Welcome to my message board.
New member registration has been disabled due to heavy spammer activity. If you'd like to join the board, please email me at MaxDevore at hotmail dot com.
New member registration has been disabled due to heavy spammer activity. If you'd like to join the board, please email me at MaxDevore at hotmail dot com.
The Road to the Stokers
The Bram Stoker Awards are given out each year by the Horror Writers Association, of which I am an active member. Over the course of each year, all members (active, affiliate, associate) make recommendations for books that they think should be on the ballot. Today is the last day for recommendations for the 2004 awards.
Once the recommendations deadline passes, the Stoker Committee puts together a preliminary ballot that contains the top twenty works in each category that received at least five recommendations. If there are fewer than five works that meet that criterion in a given category, the entire category is dropped for that year.
The preliminary ballot is distributed to all Active members by March 1st. We vote on first, second and third place in each category. The results of this preliminary election give rise to the final ballot--it's a way of winnowing the works down. A work could get a ton of recommendations from affiliate members but no votes from active members, which would knock it out of consideration for the final ballot.
Complicated? Yes! Also, some writers have taken to tossing around the phrase "Stoker recommended work," as if it were synonymous with "Stoker nominated work." All you need is five buddies to mention your book to be the former -- you must survive the preliminary cut to be the latter.
Another round of voting takes place, then, to determine the winner of the Stoker Award in each category based on the top five entries in each. There is an additions jury that can, at their discretion, add a work that they feel has been overlooked by the recommendation process.
As of this moment, it looks like the non-fiction category will get it's five qualified works, and The Road to the Dark Tower will be one of them. This doesn't guarantee that Road will make it to the final ballot, but it's a step in the right direction.
The Stoker Awards will be announced at a ceremony in Los Angeles in late June.
Once the recommendations deadline passes, the Stoker Committee puts together a preliminary ballot that contains the top twenty works in each category that received at least five recommendations. If there are fewer than five works that meet that criterion in a given category, the entire category is dropped for that year.
The preliminary ballot is distributed to all Active members by March 1st. We vote on first, second and third place in each category. The results of this preliminary election give rise to the final ballot--it's a way of winnowing the works down. A work could get a ton of recommendations from affiliate members but no votes from active members, which would knock it out of consideration for the final ballot.
Complicated? Yes! Also, some writers have taken to tossing around the phrase "Stoker recommended work," as if it were synonymous with "Stoker nominated work." All you need is five buddies to mention your book to be the former -- you must survive the preliminary cut to be the latter.
Another round of voting takes place, then, to determine the winner of the Stoker Award in each category based on the top five entries in each. There is an additions jury that can, at their discretion, add a work that they feel has been overlooked by the recommendation process.
As of this moment, it looks like the non-fiction category will get it's five qualified works, and The Road to the Dark Tower will be one of them. This doesn't guarantee that Road will make it to the final ballot, but it's a step in the right direction.
The Stoker Awards will be announced at a ceremony in Los Angeles in late June.
Comments
I think someone needs to sit down and sort out a simpler way of choosing books for category's...your post sounded very confusing...lol
Lin
I pretty much understand the process. One thing that does bug me. If in any given year there are not 5 worthy works in a specific category then the category is dropped. Gee what if there were 4 GREAT works and nothing else. Hardly seems fair in this case.
Again - congrats!
One day, I will actually get to read this book - it's what I get for ordering the S/L from CD Pubs! I have been planning on using the pb version that will accompany it as my reading copy. I'd go out and buy one off the shelf but my wife questions why I need so many copies of the same book! She just doesn't understand! ;D
That's why I can't go and order a copy too, Bob!
Lin
Bravo!!!!!
Delilah
Oh definitely! Go for it Bev. I had a chance to meet this author once and it meant I had to drive to Toronto, but I went and I wasn't even nominated for anything.
Enjoy!
Note the new countdown clock!
FAB to see the countdown clock back again, it's always very exciting!
Lin