Category: Long Fiction

Royce, Eden

Nominations:

The Creepening of Dogwood House (Walden Pond Press, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers), Middle Grade Novel, 2024

Hollow Tongue (Raw Dog Screaming Press), Long Fiction, 2024

BIO: Eden Royce is a writer from Charleston, South Carolina now living in Southeast England. She’s a Shirley Jackson Award finalist for her adult short fiction, which has appeared in a variety of print and online publications, including Nightmare, Strange Horizons, and Apex Magazine. She has also written for Writer’s Digest, The Horn Book Magazine, Western Colorado University, and We Need Diverse Books. Her debut novel, Root Magic, is a Walter Dean Myers Award Honoree, an Andre Norton Nebula Award Finalist, an Ignyte Award winner, and a Mythopoeic Fantasy Award winner for outstanding children’s literature.

Website: https://edenroyce.com/

Cassidy, Nat

Nominations:

Rest Stop (Shortwave Publishing), Long Fiction, 2024

BIO: Nat Cassidy writes horror for the page, stage, and screen. His acclaimed works, including Mary: An Awakening of Terror, Nestlings, and Rest Stop, have been featured in best-of lists from Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, NPR, the Chicago Review of Books, the NY Public Library, Amazon, and more, and he was named one of the “writers shaping horror’s next golden age” by Esquire. His award-winning horror plays have been produced throughout New York City and across the United States. He won the NY Innovative Theatre Award for his one-man show about H. P. Lovecraft, another for his play about Caligula, and was commissioned by the Kennedy Center to write the libretto for a short opera (about the end of the world, of course). You’ve also maybe seen Nat on your TV, playing various Bad Guys of the Week on shows such as Law & Order: SVU, Blue Bloods, Bull, Quantico, FBI, and many others … but that’s a topic for a different bio. He lives in New York City with his wife.

Ajram, Sofia

Nominations:

Coup de Grâce (Titan Books), Long Fiction, 2024

Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror (Ghoulish Books), Anthology, 2024

BIO: Sofia Ajram is a metalsmith, novelist and editor who specializes in feverish stories of anomalous architecture and queer pining. They are the Canadian Arts and Fashion Award–winning designer, founder and metalsmith of Sofia Zakia jewelry as well as the editor of Bury Your Gays: An Anthology of Tragic Queer Horror. Sofia has given lectures on contemporary horror films at Monstrum Montreal and has had their work published in Nightmare Magazine. Their debut novella Coup de Grâce is now available. Sofia lives in Montreal with his cat Isa.

Jiang, Ai

Awards:

Linghun (Dark Matter INK), Long Fiction, 2023

BIO: Ai Jiang is a Chinese-Canadian writer, Ignyte Award winner, Nebula, Locus, Bram Stoker, and BFSA Award finalist, and an immigrant from Fujian currently residing in Toronto, Ontario. She is a member of HWA and SFWA. Her work can be found in F&SF, The Dark, Uncanny, among others. She is the recipient of Odyssey Workshop’s 2022 Fresh Voices Scholarship and the author of Linghun and I AM AI. Find her on X (@AiJiang_), Insta (@ai.jian.g), and online (http://aijiang.ca). 

Hightower, Laurel

Nominations:

Below (Ghoulish Books), Long Fiction, 2022

BIO: Laurel Hightower grew up in Lexington, Kentucky, and after forays to California and Tennessee, has returned home to horse country. She’s a fan of true life ghost stories, horror movies, and good bourbon. She is the author of Whispers In The Dark, Crossroads, Below, and the short story collection Every Woman Knows This, and has more than a dozen short story credits to her name, including publications through Burial Day Press, Cemetery Gates, Brigid’s Gate, Shortwave Media, From Beyond Press, Brian Keene’s Patreon, Kandisha Press, and Dark Hart Books. Crossroads was the recipient of an Independent Audiobook Award in 2020 in the category of Best Horror, as well as the This is Horror Best Novella Award for 2020. She has also co-edited three anthologies: We Are Wolves, a charity anthology released in 2020 by Burial Day Press, The Dead Inside, an anthology of identity horror released in 2022 by Dark Dispatch, and Shattered & Splintered, a charity anthology released in 2022 to benefit the Glen Haven Area Volunteer Fire Department, who saved the historic Stanley Hotel from wildfires in 2020.