

Show 10: March 16th
O’Neill, Gene — “Graffiti Sonata” (Dark Discoveries)
Castro, Adam Troy — “Her Husband’s Hands” (Lightspeed Magazine)
Warren, Kaaron — “All You Can Do Is Breathe” (Blood and Other Cravings)

Show 11: March 23th
Lillie-Paetz, Ken — “Hypergraphia” (The Uninvited, Issue 1)
Saunders, George — “Home” (The New Yorker Magazine, June 13, 2011)
King, Stephen — “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic Magazine, May 2011)

Don’t forget to tune in at Tales to Terrify Friday March 16th and allow us to haunt your feed.

Listen here.

Thank you, Larry, for this wonderful gift.

The button has been reactivated and a handful of churlish vampire-toothed chipmunks are standing by to collect your recommendations.

Only members may submit recommendations.

Read the Award Etiquette page for tons of information on how to get your work or a recommended work tactfully to the right people.

Follow this link to recommend works published in 2012: http://www.horror.org/private/stokers/.

We thought you might be interested in looking at this information-rich overview of the nominees for the Horror Writers Association’s Vampire Novel of the Century nominees.

It begins like this:

We at MonsterLibrarian.com are here to help you learn a little about these titles.

Below you’ll find reviews of each of the nominated books. Some of these are now out of print or difficult to find (The Soft Whisper of the Dead was a limited edition of only 2,800 copies), but if you search your existing collection, you may find these books are already on your shelves.

Even if they aren’t, and you can’t snag yourself a copy, this is a great time to showcase your vampire novels and movies. Chelsea Quinn Yarbro has just come out with the twenty-fifth book in her Count Saint-Germain series, Commedia della Morte. Nominee Hotel Transylvania is the first book in that series. Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend has been made into three movies since it was published in 1954.

To read more, go to: http://www.monsterlibrarian.com/HWAVampire.htm.

The final ballot for the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Awards™ for works published in 2011 has been compiled.

The link to the ballot has been sent out to Active and Lifetime members via email. The deadline to submit your vote is March 04, 2012, midnight Pacific Coast time.

NOVEL:

Conlon, Christopher — A Matrix Of Angels
Lamberson, Greg — Cosmic Forces
Malfi, Ronald — Floating Staircase
McKinney, Joe — Flesh Eaters
O’Neill, Gene — Not Fade Away
Thomas, Lee — The German

FIRST NOVEL:

Bird, Allyson — Isis Unbound
Jacobs, John, Horner — Southern Gods
Lee, Frazer — The Lamplighters
Roche, Thomas — The Panama Laugh
Talley, Brett J. — That Which Should Not Be

YA NOVEL:

Faherty, J. G. — Ghosts of Coronado Bay, A Maya Blair Mystery
Holder, Nancy — The Screaming Season
Kraus, Daniel — Rotters
Maberry, Jonathan — Dust & Decay
Ness, Patrick — A Monster Calls
Oppel, Kenneth — This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein

GRAPHIC NOVEL:

Brosgol, Vera — Anya’s Ghost
Hill, Joe — Locke & Key, Volume 4
Jensen, Jeff — Green River Killer
Maberry, Jonathan — Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine
Mignola, Mike and Golden, Christopher — The Plague Ships
Moore, Alan — Neonomicon

LONG FICTION:

Calvillo, Michael Louis — 7Brains
Hodge, Brian — Roots and All
Kiernan, Caitlin — The Colliers’ Venus (1893)
Little, John R. — Ursa Major
O’Neill, Gene — Rusting Chickens
Straub, Peter — The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine

SHORT FICTION:

Castro, Adam Troy — “Her Husband’s Hands” (Lightspeed Magazine)
King, Stephen — “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic Magazine, May 2011)
Lillie-Paetz, Ken — “Hypergraphia” (The Uninvited, Issue 1)
O’Neill, Gene — “Graffiti Sonata” (Dark Discoveries)
Saunders, George — “Home” (The New Yorker Magazine, June 13, 2011)
Warren, Kaaron — “All You Can Do Is Breathe” (Blood and Other Cravings)

SCREENPLAY:

Ball, Alan — True Blood: Spellbound (Episode #44)
Gimple, Scott M. — The Walking Dead, episode 13: “Pretty Much Dead Already”
Gimple, Scott M. — The Walking Dead, episode 9: “Save the Last One”
Goodman, Cory — Priest
Nolfi, George — The Adjustment Bureau
Sharzer, Jessica — American Horror Story, episode 12: “Afterbirth”

ANTHOLOGY:

Carbone, Tracy L. — Epitaphs
Dann, Jack and Nick Gevers — Ghosts By Gaslight
Datlow, Ellen — Blood And Other Cravings
Datlow, Ellen — Supernatural Noir
Hutton, Frank J. — Tattered Souls 2
Skipp, John — Demons: Encounters with the Devil and his Minions, Fallen Angels and the Possessed

COLLECTION:

Connolly, Lawrence C. — Voices: Tales of Horror
Fowler, Christopher — Red Gloves: The London Horrors
Kiernan, Caitlin R. — Two Worlds and In-Between
Morton, Lisa — Monsters of L.A.
Oates, Joyce Carol — The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares
Ochse, Weston — Multiplex Fandango

NON-FICTION:

Bannatyne, Lesley Pratt — Halloween Nation: Behind the Scenes of America’s Fright Night
Crawford, Gary William/Jim Rockhill/Brian J. Showers, Eds. — Reflections in a Glass Darkly: Essays on J. Sheridan Le Fanu
Mamatas, Nick — Starve Better
Mogk, Matt — Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies
Tibbetts, John C. — The Gothic Imagination
Wood, Rocky — Stephen King: A Literary Companion

POETRY COLLECTION:

Addison, Linda — How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend
Alexander, Maria — At Louche Ends: Poetry for the Decadent, the Damned & the Absinthe-Minded
Boston, Bruce — Surrealities
Clark, G.O — Shroud of Night
Simon, Marge — The Mad Hattery
Simon, Marge — Unearthly Delights

* NOTE: If you are an Active or Lifetime member who did not receive notification of the Preliminary Ballot and who would like to vote on the Final Ballot, please contact Angel Leigh McCoy (webmaster@horror.org) for instructions on how to ensure you receive the ballot in your email box.

We’re setting up for next year’s awards. The following jury members will serve for the 2012 Bram Stoker Awards™. Works published in 2012 are eligible.

The Horror Writers Association (HWA), the international association of writers, publishing professionals, and supporters of horror literature, in conjunction with the Bram Stoker Family Estate and the Rosenbach Museum & Library, proudly announces the nominees for the Bram Stoker Vampire Novel of the Century Award. The award will be presented at the Bram Stoker Awards™ Banquet at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, Utah, on March 31, 2012, upon the centenary of the death of Abraham (Bram) Stoker, the author of Dracula.

From a field of more than 35 preliminary nominees, a jury of writers and scholars selected the six vampire novels that they believe have had the greatest impact on the horror genre since publication of Dracula in 1897. Eligible works must have been first published between 1912 and 2011 and published in or translated into English.

The nominees are:

The Soft Whisper of the Dead by Charles L. Grant (1983). Grant (1946-2006)was a prolific American writer of what he called “dark fantasy” and “quiet horror,” writing under six pseudonyms as well as his own name. Grant also edited numerous horror and fantasy anthologies. The novel is part of Grant’s 12-part series, set in the fictional small town Oxrun Station, Connecticut. Grant was a former president of HWA and received its Lifetime Achievement Award in 1999.

Salem’s Lot by Stephen King. First published in 1975, this was only the second work by the now-legendary American author of dozens of fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and horror stories, comics, and novels. Set in the town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine, it tells of a man’s return to his hometown, where he finds a plague of vampirism. The book has  twice been made into television mini-series and has been recorded by the BBC. King’s work has won countless Bram  Stoker Awards™ from HWA, and King (1947-), a lifelong New England resident, was recognized with HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002.

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. First published in 1954, the novel is set in the mid-1970′s, when a plague has swept the world, bringing with it flesh-eating creatures identified as vampires. Richard Neville, the book’s protagonist, may be the last living human. The work has been filmed three times under various titles; its most recent adaptation (2007) starred Will Smith. Matheson (1926-), an American, has written screenplays as well as short and long fiction, and many of his works have been filmed or made into tele-plays. He wrote frequently for The Twilight Zone in its heyday.  Matheson received HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990.

Anno Dracula by Kim Newman first appeared in 1992. The novel imagines an alternate history in which Van Helsing and his cohorts failed in their attempt to rid England of Dracula. In this timeline, Dracula went on to marry Queen Victoria, ushering in an era of vampire aristocracy in England and elsewhere. The book is followed by two other novels and a number of shorter works set in the Anno Dracula universe, all meticulously researched to include numerous historical details and many characters of Victorian and more recent popular literature. Newman (1959-) is an English writer of fantasy and horror, as well as reference books in the field, and frequently appears as a host and critic for the BBC and other media.

Interview with the Vampire by American author Anne Rice first appeared in 1976 and achieved enormous popularity, selling more than 8 million copies. The book introduces the vampires Louis and Lestat, who, along with a dozen other unique individual vampires, appear in a long series by Rice known as The Vampire Chronicles. The novel was filmed in 1994 starring Tom Cruise as Lestat and Brad Pitt as Louis, and was produced as a Broadway musical in 2006. Another work in the series, Queen of the Damned, was filmed in 2002. Rice (1941-) has written numerous other gothic fantasy novels, selling more than 100 million copies worldwide, and has won many awards, including HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003.

Hotel Transylvania by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, published in 1978, is the first of a 25-book (so far) series featuring le Comte de Saint Germain, a 2000+-year-old vampire. This novel overlaps in many details with the historical facts of le Comte de Saint-Germain, a mysterious figure. An American writer, Yarbro (1942-) publishes three or four books a year, under various pseudonyms, in a variety of genres, including mysteries and romance tales. She was awarded HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2008.

The winning book will be announced on March 31, 2012. HWA will also celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary on that date.

For more information, please contact Leslie S. Klinger, chair of the Bram Stoker Vampire Novel of the Century jury, at mail@lesliesklinger.com, 310-475-1444.

For each category (Novel, First Novel, etc) there are potentially TWO ballots: one for the works that proceed from the recommendations (‘Recs’) ballot and one for the works that proceed from the Jury ballot.

A short explanation of the system for determining for the Bram Stoker Awards™ ballots appears at: http://www.horror.org/stokers.htm. As the preliminary ballot is designed to produce three works for the final ballot in a category from each of the “Recs” and “Jury” ballots, if there are three or less works qualified in a category, they proceed directly to the final ballot.

If you see four, five or six works in a “Rec” or “Jury” ballot below, that ballot will proceed to be voted on by Active and Lifetime Members and they are marked ‘Ballot Required’.

NOVEL:

RECS:

Ballot Required

• Lamberson, Greg — Cosmic Forces
• Longfellow, Ki — Houdini Heart
• Malfi, Ronald — Floating Staircase
• O’Neill, Gene — Not Fade Away
• Warner, Matthew — Blood Born

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Conlon, Christopher — A Matrix Of Angels
• Dunbar, Robert — Willy
• McKinney, Joe — Flesh Eaters
• Oliver, Reggie — The Dracula Papers, Book 1: The Scholar’s Tale
• Thomas, Lee — The German

FIRST NOVEL:

RECS:

Ballot Required

• Bird, Allyson — Isis Unbound
• Lee, Frazer — The Lamplighters
• Reynolds, Graeme — High Moor
• Talley, Brett J. — That Which Should Not Be
• Wagner, Jeremy — The Armageddon Chord

JURY:

No ballot required, the following works will proceed directly to the Final Ballot. Please note these works may not be described as Nominees until the Final Ballot is formally announced.

• Jacobs, John, Horner — Southern Gods
• Roche, Thomas — The Panama Laugh

YA NOVEL:

RECS:

Ballot Required

• Faherty, J. G. — Ghosts of Coronado Bay, A Maya Blair Mystery
• Holder, Nancy — The Screaming Season
• Maberry, Jonathan — Dust & Decay
• Matthews, Araminta Star — Blind Hunger

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Blake, Kendare — Anna Dressed in Blood
• Kraus, Daniel — Rotters
• Ness, Patrick — A Monster Calls
• Oppel, Kenneth — This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein
• Roth, Veronica — Divergent

GRAPHIC NOVEL:

RECS:

Ballot Required

• Hill, Joe — Locke & Key, Volume 4
• Maberry, Jonathan — Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher
• Maberry, Jonathan — Marvel Universe vs. Wolverine
• Mignola, Mike and Golden, Christopher — The Plague Ships
• O’Reilly, Sean; Nassise, Joe; Weick, Halston — Candice Crow

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Brosgol, Vera — Anya’s Ghost
• Fialkov, Joshua Hale — Echoes
• Jensen, Jeff — Green River Killer
• Moore, Alan — Neonomicon
• Smith, John — Cradlegrave

LONG FICTION:

RECS:

Ballot Required

• Breaux, Kevin James — Dark Water: Beaming Smile
• Calvillo, Michael Louis — 7Brains
• Little, John R. — Ursa Major
• O’Neill, Gene — Rusting Chickens
• Schwamberger, Ty — The Fields

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Hodge, Brian — Roots and All
• Kiernan, Caitlin — The Colliers’ Venus (1893)
• Lindqvist, John Ajvide — The Music of Bengt Karlsson, Murderer
• Shearman, Robert — Alice Through A Plastic Sheet
• Straub, Peter — The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine

SHORT FICTION:

RECS:

Ballot Required

• Bailey, Michael — “It Tears Away” (The Shadow of the Unknown)
• Lillie-Paetz, Ken — “Hypergraphia” (The Uninvited, Issue 1)
• O’Neill, Gene — “Graffiti Sonata” (Dark Discoveries)
• Palisano, John — “X is for Xyx” (M is for Monster)
• Warren, Kaaron — “All You Can Do Is Breathe” (Blood and Other Cravings)

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Ausubel, Ramona — “Atria” (The New Yorker Magazine, April 4, 2011)
• Ballingrud, Nathan — “Sunbleached” (Teeth: Vampire Tales)
• Castro, Adam Troy — “Her Husband’s Hands” (Lightspeed Magazine)
• King, Stephen — “Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” (The Atlantic Magazine, May 2011)
• Saunders, George — “Home” (The New Yorker Magazine, June 13, 2011)

SCREENPLAY:

RECS:

No ballot required, the following works will proceed directly to the Final Ballot. Please note these works may not be described as Nominees until the Final Ballot is formally announced.

• Ball, Alan — True Blood: Spellbound (Episode #44)
• Goodman, Cory — Priest
• Nolfi, George — The Adjustment Bureau

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Gimple, Scott M. — The Walking Dead, episode 13: “Pretty Much Dead Already”
• Gimple, Scott M. — The Walking Dead, episode 9: “Save the Last One”
• Noxon, Marti — Fright Night
• Ovrehahl, Andre and Havard S. Johansen — Troll Hunter
• Sharzer, Jessica — American Horror Story, episode 12: “Afterbirth”

ANTHOLOGY:

RECS:

No ballot required, the following works will proceed directly to the Final Ballot. Please note these works may not be described as Nominees until the Final Ballot is formally announced.

• Carbone, Tracy L. — NEHW Presents: Epitaphs
• Hutton, Frank J. — Tattered Souls 2
• Skipp, John — Demons: Encounters with the Devil and His Minions, Fallen Angels, and the Possessed

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Dann, Jack and Nick Gevers — Ghosts By Gaslight
• Datlow, Ellen — Blood And Other Cravings
• Datlow, Ellen — Supernatural Noir
• Datlow, Ellen and Terri Windling — Teeth
• VanderMeer, Jeff and Ann — The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

COLLECTION:

RECS:

Ballot Required

• Burke, Chesya — Let’s Play White
• Connolly, Lawrence C. — Voices: Tales of Horror
• Gresh, Lois — Eldritch Evolutions
• Haines, Paul — The Last Days of Kali Yuga
• Morton, Lisa — Monsters of L.A.
• Ochse, Weston — Multiplex Fandango

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Fowler, Christopher — Red Gloves: The London Horrors
• Kiernan, Caitlin R. — Two Worlds and In-Between
• Llewellyn, Livia — Engines of Desire
• Oates, Joyce Carol — The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares
• Oliver, Reggie — Mrs. Midnight and Other Stories

NON-FICTION:

RECS:

No ballot required, the following works will proceed directly to the Final Ballot. Please note these works may not be described as Nominees until the Final Ballot is formally announced.

• Bannatyne, Lesley Pratt — Halloween Nation: Behind the Scenes of America’s Fright Night
• Mamatas, Nick — Starve Better
• Mogk, Matt — Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Crawford, Gary William, Jim Rockhill, and Brian J. Showers, Eds. — Reflections in a Glass Darkly
• Rupe, Shade — Dark Stars Rising
• Shultz, David E. and S.T. Joshi, Ed. — Letters to James F. Morton
• Tibbetts, John C. — The Gothic Imagination
• Wood, Rocky — Stephen King: A Literary Companion

POETRY:

RECS:

Ballot Required

• Alexander, Maria — At Louche Ends: Poetry for the Decadent,the Damned & the Absinthe-Minded
• Clark, G.O — Shroud of Night
• Borski, Robert — Blood Wallah and Other Poems
• Simon, Marge — The Mad Hattery
• Ward, Kyla Lee — The Land of Bad Dreams

JURY:

Ballot Required

• Addison, Linda — How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend
• Boston, Bruce — Surrealities
• Marshall, Helen — Skeleton Leaves
• Schwader, Ann K. — Twisted in Dream
• Simon, Marge — Unearthly Delights

The Horror Writers Association has chosen two long-time icons of the genre to receive the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award (LAA) this year. The award, given in recognition of the recipient’s overall body of work, will go to Rick Hautala and to Joe R. Lansdale.

Under his own name, Rick Hautala has written nearly thirty novels, including the million-copy bestseller Nightstone, as well as Winter Wake, The Mountain King, and Little Brothers. He has published two short story collections: Bedbugs and Occasional Demons. A new collection, The Back of Beyond, is due soon. He has had over sixty short stories published in a variety of national and international anthologies and magazines.

Writing as A. J. Matthews, his novels include the bestsellers The White Room, Looking Glass, Follow, and Unbroken, all of which will be reprinted by Dark Regions Press. His forthcoming books from Cemetery Dance Publications include Indian Summer, a new “Little Brothers” novella, as well as two novels, Chills and Waiting. He recently sold The Star Road, a science fiction novel co-written with Matthew Costello, to Brendan Deneen at Thomas Dunne/St. Martin’s. All of his books and stories will soon be available in major e-book formats from a variety of epublishers.

Born and raised in Rockport, Massachusetts, Hautala is a graduate of the University of Maine in Orono with a Master of Arts in English Literature. He lives in southern Maine with author Holly Newstein, and together, they have five grown sons.

Lifetime Achievement Award Committee member Christopher Golden had this to say about Hautala:

“Rick Hautala is the horror writer’s horror writer. Since his first novel, Moondeath, was published in 1980, he has held the torch of the genre high, for all to see. At the height of the horror boom of the Eighties, he stood shoulder to shoulder with the giants of the era, perfecting the contemporary ghost story. With such novels as The Night Stone, Little Brothers, and Winter Wake, Hautala helped to influence a great many young writers who were just coming of age. Self-effacing and approachable, he has always combined a blue collar work ethic with literary sensibilities shaped by his love of Shakespeare and Hawthorne. His passion for the horror genre is second only to his love for writing, and all of these elements have conspired over decades to transform him into a determined mentor, offering critical feedback and quiet encouragement to many new authors as they begin their own careers. Over the course of more than thirty years, he has produced as many novels, both under his own name and as AJ Matthews. Hautala has also authored the scripts for award-winning short films, and dozens of short stories and novellas, including his wistful and unsettling masterwork, Miss Henry’s Bottles. Despite the mark he has made on the genre and his quiet mentorship of other writers, Rick has rarely been recognized for his work. Thus we are doubly pleased to present Rick Hautala with the HWA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.”

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, film, newspapers, and internet sites. His work has been collected in eighteen short story collections, and he has edited or coedited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards™, The British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize For Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, The Inkpot Award for his contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others.

His novella Bubba Hotep was made into a cult film directed by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story “Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” was made into a film for Showtime’s Masters of Horror. He has had numerous film options, and is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In with Greg Nicotero.

He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system, Shen Chuan, Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Hall of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Lifetime Achievement Award Committee Chairman Del Howison noted of Lansdale:

“I’m not quite sure how Joe R. Lansdale has time for anything except writing. If he stopped writing today his countless novels, short stories, comics, etc. would make for a library many authors could only dream of producing. But, of course, he won’t stop writing, not as long as he is breathing. It’s part of him. It may even be keeping him alive. It’s his Mojo for dealing with the world and putting in order those things that seem out of order. He knows the secret, everything is out of order and that is what Joe writes about. The first time I met Joe was …. it really doesn’t matter when the first time anybody meets Joe is because from the moment of ‘Hello’ you are like family. But, you know how at family gatherings there is always that odd uncle or weird cousin? Well, that is Joe the author, a sense of humor with a jaundiced eye. His legion of fans love him for it and if you haven’t read him you’ll be hooked from the start. In a recent Fangoria article the author stated, ‘Lansdale is one of those authors who can be infuriating to other writers, because he is just so damn good.’ But that is wrong. Joe is not infuriating, he is inspiring. His prose be can heart-wrenching and atmospheric as in The Bottoms or so hilarious it can cause you to do a spit-take over your morning coffee while reading any of his Hap and Leonard books. I believe his secret is honesty. What he writes is from his heart and it is true. The Horror Writer’s Association is extremely proud to honor Joe Lansdale with the Lifetime Achievement Award.”

The Lifetime Achievement Award is the most prestigious of the Bram Stoker Awards, given by the HWA in acknowledgment of superior achievement not just in a single work but over an entire career. Past Lifetime Achievement Award winners include such noted authors as Stephen King, Anne Rice, Joyce Carol Oates, Ray Bradbury, F. Paul Wilson, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, Brian Lumley, William F. Nolan, and Peter Straub. Winners must have exhibited a profound, positive impact on the fields of horror and dark fantasy, and be at least sixty years of age or have been published for a minimum of thirty-five years.

Recipients are chosen annually by a committee; the 2011 Committee was chaired by author and editor Del Howison, and members were Christopher Golden, Jonathan Maberry, Yvonne Navarro, and Gene O’Neill.

The LAAs will be presented on March 31 as part of the Bram Stoker Awards presentation, and both Hautala and Lansdale will be present to accept. The awards will cap off “Celebrate HWA Day”, celebrating both the 25^th Anniversary of HWA’s incorporation and the 25^th presentation of the Bram Stoker Awards. The presentation will be held at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, which takes place from March 29 to April 1. For more information on the Stoker Awards Weekend, please visit the website at http://www.stokers2012.org. For information on the World Horror Convention, visit http://www.whc2012.org .

To learn more about this year’s winners, visit them online. Hautala can be found at www.rickhautala.com and Lansdale at www.joerlansdale.com .

The Horror Writers Association is a worldwide organization promoting dark literature and its creators. Started in 1985, it has over 700 members who are writing professionally in fiction, nonfiction, video games, films, comics, and other media.

Note: The Stoker Weekend and the awards banquet are open to the public. To purchase tickets, please visit http://www.whc2012.org .

For more information about the HWA, the Bram Stoker Awards, or the Lifetime Achievement Awards, please visit www.horror.org .

The Richard Laymon President’s Award for Service was instituted in 2000 and is named in honor of Richard Laymon, who died in 2001 while serving as the Horror Writers Association President. The award is given by the HWA sitting President to a volunteer who has served HWA in an especially exemplary manner and has shown extraordinary dedication to the organization.

HWA President Rocky Wood has chosen Karen Lansdale to receive the 2011 Richard Laymon Award. Karen is recognized as one of the Founders of the HWA; in fact, the award is for her dedication and hard work at that time. “It’s clear that Karen was the true driving force behind the successful launch of the HWA,” Wood said.

According to one prominent writer who was there at the time, “In the eighties horror fans and writers were growing in leaps and bounds. Rick McCammon thought it might be nice if there was an organization that catered to those writers. He told Karen Lansdale about his idea, and she jumped at it. She took his list and made a simple photo-copied newsletter and sent it those addresses. The response was phenomenal. Over the next few months Karen set about acquiring articles from numerous writers in the field. She talked to editors about the new endeavor, wrote short articles about HWA for ‘Mystery Scene’, drummed up interest at conventions, and set the election of officers in motion. Without Karen’s contribution, and months of hard work, it wouldn’t have happened. The only thing Karen didn’t do was deliver the mail herself!”

Rocky Wood said, “In this 25^th anniversary year of the HWA’s incorporation, there is no better person to recognize than Karen. Without her drive we would not be celebrating that anniversary. For her sterling service we show our respect and gratitude by bestowing the Richard Laymon Award.”

Karen will receive the Award at the Bram Stoker Awards^™ Banquet in Salt Lake City on 31 March 2012.

The Horror Writers Association is a worldwide organization promoting dark literature and its creators. It has over 700 members who write, edit, and publish professionally in fiction, nonfiction, videogames, films, comics, and other media.

For more information about the HWA or the Bram Stoker Awards, please visit www.horror.org. More information on the Bram Stoker Awards Banquet is available at http://www.stokers2012.org/. Send press inquiries to president@horror.org

The Horror Writers Association periodically gives The Silver Hammer Award to an HWA volunteer who has done a truly massive amount of work for our organization, often unsung and behind the scenes. It was instituted in 1996 and is decided by a vote of HWA’s Board of Trustees.

The award is so named because it represents the careful, steady, continuous work of building HWA’s “house” — the many institutional systems that keep the organization functioning on a day-to-day basis. The award itself is a chrome-plated hammer with an engraved plaque on the handle. The chrome hammer is also a satisfying allusion to The Beatles’ song, “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” a miniature horror story in itself.

The Board has voted to give the 2011 Award to Guy Anthony De Marco, who currently serves on the web team and does a magnificent job of managing the web credentials, among many other duties. Prior to this, he served as Chapter Chair. Guy has served the Association and its membership for the majority of the time since he joined in 2007.

HWA’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Marge Simon, commented, “The HWA is a success because of the tremendous workload carried by our many volunteers, mostly unnoticed. Guy is an exemplar of these efforts and the Board is pleased to recognize him.”

Guy will receive The Hammer Award at the Bram Stoker Awards™ Banquet in Salt Lake City on 31 March 2012.

An Affiliate Member of HWA, Guy Anthony De Marco is a speculative fiction author, musician, teacher and computer expert. His short stories have appeared in several online and print magazines, including Necrotic Tissue (three issues), OG’s Speculative Fiction and AlienSkin.

Guy’s stories also appear in the Help Anthology, two entries in 365 Days of Horror from Pill Hill Press, and the Every Day Fiction Two anthology. He lives in Nebraska with his wife, Tonya, and has passed along the writing bug to his children, Kelsey, Caitlin and Eryk. His author website can be found at http://www.GuyAnthonyDeMarco.com.