For the last eight years – even before I ever came to work at Rue Morgue – I’ve run my own micro press called Burning Effigy.

Shortly before my wedding in the fall of 2006, after having several conversations with friends in the horror book biz, I decided to chase a dream. In January 2007, Burning Effigy Press launched a horror line. The very first story I purchased for it was a tale called General Slocum’s Gold by an extremely talented NYC-based horror scribe named Nicholas Kaufmann.

Today, that story made it onto the preliminary ballot of this year’s Bram Stoker Awards.

While this isn’t the final ballot – more voting must take place before the final nominees are announced – this is still one hell of an achievement when one considers all the novella-length fiction that’s released in a given year and exactly how small (and still relatively unknown) Burning Effigy is in relation to most other horror publishers

In fact, General Slocum’s Gold has really proven itself to be the little horror chapbook that could. It also was named Best Short Story of 2007 by the fine folks at Fearzone.com, and appeared on the “year’s best” lists of celebrated horror scribes Brian Keene and Gary A. Braunbeck.

To conclude this, I would like to take a moment to extend my congratulations to both Nick, for penning this tremendous tale, and to Jeff Cottrill and Queenie Tirone, my cohorts at Burning Effigy, without whom none of this would be possible. Really, thank you everyone, it’s safe to say my mind is officially blown.