THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS
Jurors Announced
for 2021 Shirley Jackson Awards
Boston, MA (March, 2022) — 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 2021 Shirley Jackson Awards are, alphabetically:
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 joshuagaylord.com.
Gwendolyn Kiste is the Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens, Boneset & Feathers, And Her Smile Will Untether the Universe, Pretty Marys All in a Row, The Invention of Ghosts, and the forthcoming Reluctant Immortals. Her short fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Nightmare Magazine, Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Vastarien, Tor’s Nightfire, Black Static, The Dark, Daily Science Fiction, Interzone, and LampLight, among others. Originally from Ohio, she now resides on an abandoned horse farm outside of Pittsburgh with her husband, two cats, and not nearly enough ghosts. Find her online at gwendolynkiste.com, Twitter,
Sam J. Miller‘s books have been called “must reads” and “bests of the year” by USA Today, Entertainment Weekly, NPR, and O: The Oprah Magazine, among others. He is the Nebula-Award-winning author of Blackfish City, which has been translated into six languages and won The Astounding Award for Best New Writer (formerly, The John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer). Sam is a past winner of the Shirley Jackson Award, for his short story “57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides.” He’s also the last in a long line of butchers. He lives in New York City, and at samjmiller.com, as well as on Twitter and Instagram.
Eden Royce is a writer from Charleston, South Carolina and a Shirley Jackson Award nominee. Her short fiction can be found in various print and online publications including FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction, The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed Magazine, and the Bram Stoker Award finalist anthology Sycorax’s Daughters. Her debut novel Root Magic is a 2022 Walter Dean Myers Award honoree for outstanding children’s literature. Find her online at edenroyce.com and Linktree/edenroyce.
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.
The Shirley Jackson Awards asks that submissions be sent no later than April 30, 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