2009 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees

Boston, MA (April 2010) -- In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have been established for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

The Shirley Jackson Awards are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics, with input from a Board of Advisors. The awards are given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.

Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle, as well as one of the most famous short stories in the English language, “The Lottery.”  Her work continues to be a major influence on writers of every kind of fiction, from the most traditional genre offerings to the most innovative literary work.

The Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented at Readercon 21, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts. Nalo Hopkinson, Readercon Guest of Honor, will act as host.

Nominee biographies can be found here (PDF)

Previous years' nominees can be found here: 2008, 2007.

NOVEL

• Big Machine, Victor LaValle (Speigel & Grau)
• Last Days, Brian Evenson (Underland Press)
• The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (Riverhead)
• The Owl Killers, Karen Maitland (Delacorte Press)
• The Red Tree, Caitlin R. Kiernan (Roc)
• White is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi (Nan A. Talese)

NOVELLA

• The Language of Dying, Sarah Pinborough, (PS Publishing)
• Midnight Picnic, Nick Antosca (Word Riot Press)
• “Sea-Hearts,” Margo Lanagan (X6, coeur de lion)
• Shrike, Quentin S. Crisp (PS Publishing)
• Vardøger, Stephen Volk (Gray Friar Press)
• The Witnesses are Gone, Joel Lane (PS Publishing)

NOVELETTE

• “Catch Hell,” Laird Barron (Lovecraft Unbound, Dark Horse)
• “Each Thing I Show You Is a Piece of My Death,” Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer, (Clockwork Phoenix 2, Norilana Books)
• “Lonegan’s Luck,” Stephen Graham Jones (New Genre 6)
• “Morality,” Stephen King (Esquire)
• The Night Cache, Andy Duncan (PS Publishing)

SHORT STORY

• “The Crevasse,” by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud (Lovecraft Unbound, Dark Horse)
• “Faces,” Aimee Bender (The Paris Review, Issue 191, Winter 2009)
• “The Jacaranda Smile,” Gemma Files (Apparitions, Undertow Publications)
• “The Pelican Bar,” Karen Joy Fowler (Eclipse 3, Night Shade)
• “Procedure in Plain Air,” Jonathan Lethem (The New Yorker, April 5, 2010)
• “Strappado,” Laird Barron (Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, Solaris)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

• Everland and Other Stories, Paul Witcover (PS Publishing)
• Fugue State, Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
• Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical, Robert Shearman (Big Finish Productions)
• There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales, Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Penguin)
• Tunneling to the Center of the Earth, Kevin Wilson (Harper Perennial)
• Zoo, Otsuichi (Haikasoru/VIZ Media)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

• Apparitions, edited by Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)
• British Invasion, edited by Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon, and James A. Moore (Cemetery Dance)
• Exotic Gothic 3:  Strange Visitations, edited by Danel Olson (Ash Tree Press)
• Lovecraft Unbound, edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse)
• Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Ellen Datlow (Solaris)