“Happy Joe’s Rest Stop” from the book “18 Wheels of Horror” wins the Bram Stoker Award for short fiction.
Writer John Palisano’s short “Happy Joe’s Rest Stop” won the Bram Stoker Award at the Horror Writers Association’s StokerCon 2016 in Las Vegas. The story appears in Big Time Book’s trucking horror anthology “18 Wheels of Horror.”
Los Angeles, CA – May 19, 2016 – Big Time Books is proud to announce that the short story “Happy Joe’s Rest Stop” from its horror anthology “18 Wheels of Horror – a Trailer Full of Trucking Terrors” has won the 2016 Bram Stoker Award for superior achievement in short fiction. Writer John Palisano accepted the iconic haunted house trophy at StokerCon 2016 ceremony in Las Vegas. StokerCon was attended by R.L. Stine, F. Paul Wilson, Robert McCammon, David Morell, William F. Nolan, Jonathan Maberry, Jack Ketchum, and hundreds of other professional horror writers, editors, publishers, and filmmakers.
“Happy Joe’s Rest Stop” is about a boy traveling with his trucker father who gets caught up in an other-worldly attack on the truck stop where they are refueling. The boy must fight off supernatural creatures and an evil, faceless sorcerer to find a way to reunite with his father.
“18 Wheels of Horror” is a horror anthology edited by Bram Stoker Award nominated editor Eric Miller. The book contains 18 short horror fiction stories, all set in the trucking world. Psychotic killers, devious ghosts, alien monsters, howling storms, undead creatures, and other dark forces haunt the highways and the truckers who drive them in these chilling tales.
Grand Master of Horror Ray Garton (“Lot Lizards” and “Live Girls”) headlines the book with John Palisano, and Edward M. Erdelac (“Andersonville”), writer/editor Del Howison (“Midian Unmade”), Hal Bodner (“Bite Club” and “The Trouble With Hairy”), Shane Bitterling (“Reel Evil” and “Beneath Loch Ness), Brad C. Hodson (“Darling”), Joseph Spencer (“Grim” and “Wrage”), Daniel P. Coughlin (“Ditch Day Massacre” and “Craven’s Red”), Ian Welke (“End Times at Ridgemont High”), Jeff Seeman (“American Virgin”), Michael Paul Gonzalez (“Angel Falls”), Eric Miller (“Ice Spiders”), Janet Joyce Holden (“The Only Red is Blood”), and short story writers R. B. Payne, Meghan Arcuri, Tim Chizmar, and Charles Austin Muir.
“18 Wheels of Horror” is available in Mass Market Paperback at select T/A and Petro Travel centers, Trade Paperback on Amazon and at select retailers, with E-Books for Amazon Kindle, Barnes & Noble Nook, iTunes bookstore, Kobo and all other E-Book platforms where they are sold online. Audio Books are available for download on Amazon, Audible.com, and iTunes.
So I’ll be the one to mention I found most of this anthology, including the Braham Stoker Award winning “Happy Joe’s Rest Stop” eyerollingly bad. It’s to be expected, being an anthology, that not every story is going to be a “hit”, but 18 Wheels was more misses than hits, most of the stories trotting out worn out and uninspiring cliches.