The Preliminary Stoker ballot has been announced

I'm very happy that Lee Thomas's story "An Apiary of White bees" received enough recs in the "long story" category and that INFERNO received enough in the Anthology category, but disappointed that more stories from INFERNO didn't make it. I believe it's because the book came out so late in the year. (two others just missed out).
Anyway, congratulations, and good luck to all.

STOKER PRELIMINARY BALLOT LIST
Superior Achievement in a Novel
The Guardener's Tale by Bruce Boston (Sam's Dot)
Mr. Hands by Gary Braunbeck (Leisure)
Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer Press)
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
Ghoul by Brian Keene (Leisure)
The Missing by Sarah Langan (Harper)
Dead Man's Song by Jonathan Maberry (Pinnacle)
The Midnight Road by Tom Piccirilli (Bantam)
The Terror by Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
The Dust of Wonderland by Lee Thomas (Alyson Books)

Superior Achievement in a First Novel
I Will Rise by Michael Calvillo (Lachesis Publishing)
Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill (William Morrow)
The Memory Tree by John R. Little (Nocturne Press)
Dying to Live by Kim Paffenroth (Permuted Press)
The Hollower by Mary SanGiovanni (Leisure Books)
Vacation by Jeremy Shipp (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
Roses of Blood on Barbwire Vines by D. L. Snell (Permuted Press)

Superior Achievement in Long Fiction
"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)

Superior Achievement in Short Fiction
"The Death Wagon Rolls On By" by C. Dean Andersson (Cemetery Dance #57)
"The Heart Of The City" by Sandy DeLuca & Michael McCarty (Hungur #4)
"Longtime Gone" by Kurt Dinan (Chizine #34)
"Letting Go" by John Everson (Needles and Sins)
"Hungry for the Flesh" by Lisa Manetti (Space and Time #100)
"The Wizard of Ooze" by Michael McCarty & Linnea Quigley (Midnight Premiere)
"Mr. Creator" by Joe McKinney (The Sound of Horror)
"The Teacher” by Paul G. Tremblay (Chizine)
"There's No Light Between Floors" by Paul G. Tremblay (Clarkesworld)
"The Gentle Brush of Wings" by David Niall Wilson (Defining Moments)

Superior Achievement in an Anthology
Five Strokes to Midnight edited by Gary Braunbeck and Hank Schwaeble (Haunted Pelican Press)
Horror Library Volume 2 edited by R. J. Cavender & Vincent VanAllen (Cutting Block Press)
Inferno edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)
Dark Delicacies 2: Fear edited by Del Howison & Jeff Gelb (Carroll & Graf/Avalon)
High Seas Cthulhu edited by William Jones (Elder Signs Press)
Horrors Beyond 2 edited by William Jones (Elder Signs Press)
Astounding Hero Tales edited by James Lowder (Hero)
History is Dead edited by Kim Paffenroth (Permuted Press)
Midnight Premiere edited by Tom Piccirilli (Cemetery Dance Publications)
Gratia Placenti edited by Jason Sizemore & Gill Ainsworth (Apex Publications)

Superior Achievement in a Collection
Proverbs for Monsters by Michael A. Arnzen (Dark Regions Press)
The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron (Night Shade Books
Darker Loves by James Dorr (Dark Regions Press)
Needles and Sins by John Everson (Necro Publications)
When it Rains and Other Wreckage by Christopher Fulbright (Doorways Publication)
Voyeurs of Death by Shaun Jeffrey (Doorways Publication)
No Further Messages by Brett Alexander Savory (Delirium)
Sparks and Shadows by Lucy Snyder (HW Press)
5 Stories by Peter Straub (Borderlands)
Defining Moments by David Niall Wilson (Sarob Press)

Superior Achievement in Nonfiction
Encyclopedia Horrifica by Joshue Gee (Scholastic)
The Science of Stephen King by Lois H. Gresh and Robert Weinberg (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.)
The Portable Obituary: How the Famous, Rich, and Powerful Really Died by Michael Largo (Harper)
The Cryptopedia: A Dictionary of the Weird, Strange & Downright Bizarre by Jonathan Maberry & David F. Kramer (Citadel Press / Kensington)
Storytellers Unplugged by Joe Nassise and David Niall Wilson (Storytellers Unplugged)

Superior Achievement in Poetry
Being Full of Light, Insubstantial by Linda Addison (Space and Time)
Mary Falls: Requiem for Mrs. Surratt by Christopher Conlon (The Word Works)
Tango in the Ninth Circle by Corrine de Winter (Dark Regions Press)
Heresy by Charlee Jacob (Bedlam Press [Necro Publications])
VECTORS: A Week in the Death of a Planet by Charlee Jacob & Marge Simon (Dark Regions Press)
Phantasmapedia by Mark McLaughlin (Dead Letter Press)
Sometimes While Dreaming by Marcie Lynn Tentchoff (Sam's Dot)
Your Cat & Other Space Aliens by Mary Turzillo (VanZeno Press)

The Seafarer

I saw the play last night, and this clinches it. I do not like Conor McPherson as a playwright. However, he is a marvelous director and always (at least for the three plays of his I've seen) uses excellent actors and that almost makes up for my dislike of his plays. Drunks, Irish drunks. Everyone drunk drunk drunk. Falling over drunk. Obnoxiously drunk. Rick Bowes, one of my theater companions, pointed out the slight similarity in structure to The Homecoming: prodigal relative (in this case younger brother) returns home to somewhat dysfunctional home and chaos ensues.
The first act is slow, the second gets better, when a stranger comes calling (I don't want to say more, as it would give a lot away). It's NOT a ghost this time though (the other two plays I saw by McPherson were ghost stories).

I went to see the play because of the nice article about David Morse in the NY Times--I remember him in the very first movie he made: Inside Moves. Baby faced then. Baby faced now, 27 years later. He and everyone else are very good.