The Bram Stoker Award preliminary ballot is out and Abominations edited by Tim Deal is nominated for Superior Achievement in an Anthology.

Abominations.

The very same anthology that includes my short story “Spoiled Picnic”. I’m excited for him because he has two anthologies nominated. Tim was a wonderful editor to work with, always friendly, professional and friendly. I am happy that good things are happening for him

While this is, very decidedly, Tim’s honor not mine I am also excited for myself. Why? Because I’m a fan girl at heart and the fact my story is in a book that is on the same nomination list as work by people like Stephen King, Bruce Boston, Steve Rasnic Tem and Melanie Tem is enough to make me go ‘squee’! I know it’s a pretty slim association, but it makes me happy just the same.

Good luck Tim.

I received my contributor’s copy of Abominations last week and it made me -so- happy, you can’t imagine. Allow me to tell you some of the reasons I, quite literally, went ‘squee!’ when I got it. In no particular order:

• The cover is amazing. Amazing. Bart Willard is one talented artist.
• The front cover has a quote from Nate Kenyon saying, “…a knockout collection from some very talented writers.” I’m one of those writers. Wheee!
• My story, Spoiled Picnic, is one of the stories blurbed on the back cover.
• Spoiled Picnic is the very first story in the anthology. The first one. That, hopefully, means that everyone who buys the book will read my story first. How cool is that?

So yes, I was blown away by Abominations before I even started reading, but now that I’ve devoured it, from cover to cover, I love it even more. Every author’s take on the idea of Abominations was unique and interesting. I think my two favorite stories were ‘WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY CHARLES?’ by John Teehan and ‘STARVELITO’ by Lon Prater. Both of them are absolutely brilliant.

If you haven’t done it already and you like horror stories, you really ought to pick up a copy of Abominations, and trust me when I say I’d tell you that even if my own story wasn’t in it. Really. It’s a killer book

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this here already — I tend to try and keep things to myself until they are so official my paranoid little brain doesn’t need to worry about jinxing them, so I may not have However, I got the contract today, so now I can brag

Abominations is a brand new anthology by Shroud Publishing. It includes “13 spine-tingling tales of murderous monsters” and one of those tales, is written by yours truly. That’s right. My short story, Spoiled Picnic, is included in this anthology which is now available for pre-ordering.

Am I proud?

Hell yes. How cool is that title? Abominations. *purrs* I love it. And the cover? To die for (though it does look better full-size than it does in my ‘shrunk-down’ version ).

Yay me!

That’s not very professional-sounding is it? Hmm…well, still, yay me