Press release
For Immediate Release
Contact: JoAnn F. Cox
Awards Administrator
admin@shirleyjacksonawards.org
Celebrating Shirley Jackson on
Shirley Jackson Day, June 27
Boston, MA (June 2016) – The annual celebration of Shirley Jackson, known as Shirley Jackson Day, will be held on June 27, 2016 at 7 p.m. at The Left Bank in Bennington, Vermont.
The date designated for Shirley Jackson Day takes inspiration from one of Ms. Jackson’s most famous stories. On June 27, 1948, The New Yorker published Shirley Jackson’s short story, “The Lottery.” June 27 is also the day on which the events in the fictional story occur.
Shirley Jackson Day 2016 will feature readings by two of Jackson’s children, Barry Hyman and J. S. Holly.
Also reading from the works of Shirley Jackson will be F. Brett Cox, a member of the Board of the Directors of the Shirley Jackson Awards, and Joshua Gaylord, a two-time nominee for the Shirley Jackson Award. The Shirley Jackson Awards, named in honor of Shirley Jackson, seeks to promote contemporary works of dark fiction as well as her legacy.
About Shirley Jackson
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. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem has called Jackson “one of this century’s most luminous and strange American writers,” and multiple generations of authors would agree.
About the Shirley Jackson Awards
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.
The 2015 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented at Readercon 27, the conference on imaginative literature, on Sunday, July 10, 2016.
Website: ShirleyJacksonAwards.org
About Joshua Gaylord
Joshua Gaylord lives in New York. He graduated from Berkeley with a degree in English and a minor in creative writing, and he received his Master’s and Ph.D. in English from New York University, specializing in twentieth-century American and British literature. For sixteen years, he has taught high school English, and he is the author of four books under his own name and under the pen name Alden Bell. Two of these books, The Reapers Are the Angels and When We Were Animals, have been nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award.
About F. Brett Cox
- Brett Cox is a founding juror and present member of the Board of Directors for the Shirley Jackson Award. His fiction, poetry, plays, essays, and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Recent publications include fiction in the anthologies Shadows and Tall Trees, War Stories, and Tales in Firelight and Shadow, poetry in the journals IthicaLit, The Lake, and Exit 13, and a monologue in the anthology Geek Theater. His short story “Maria Works at Ocean City Nails,” originally published in New Haven Review, was selected for the anthology Best Indie Lit New England, Vol. 2. With Andy Duncan, he co-edited the anthology Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic. He has also served on the Additions Jury for the Bram Stoker Award. A native of North Carolina, Brett is Professor of English at Norwich University and lives in Vermont with his wife, playwright Jeanne Beckwith.
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Media representatives who are seeking further information or interviews should contact JoAnn F. Cox.