Who do YOU think will win this year's slate of Bram Stoker Awards?

On Wednesday, the Horror Writers Association released the preliminary ballot for this year’s Bram Stoker Awards, which is the horror genre’s top annual literary awards.

The preliminary ballot is essentially Round One in the award selection process. Over the next few weeks, the HWA’s membership will cast their ballots and then the slate of final nominees for this year’s awards will be announced.

Without further ado, here’s the initial ballot in three major categories:

Superior Achievement in a Novel:

1. “The Trouble with Harry” by Hal Bodner
2. “14” by Peter Clines
3. “Bottled Abyss” by Benjamin Kane Ethridge
4. “NightWhere” by John Everson
5. “Cemetery Club” by J.G. Faherty
6. “Coronation” by Lee F. Jordan
7. “The Drowning Girl” by Caitlin R. Kiernan
8. “The Haunted” by Bentley Little
9. “Inheritance” by Joe McKinney

Superior Achievement in a First Novel:

1. “Charlotte Markham and the House of Darklings” by Michael Boccacino
2. “Wide Open” by Deborah Coates
3. “The Legend of the Pumpkin Thief” by Charles Day
4. “A Requiem for Dead Flies” by Peter Dudar
5. “Bad Glass” by Richard Gropp
6. “Resurrection X: Zombie Evolution” by Dane Hatchell
7. “Dead Harvest” by Chris Holm
8. “The Sinner” by K. Trap Jones
9. “Life Rage” by L.L. Soares
10. “City Under the Moon” by Hugh Sterbakov

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction:

1. “Carrie: Studies in the Horror Film” by Joe Aisenberg
2. “Conversations with Kreskin” by The Amazing Kreskin and Michael McCarty
3. “Writing Darkness” by Michael Collings
4. “The Annotated Sandman, Vol. 1” by Les Klinger
5. “Write of the Living Dead” by Araminta Star Matthews, Rachel Lee and Stan Swanson
6. “Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween” by Lisa Morton
7. “The Undead and Theology” by Kim Paffenroth and John W. Morehead
8. Adapting Poe: Re-Imaginings in Popular Culture” by Dennis R. Perry and Carl H. Sederholm
9. “Dark Directions: Romero, Craven, Carpenter and the Modern Horror Film” by Kendall R. Phillips

Superior Achievement in Graphic Novel:

1. “The Sixth Gun, Vol. 3: Bound” by Cullen Bunn
2. “Rachel Rising, Vol. 1: The Shadow of Death” by Terry Moore
3. “The Tale of Brin and Bent and Minno Marylebone” by Ravi Thornton
4. “Behind These Eyes” by Peter J. Wacks and Guy Anthony De Marco
5. “Witch Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times” by Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton

Stoker Awards will also be given in seven other categories, including Young Adult Novel, Long Fiction, Short Fiction, Screenplay, Anthology, Fiction Collection and Poetry. For more information about the works that were on the ballot in those categories, visit the HWA’s website at www.horror.org. The final ballot of nominees will be announced on Feb. 23.

On April 3, 2012, I posted a complete list of all the novels that have won a Stoker Award for Superior Achievment in a Novel. To see that list, follow this link: http://leepeacock2010.blogspot.com/2012/04/which-of-these-bram-stoker-award.html.

Some of you may also be interested in checking out the HWA’s Recommended Reading List. I posted it on April 29, 2010, and you can view it here: http://leepeacock2010.blogspot.com/2010/04/hwas-recommended-reading-list.html.

In the end, which of the works list above do you think will take home the top honors in this year’s round of Bram Stoker Awards? Which have you had the chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Which would you recommend and why? Let us know in the comments section below.