Annie Neugebauer

Y’all. I made it.

“Glove Box” made the final ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards®! I am absolutely shocked and thrilled. I’ve gasped and grinned and danced and cried. I’m officially a two-time nominee, and it feels like a dream come true. (Winning would be the ultimate dream, of course, but I am not above a mini-dream or two.) What an incredible honor!

I’ve already talked about how surprised I was to make even the preliminary ballot. But I’m still surprised to make it to the next level. I’m surprised that my strange little story is reaching readers, and that they’re appreciating it. I’m surprised by how good it feels, even this second year. (No less wonderful than last year, in fact.) And frankly, I’m surprised by where I’ve found myself in my writing career.

Part of it, as I was explaining to my husband this weekend when the news came out, is that I don’t write for recognition. Don’t get me wrong; I crave and love praise and awards just as much as anyone. I’m not claiming superiority here. I just genuinely don’t expect it. It’s not why I sit down, day after day, and work silently by myself. I work so hard, and I dream of that work finding readers who love it. I write for myself, and I write for readers. I don’t write for awards.

But receiving recognition like this—it’s an indicator that I’m on the right path. I’ve been finding readers. Somehow, I’ve been finding readers and even keeping them. 😀 And, frankly, being recognized by an award as prominent as the Stokers isn’t just flattering; it’s useful in finding even more readers. I don’t have any numbers to back it up, but I bet “Glove Box” has been read by many times more people now that it’s on the ballot than it had been before. And that’s just really freaking cool, y’all. That’s the whole point—to be read.

But my surprise runs even deeper than that. I’ve dreamed of winning a Bram Stoker Award since I first learned of them. My dad, who I got much of my love of horror from, used to buy his next books based on that list. (Consequently, many of my stolen reads were from his shelf/that list.) It was one of my big dreams, to someday be among those authors I loved. As I got older and began pursuing this career in earnest, my expectations calibrated. I never imagined being nominated in my early thirties. I was prepared to wait decades to see that dream fulfilled. So I’m surprised to have brushed against it twice now. And to be candid: I always assumed it’d be for a novel if I did get there, so I am equally surprised by the path I’ve ended up taking.

I’ve always been a big dreamer. I’ve wanted to be a published author since I was in grade school. I wanted to become one of the famous literary giants that I so cherished reading, analyzing, and studying. It wasn’t just fame or glory. They touched me, heart and brain, and I wanted to do that. When I got into horror, I wanted to be among those giants who grace the Stoker lists. They touched me too, heart and brain, and I wanted to do that too. For whatever reason, I assumed those things were accomplished through writing novels and poetry. I have no idea why; I read and loved short stories too. Poe, O. Henry, etc.: they were just as cherished by me. But somewhere along the way I convinced myself that my true calling was poetry and that my claim to success would be novels.

Imagine my surprise at having built my career thus far largely from short stories and blogging.

Seriously, 7^th grade me would be so disappointed. (Don’t worry Little Me; I haven’t even remotely given up on getting novels out there or landing a whole book of poems. Turns out it takes a bit longer than a year or two sometimes. 😉 )

I began blogging to “build a platform,” and I got in just after the boom and right before the bust. I like to say I’m grandfathered in; it’s very difficult to build momentum as a blogger now. But I made a decent start before blogs become a dime a dozen, and it led to amazing opportunities with even bigger group blogs like Writer Unboxed and LitReactor. Articles and blogs are now a vital part of my cobbled-together freelance income, which is part of what allows me to pursue writing novels and poetry. What’s more, it turns out that I absolutely love it. Some writers hate it, but blogging feels great to me. It allows me to connect more personally with readers, to teach, and to share my journey with fellow writers. It’s also a space to explore some of the topics that don’t fare as well in fiction, or are better suited to a more straightforward or open discussion.

I began experimenting with short stories to learn how to write, and to begin “building a name for myself.” I’d read somewhere that it’s difficult to get a novel published if you’re unheard of. With shorter works like poems and stories, it’s less risky for editors to publish new writers. So I set out to get stories published in magazines, journals, and anthologies and build myself a little resume that might help entice big publishers for my books. But just as with blogging, short stories have turned out to be an indispensable part of my income. Are they as good as a royalty check? No, but if I sell half a dozen short stories a year at professional rates, it helps keep me in the black. And they are not just helping me build a name for myself; so far, they’re kind of the only way I’m building a name for myself. (Sorry, Little Me; hardly anyone gets to live off of poetry, and even a byline at a big blog usually gets overlooked by casual readers.)

More importantly, it turns out that I adore writing short stories for their own sake. More so than I ever envisioned when I started. I think I might once have thought to use them as a stepping stone and drop them when I landed some novels. Now, I could never. I need short stories—emotionally, functionally, creatively. Just like poetry and blogs and novels, short fiction fills a part of my artistic life that other forms simply can’t fill. They’re an equal love, a unique passion. Do they sometimes fall to the back burner when a longer or larger project takes hold? Absolutely. I don’t fight the ebb and flow of it. But I always come back to shorts, where there’s a freedom and a brevity that speaks to me. I honestly cannot imagine my life without them.

So my nominations for the Stoker Awards are surprising in many ways. Surprising for the category I’m up for, surprising for how soon it’s happened, surprising for the story at bat, and surprising for the joy and encouragement it’s brought me. It’s not just the praise, or the honor. That is beautiful, fulfilling, thrilling! But the readers. The readers the nominations represent, and the feedback from them (you) about my work. To know that I’ve found readers and affected them in even vaguely, occasionally the same way those giants have affected me? That’s priceless.

Thank you, friends and readers. Come the awards in May, whether I win or not, I really *do* feel like I’ve already won. I’ve won motivation and reason to keep sitting down to work day after day, and to keep pushing against this crazy industry to get my writing (of all stripes) in front of readers who might want it. Because at least a few someones seem to want it. 🙂 Speaking of which, a story is calling. (Or is that a poem, or something longer…?)

Y’all know that expression “You could have knocked me over with a feather”? Sunday was the first time I actually had the urge to use it.

As you might’ve noticed in my “2018 in Review” summary post, I only had three original short stories published last calendar year. (I don’t say “only” with a derogatory tone, just that of the number I had accepted and had hoped would come out, only three of them did. Expect more this year.) “Dealing in Shadows” was in a phenomenal anthology and got some lovely buzz. “Cilantro” was in another great anthology that didn’t lean horror, so my story didn’t get much buzz. And “Glove Box” was in an online magazine with a smaller readership that got no buzz. What’s more, I really dropped the ball on my end-of-year hustle. I usually send in all of my eligible stories to all of the “best of” anthologies, lists, and awards that I know of. I mean, you never know unless you try, right? But this year I simply didn’t have the time to do it.

After the thrill of last year, when “So Sings the Siren” made the final ballot for the Bram Stoker Awards, appeared in Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 3, and received an honorable mention for Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year, I was braced for a real letdown this year. Less stories out means less opportunities to get my words in front of readers. Less submissions and hustling means less likelihood that nominators, judges, and juries will see my stuff. And not every year can sparkle quite that much. I’d decided this just wouldn’t be my year, and that was okay.

So on Sunday, I wasn’t one of the many horror authors eagerly refreshing their inboxes to read the Preliminary Ballot for the 2018 Bram Stoker Awards®. I had a lot going on that day, and since I thought my chances were slim, I hadn’t mentally earmarked the date. Maybe you can imagine my surprise when, scrolling through to see the names and works, I found my own. What’s more, for the story that I’d placed the least expectation on. “Glove Box” made the preliminary ballot! You probably could’ve actually knocked me over with a feather. Or at least a high-five.

Don’t get me wrong. I love this story. But “Glove Box” is short and strange and slippery. It doesn’t declare its genre with neon lights. It’s a tense little ride that takes the reader from ordinary through extraordinary without ever raising its voice. I honestly thought it might be one of those stories that only I “got.” (Hey, it happens. I have weird taste.) Add that to the small apparent number of readers once it came out and, frankly, it’s the last story of the three I expected to make an appearance.

I couldn’t be more thrilled. I’m thrilled that it’s available online, so all voting HWA members (and anyone else!) can read it for FREE at Dark City Mystery Magazine! (If you’re reading on mobile, it’s a touch scroll; landscape makes it easier to view.) I’m thrilled that this cool little story I didn’t promote hard enough has managed to snag someone’s attention. I’m thrilled that it might, hopefully, find a few new readers now and get a second life. And I’m just so honored to have made the preliminary ballot among so many artists I admire. I can’t even describe how much it means.

If you’re a voting member of the Horror Writers Association, you have until February 15 to read/watch/listen to any of the works you want to check out, in any category, and get your votes in. “Glove Box” is here for anyone who wants to read it, voting or no. The final ballot (when folks get to officially call themselves nominees) will come out on February 23. (You can bet I’ll be refreshing my inbox that day!)

And me? I’ll be reading all of the other authors’ short stories on the preliminary ballot myself. Not just because I’m on it, but because this is a tradition I have every year—since well before the first time I made the list myself. It’s the one category where the works are short enough that I can make time to read every single one of them. It’s so fun, and of course even more fun when my own story is among the materials. 😊

What about those other two stories on my little list of three? Well, they haven’t fared too shabbily themselves. “Cilantro” has been chosen to appear in Year’s Best Hardcore Horror Volume 4, where it will be among its horror brethren, and I’m stoked. And while “Dealing in Shadows” hasn’t received any direct shout-outs for end-of-year stuff, its home, Suspended in Dusk II, has also made the Stokers preliminary ballot in the anthology category! Whaaat? Amazing! Congrats to editor Simon Dewar, publisher Anthony Rivera at Grey Matter Press, and to my fellow contributors!

So much for my “this year will be a letdown” preparations. Shows what I know. 😀 It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes from an editor on a panel I once attended. Melissa Singer of Tor Books said, “You are not the best judge of what’s good enough.” Lesson (re)learned.

Do any of you read nominees for lit awards? Do you look forward to awards season? Which ones in particular?