2015 Shirley Jackson Award Winners Announced
July 10, 2016

Boston, MA (July 2016) — In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, The Shirley Jackson Awards, Inc. has 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 were presented on Sunday, July 10th at Readercon 27, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Readercon Guests of Honor,  Catherynne M. Valente and Tim Powers hosted the ceremony.

The winners for the 2015 Shirley Jackson Awards are:

NOVEL

Winner: Experimental Film, Gemma Files (ChiZine Publications)

Finalists

  • Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Press)
  • The Glittering World, Robert Levy (Gallery)
  • Lord Byron’s Prophecy, Sean Eads (Lethe Press)
  • When We Were Animals, Joshua Gaylord (Mulholland Books)

NOVELLA

Winner: Wylding Hall, Elizabeth Hand (PS Publishing-UK/Open Road Media-US)

Finalists:

  • The Box Jumper, Lisa Mannetti (Smart Rhino)
  • In the Lovecraft Museum, Steve Tem (PS Publishing)
  • Unusual Concentrations, S.J. Spurrier (Simon Spurrier)
  • The Visible Filth, Nathan Ballingrud (This Is Horror)

NOVELETTE

Winner: “Even Clean Hands Can Do Damage,” Steve Duffy (Supernatural Tales #30, Autumn)

Finalists:

  • “The Briskwater Mare,” Deborah Kalin (Cherry Crow Children, Twelfth Planet Press)
  • “The Deepwater Bride,” Tamsyn Muir (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July-August 2015)
  • “Fabulous Beasts,” Priya Sharma (Tor.com, July 2015)
  • “The Thyme Fiend,” Jeffrey Ford (Tor.com, March 2015)

SHORT FICTION

Winner: “The Dying Season,” Lynda E. Rucker (Aickman’s Heirs)

Finalists:

  • “A Beautiful Memory,” Shannon Peavey (Apex Magazine)
  • “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” Alyssa Wong (Nightmare)
  • “Seven Minutes in Heaven,” Nadia Bulkin (Aickman’s Heirs)
  • “Wilderness,” Letitia Trent (Exigencies)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

Winner: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Stephen King (Scribner)

Finalists:

  • The End of the End of Everything, Dale Bailey (Arche Press)
  • Get in Trouble, Kelly Link (Random House)
  • Gutshot, Amelia Gray (FSG Originals)
  • The Nameless Dark – A Collection, T.E. Grau (Lethe Press)
  • You Have Never Been Here, Mary Rickert (Small Beer Press)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

Winner: Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas (Undertow Publications)

Finalists:

  • Black Wings IV, edited by S.T. Joshi (PS Publishing)
  • The Doll Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)
  • Exigencies, edited by Richard Thomas (Dark House Press)
  • Seize the Night, edited by Christopher Golden (Gallery)

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.

Congratulations to all the winners.

2015 Nominees Announced
May 02, 2016

Nominees Announced for the

2015 Shirley Jackson Awards

 

Boston, MA (May 2016) — In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, The Shirley Jackson Awards, Inc. has 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.  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 nominees for the 2015 Shirley Jackson Awards are:

 

NOVEL

Eileen, Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Press)

Experimental Film, Gemma Files (ChiZine Publications)

The Glittering World, Robert Levy (Gallery)

Lord Byron’s Prophecy, Sean Eads (Lethe Press)

When We Were Animals, Joshua Gaylord (Mulholland Books)

 

NOVELLA

The Box Jumper, Lisa Mannetti (Smart Rhino)

In the Lovecraft Museum, Steve Tem (PS Publishing)

Unusual Concentrations, S.J. Spurrier (Simon Spurrier)

The Visible Filth, Nathan Ballingrud (This Is Horror)

Wylding Hall, Elizabeth Hand (PS Publishing-UK/Open Road Media-US)

 

NOVELETTE

“The Briskwater Mare,” Deborah Kalin (Cherry Crow Children, Twelfth Planet Press)

“The Deepwater Bride,” Tamsyn Muir (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July-August 2015)

“Even Clean Hands Can Do Damage,” Steve Duffy (Supernatural Tales #30, Autumn)

“Fabulous Beasts,” Priya Sharma (Tor.com, July 2015)

“The Thyme Fiend,” Jeffrey Ford (Tor.com, March 2015)

 


SHORT FICTION

“A Beautiful Memory,” Shannon Peavey (Apex Magazine)

“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” Alyssa Wong (Nightmare)

“Seven Minutes in Heaven,” Nadia Bulkin (Aickman’s Heirs)

“The Dying Season,” Lynda E. Rucker (Aickman’s Heirs)

“Wilderness,” Letitia Trent (Exigencies)

 

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams, Stephen King (Scribner)

The End of the End of Everything, Dale Bailey (Arche Press)

Get in Trouble, Kelly Link (Random House)

Gutshot, Amelia Gray (FSG Originals)

The Nameless Dark – A Collection, T.E. Grau (Lethe Press)

You Have Never Been Here, Mary Rickert (Small Beer Press)

 

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

Aickman’s Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas (Undertow Publications)

Black Wings IV, edited by S.T. Joshi (PS Publishing)

The Doll Collection, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)

Exigencies, edited by Richard Thomas (Dark House Press)

Seize the Night, edited by Christopher Golden (Gallery)

 

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 2015 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented on Sunday, July 10, 2016, at Readercon 27, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Quincy, Massachusetts.

LET ME TELL YOU, new collection of unpublished Shirley Jackson Stories coming August 4
June 12, 2015

From the renowned and beloved author of “The Lottery” and The Haunting of Hill House comes a new volume of mostly unpublished and uncollected stories, essays, and other writing.

“Shirley Jackson’s stories are among the most terrifying ever written.”—Donna Tartt, author of The Goldfinch
“Shirley Jackson is unparalleled as a leader in the field of beautifully written, quiet, cumulative shudders.”—Dorothy Parker, Esquire
 
I have never liked the theory that poltergeists only come into houses where there are children, because I think it is simply too much for any one house to have poltergeists and children.—Shirley Jackson
 
As the above quotation shows, Shirley Jackson wrote with a rare combination of deadpan humor, ruthless insight, and delight in the terrifying. A mother of four and a prolific writer of fiction, personal essays, novels and short stories, Jackson’s keen observations of both daily life and the unexplainable are by turns often dramatic, blackly humorous, and completely unique. Since her death on August 8, 1965, her significance in twentieth-century American literature has only grown.  Unlike that of many of her contemporaries, her writing has never seemed dated, but rather it feels as fresh and timeless. Over the past decades, critics and scholars have elevated her reputation as one of America’s most original writers, and an icon of feminist thinking, while generations of high school students, after reading “The Lottery” in wonder and horror, have placed Jackson on their “favorite writers” list.
 
LET ME TELL YOU (Random House hardcover and e-book releasing August 4) is a major collection bringing together her uniquely eerie short stories, frank and inspiring lectures on writing, comic essays about her family, as well as personal letters and drawings. The collection was edited by two of Jackson’s children, Laurence Jackson Hyman and Sarah Hyman DeWitt, who over several years, sifted through their mother’s vast (and messy) archives at the Library of Congress, sometimes even piecing together several uncollated or unpaginated manuscript pages. 
 
Jackson’s topics include dinner parties and bridge, household budgets and the commute home, to children’s games and neighborly gossip; however, these familiar subjects are also her most subversive. Her unique blend of humor and terror exposes the real challenges of marriage, parenting, and community—the pressure of social norms, and the complicated nature of love, the strong hold of egos, and the constant lack of time and space. This collection is a wonderful new opportunity to see Jackson’s radically different modes of writing side by side. Together, they show her to be a magnificent storyteller, sharp, sly and with a voice all her own.
 
LET ME TELL YOU includes 56 works: 30 short stories, 16 essays and reviews (including 5 on the craft of writing), and 10 pieces of humor on the family. Only 15 have been previously published: “Paranoia,” “The Man in the Woods,” and “It Isn’t the Money I Mind” in the New Yorker;“Mrs. Spencer
 
 
and the Oberons” in Tin House; “The Lie” and “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” in McSweeney’s; “Let Me Tell You” in Tin House’s Open Bar; “Bulletin” in Fantasy & Science Fiction; “Root of Evil” in
 
 
Fantastic; “Clowns” in Vogue; “Good Old House” in Women’s Day; “In Praise of Dinner Table Silence,” “Questions I Wish I’d Never Asked,” and “What I Want to Know Is, What Do Other People Cook With?” in Good Housekeeping; and “How to Enjoy a Family Quarrel” in McCall’s.
 
With a Foreword by renowned literary critic and Jackson biographer, Ruth Franklin, LET ME TELL YOU is a comprehensive and much anticipated collection by a writer who fifty years after her death continues to show us both the possibilities of fiction and the darker sides of American life.
 
This publication also kicks off a series of events commemorating the life and work of Shirley Jackson. August 8, 2015, marks the 50th anniversary of her death, and 2016 will mark the centenary of her birth.  Also in 2016 Ruth Franklin’s biography will be published.  LET ME TELL YOUprovides many opportunities to reflect on Jackson’s achievements as a writer, as well as to relish these newly discovered works.
 
 
Advance Praise
 
“A master of uncanny suspense, Jackson wrote sentences that crept up on the reader, knife in hand. Throughout these previously unpublished pieces, whether short stories about Main Street murders or Jackson’s description of her own eerie writing process (sleepwalking and ghosts helped), the author’s mordant wit and nuanced prose are often shiver-inducing.”—New York magazine
 
“Jackson’s wry observations about keeping house in the 1950’s (collected here along with essays, letters and stories) are as spot-on today as they were when she wrote them.”—Good Housekeeping
 
“Unpublished and uncollected work by the celebrated author of The Haunting of Hill House (1959) and other neo-Gothic chillers. It’s fitting that this gathering by Jackson, who died half a century ago, should open with a perfectly crafted little story called ‘Paranoia.’ Unfolding with the to-the-second pacing of a Twilight Zone episode. . . . [H]er stories never fail to deliver. For fans of midcentury suspense, it doesn’t get much better than this.”–Kirkus Reviews, starred review
 
“Jackson, an inspiration to writers from Stephen King to Joyce Carol Oates, dared to look on the dark side and imagine the unimaginable, as demonstrated in this volume of her uncollected and unpublished work. . . .  [A] multifaceted portrait of the artist as wife, mother, commentator on the comfortable middle class, and pioneer.  . . . Line drawings, quotations, and a Foreword by biographer Ruth Franklin enhance this reminder of why Jackson’s reputation flourishes 50 years after her death.”–Publishers Weekly

2014 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees Announced
May 07, 2015

Boston, MA (May 2015) — In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, The Shirley Jackson Awards, Inc. has 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.*  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 nominees for the 2014 Shirley Jackson Awards are:

NOVEL

Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals)

Bird Box, Josh Malerman (Ecco)

Broken Monsters, Lauren Beukes (Mulholland)

Confessions, Kanae Minato (Mulholland)

The Lesser Dead, Christopher Buehlman (Berkley)

The Unquiet House, Alison Littlewood (Jo Fletcher Books)

 

NOVELLA

The Beauty, Aliya Whiteley (Unsung Stories)

Ceremony of Flies, Kate Jonez (DarkFuse)

The Good Shabti, Robert Sharp (Jurassic London)

The Mothers of Voorhisville, Mary Rickert (Tor.com, April 2014)

We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)

 

NOVELETTE

“The Devil in America,” Kai Ashante Wilson (Tor.com, April 2014)

“The End of the End of Everything,” Dale Bailey (Tor.com, April 2014)

“The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado (Granta)

“Newspaper Heart,” Stephen Volk (The Spectral Book of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)

“Office at Night,” Kate Bernheimer and Laird Hunt (Walker Art Center/ Coffee House Press)

“The Quiet Room,” V H Leslie (Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, Undertow Publications/ChiZine Publications)


SHORT FICTION

“Candy Girl,” Chikodili Emelumadu (Apex Magazine, November 2014)

“The Dogs Home,” Alison Littlewood (The Spectral Book of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)

“The Fisher Queen,” Alyssa Wong (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May/June 2014)

“Shay Corsham Worsted,” Garth Nix (Fearful Symmetries, ChiZine Publications)

“Wendigo Nights,” Siobhan Carroll (Fearful Symmetries, ChiZine Publications)

 

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

After the People Lights Have Gone Off, Stephen Graham Jones (Dark House)

Burnt Black Suns:  A Collection of Weird Tales, Simon Strantzas (Hippocampus)

Gifts for the One who Comes After, Helen Marshall (ChiZine Publications)

They Do The Same Things Different There, Robert Shearman (ChiZine Publications)

Unseaming, Mike Allen (Antimatter Press)

 

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

Letters to Lovecraft, edited by Jesse Bullington (Stone Skin Press)

Fearful Symmetries, edited by Ellen Datlow (ChiZine Publications)

The Spectral Book of Horror Stories, edited by Mark Morris (Spectral Press)

Shadows & Tall Trees 2014, edited by Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications/ChiZine Publications)

The Children of Old Leech: A Tribute to the Carnivorous Cosmos of Laird Barron, edited by Ross E. Lockhart and Justin Steele (Word Horde)

 

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 2014 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented on Sunday, July 12, 2016, at Readercon 26, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Websites:  ShirleyJacksonAwards.org

            Readercon.org

______________________________________________________________

Media representatives who are seeking further information or interviews should contact JoAnn F. Cox.

2014 Shirley Jackson Awards Jurors Announced
October 27, 2014

Boston, MA (October 2014) — 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 jurors for the 2014 Shirley Jackson Awards are, alphabetically:

Andy Duncan is the author of 29 published stories and two story collections.  Beluthahatchie and Other Stories(Golden Gryphon, 2000) won a World Fantasy Award.  The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories(PS, 2012) includes the World Fantasy Award-winning title story, the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award-winning “The Chief Designer,” and the Nebula Award-winning “Close Encounters.” His novella Wakulla Springs, co-written with Ellen Klages (Tor.com, 2013), was a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, Locus and World Fantasy awards. He has been a juror for the Philip K. Dick, Bram Stoker and World Fantasy awards, and in 2013 was named a permanent Sturgeon Award juror. He lives with his wife, Sydney, in Frostburg, Maryland, where he is an associate professor of English at Frostburg State University.

Nancy Holder is a New York Times bestselling author of adult and young adult horror and dark fantasy novels, short fiction, and comic books and graphic novels. She has received five Bram Stoker Awards and is a former trustee of the Horror Writers Association. She has also received a Pioneer Award for Young Adult Literature from the RT Booklovers Review, as well as a Scribe Award from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. Her work has appeared on the recommended lists of the American Library Association, American Reading Association, New York Public Library Stuff for the Teen Age, the Horror Writers Association, and many other organizations. She is currently creating the World of Dracula for the Storium gaming system and is an editor at Moonstone Books. She also teaches in the Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing Program. She lives in San Diego.

Livia Llewellyn is a writer of horror, dark fantasy and erotica. Her fiction has appeared in ChiZine, Subterranean, Apex Magazine, Postscripts, Nightmare Magazine, as well as numerous anthologies. Her first collection, Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors, was published in 2011 by Lethe Press. Engines received two Shirley Jackson Award nominations, for Best Collection and Best Novelette (for “Omphalos”). Her story “Furnace” received a 2013 Shirley Jackson Award nomination for Best Short Fiction.

Simon Kurt Unsworth’s latest collection, Strange Gateways (PS Publishing), follows 2011’s critically acclaimed Quiet Houses (Dark Continents Publishing) and 2010’s Lost Places (Ash Tree Press). His stories have been published in a large number of critically acclaimed anthologies including the World Fantasy Award-winning Exotic Gothic 4, the Gray Friar Press’s Terror Tales of the Cotswolds, Terror Tales of the Seaside and Where the Heart Is, the Ash Tree Press’s At Ease with the Dead, Shades of Darkness and Exotic Gothic 3, Stephen Jones’ Haunts: Reliquaries of the Dead, Ellen Datlow’s Hauntings and Lovecraft Unbound, and Salt Publishing’s Year’s Best Fantasy 2013. He has been in six of Stephen Jones’ The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, and he was also in The Very Best of Best New Horror. His novel The Devil’s Detective is due out from DoubleDay in the US and Del Ray in the UK in March 2015.

Kaaron Warren, Bram Stoker Nominee and Shirley Jackson Award winner, has lived in Melbourne, Sydney, Canberra and Fiji. She’s sold many short stories, three novels (the multi-award-winning Slights, Walking the Tree and Mistification) and four short story collections.  Her collection Through Splintered Walls won a Canberra Critic’s Circle Award for Fiction, an ACT Writers’ and Publisher’s Award, two Ditmar Awards, two Australian Shadows Awards and a Shirley Jackson Award. Her story “Air, Water and the Grove” won the Aurealis Award for Best SF Short Story and will appear in Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror. Her latest collection is The Gate Theory.

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

______________________________________________________________

Media representatives who are seeking further information or interviews should contact JoAnn F. Cox: admin at shirleyjacksonawards dot org

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