THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS
Jurors Announced
for 2020 Shirley Jackson Awards
Boston, MA (October, 2020) — 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 horror, the dark fantastic, and psychological suspense.
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 Fiction, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.
The jurors for the 2020 Shirley Jackson Awards are, alphabetically:
Australian author, artist, and award-winning filmmaker Aaron Dries “helps lead a new generation of Splatterpunk for a new dark age” (Brian Keene, author of The Rising). His debut novel House of Sighs was written whilst back-packing through South East Asia, including Thailand, where inspiration struck for his book A Place For Sinners. Aaron won the Leisure Books/ChiZine/Rue Morgue Magazine Fresh Blood contest, and later released The Fallen Boys, described by filmmaker Mick Garris (director of Stephen King’s The Stand and Masters of Horror) as “beautiful and brutal”. He collaborated with Mark Allan Gunnells on the apocalyptic thriller Where the Dead Go to Die, and recently published the novellas And the Night Growled Back and The Sound of His Bones Breaking. For more information visit aarondries.com or contact him on Twitter @AaronDries
Chikọdili Emelumadu was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire and raised in Nigeria. Her work has been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson Awards (2015), a Nommo award (2020) and the Caine Prize for African Literature (2017 & 2020). In 2019, she emerged winner of the inaugural Curtis Brown First Novel prize. She tweets as @chemelumadu.
Joshua Gaylord is the author of When We Were Animals and Hummingbirds. Under the pen name Alden Bell, he has also written the post-apocalyptic zombie novel The Reapers Are the Angels and its sequel, Exit Kingdom. For twenty years, he has taught English at a private high school in Manhattan. He has been twice nominated for the Shirley Jackson Award. Find him on Facebook or at his website joshuagaylord.com.
Tonia Ransom is the creator and executive producer of “Nightlight,” a horror podcast featuring creepy tales written by Black writers. Tonia’s debut novel Risen releases December 2020. Tonia has been scaring people since the second grade, when she wrote her first story based on Michael Myers. She’s pretty sure her teacher was concerned, but she thinks she turned out fine(ish). Tonia tells horror stories regularly on Twitter @missdefying, and in her spare time, she loves to hike, but normally chooses to sleep in instead. She lives in Austin, Texas. You can find her online at toniaransom.com.
Mary SanGiovanni is an award-winning American horror and thriller writer of over a dozen novels, including The Hollower trilogy, Thrall, The Kathy Ryan series, and others, as well as numerous novellas, short stories, and non-fiction. Her work as been translated internationally. She has a Master’s degree in Writing Popular Fiction from Seton Hill University, Pittsburgh, and is currently a member of The Authors Guild, The International Thriller Writers, and Penn Writers. She was a co-host on the popular podcast “The Horror Show with Brian Keene”, and currently hosts her own podcast on cosmic horror, “Cosmic Shenanigans.” She has the distinction of being one of the first women to speak about writing at the CIA Headquarters in Langley, VA, and offers talks and workshops on writing around the country. Born and raised in New Jersey, she currently resides in Pennsylvania.
Eligibility guidelines for the Shirley Jackson Awards can be found here:
http://shirleyjacksonawards.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html
The Shirley Jackson Awards asks that submissions be sent no later than March 15, 2022. In cases of extreme weather or other unforeseen circumstances, the deadline may be extended.
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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.
Website: ShirleyJacksonAwards.org