2022 Shirley Jackson Awards

The 2022 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented on July 15 at Readercon 32 in Quincy, Massachusetts.

The juried award is given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

NOVEL

[TIE]

  • The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland Books)
  • Where I End by Sophie White (Tramp Press)

 NOVELLA

  • The Bone Lantern by Angela Slatter (PS Publishing)

 NOVELETTE

  • What the Dead Know by Nghi Vo (Amazon Original Stories)

 SHORT FICTION

  •  “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867” by Kim Fu (Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century)

 SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • We Are Here to Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe (Nictitating Books)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors, edited by Doug Murano (Bad Hand Books)

[Via Marion Deeds.]

2022 Shirley Jackson Award Nominees

The 2022 Shirley Jackson Award nominees have been released. The juried award is given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

 The 2022 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented in-person on Saturday, July 15 at Readercon 32 in Quincy, Massachusetts.

The nominees for the 2022 Shirley Jackson Awards are:

NOVEL

  • Beulah by Christi Nogle (Cemetery Gates Media)
  • The Dead Friends Society by Paul Gandersman and Peter Hall (Encyclopocalypse Publications)
  • The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias (Mulholland Books)
  • Jackal by Erin E. Adams (Bantam)
  • Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Tsai (Jaded Ibis Press)
  • Where I End by Sophie White (Tramp Press)

 NOVELLA

  • The Bone Lantern by Angela Slatter (PS Publishing)
  • Bound Feet by Kelsea Yu (Cemetery Gates Media)
  • Catastrophe by Deirdre Danklin (Texas Review Press)
  • Lure by Tim McGregor (Tenebrous Press)
  • Pomegranates by Priya Sharma (PS Publishing)
  • The Wehrwolf by Alma Katsu (Amazon Original Stories)

 NOVELETTE

  • Azeman or, the Testament of Quincey Morris by Lisa Moore (Black Shuck Books)
  • “Challawa” by Usman T. Malik (Dark Stars:  New Tales of Darkest Horror)
  • “Sweetbaby” by Thomas Ha (Clarkesworld, October 2022)
  • “This Place is Best Shunned” by David Erik Nelson (Tor.com)
  • What the Dead Know by Nghi Vo (Amazon Original Stories)

 SHORT FICTION

  • “Brother Maternitas” by Viktor Athelstan (Your Body is Not Your Body)
  • “The Church of Divine Electricity” by Emily Mitchell (The Southern Review)
  • “Dick Pig” by Ian Muneshwar (Nightmare Magazine, Issue 112)
  • “Halogen Sky” by Wendy N. Wagner (VASTARIEN:  A Literary Journal, vol. 5, issue 1)
  • “Pre-Simulation Consultation XF007867” by Kim Fu (Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century)

 SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • And At My Back I Always Hear by Scott Nicolay (Word Horde)
  • Breakable Things by Cassandra Khaw (Undertow Publications)
  • Hell Hath No Sorrow Like a Woman Haunted by RJ Joseph (The Seventh Terrace)
  • Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu (Tin House)
  • Splendid Anatomies by Allison Wyss (Veliz Books)
  • We Are Here to Hurt Each Other by Paula D. Ashe (Nictitating Books)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • Chiral Mad 5, edited by Michael Bailey (Written Backwards)
  • The Hideous Book of Hidden Horrors, edited by Doug Murano (Bad Hand Books)
  • Other Terrors, edited by Vince A. Liaguno and Rena Mason (William Morrow)
  • Screams From the Dark:  29 Tales of Monsters and the Monstrous, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor Nightfire)
  • Your Body is Not Your Body, edited by Alex Woodroe and Matt Blairstone (Tenebrous Press)

 [Via Ellen Datlow.]

2021 Shirley Jackson Awards

The 2021 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented in-person on October 29 as part of the Boston Book Festival, in partnership with Readercon.

The juried award is given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

NOVEL

  • My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga Press)

NOVELLA

  • Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn (Tordotcom)

NOVELETTE

  • “We, the Girls Who Did Not Make It” by E. A. Petricone (Nightmare Magazine, February 2021)

SHORT FICTION

  • “You’ll Understand When You’re a Mom Someday” by Isabel J. Kim (khōréō magazine, August 2021)

 SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons: Stories by Keith Rosson (Meerkat Press)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

[TIE]

  • Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World, edited by Eric J. Guignard (Dark Moon Books)
  • Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness, edited by dave ring (Neon Hemlock)

SPECIAL AWARD

  • Ellen Datlow, in recognition of the anthology When Things Get Dark: Stories inspired by Shirley Jackson (Titan Books, 2021).

2021 Shirley Jackson Award Nominees

The 2021 Shirley Jackson Award nominees have been released.

The juried award is given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

The nominees for the 2021 Shirley Jackson Awards are:

NOVEL

  • All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter (Titan Books)
  • Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer (MCD)
  • My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga Press)
  • No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull (Blackstone Publishing)
  • Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw (Nightfire)

NOVELLA

  • Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente (Tordotcom)
  • Dirty Heads: A novella of cosmic coming-of-age horror by Aaron Dries (Black T-Shirt Books)
  • Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn (Tordotcom)
  • A Rose / Arose by Michael Bailey (Written Backwards)
  • The Route of Ice and Salt by José Luis Zárate, translated by David Bowles (Innsmouth Free Press)

NOVELETTE

  • House of Crows by Lisa Unger (Amazon Original Stories)
  • “The Nag Bride” by A.C. Wise (The Ghost Sequences, Undertow Publications)
  • The Night Belongs to Us by Jess Landry (Independent Legions Publishing)
  • “We, the Girls Who Did Not Make It” by E. A. Petricone (Nightmare Magazine, February 2021)
  • The Women by Margaret Jameson (F(r)iction)

SHORT FICTION

  • “Dizzy in the Weeds” by L.D. Lewis (Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness)
  • “Forward, Victoria” by Carlie St. George (The Dark Magazine, April 2021)
  • “Gordon B. White is Creating Haunting Weird Horror” by Gordon B. White (Nightmare Magazine, July 2021)
  • “Human Reason” by Nicasio Andres Reed (Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness)
  • “You’ll Understand When You’re a Mom Someday” by Isabel J. Kim (khōréō magazine, August 2021)

 SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons: Stories by Keith Rosson (Meerkat Press)
  • People from My Neighborhood by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Ted Goossen (Soft Skull Press)
  • Sometimes We’re Cruel by J.A.W. McCarthy (Cemetery Gates Media)
  • We are Happy, We are Doomed by Kurt Fawver (Grimscribe Press)
  • Where All is Night, and Starless by John Linwood Grant (Trepidatio Publishing)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • Giving The Devil His Due: A Charity Anthology, edited by Rebecca Brewer (Running Wild Press)
  • Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World, edited by Eric J. Guignard (Dark Moon Books)
  • Stitched Lips: An Anthology of Horror from Silenced Voices, edited by Ken MacGregor (Dragon’s Roost Press)
  • There Is No Death, There Are No Dead, edited by Jess Landry & Aaron J. French (Crystal Lake Publishing)
  • Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness, edited by dave ring (Neon Hemlock)

SPECIAL AWARD

The Shirley Jackson Awards, Inc. will present a Special Award to Ms. Datlow in recognition of the anthology When Things Get Dark: Stories inspired by Shirley Jackson (Titan Books, 2021).

Ms. Datlow was a nominee for the Shirley Jackson Award for Edited Anthology for the years 2011, 2013 (with Terri Windling), 2015, 2017, and 2019, and won the award in this category for the years 2007, 2009, and 2014.

Previous recipients of a Special Award from the Shirley Jackson Awards are Joyce Carol Oates as editor of the Library of America edition of Shirley Jackson:  Novels & Stories (Library of America, 2010) and Ruth Franklin in recognition of her biography Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life (Liveright/W.W. Norton, 2016).

The 2021 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented in-person on October 29 as part of the Boston Book Festival, in partnership with Readercon, Conference on Imaginative Literature.

2020 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees

The nominees for the 2020 Shirley Jackson Awards were announced June 30.

The awards are given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. They are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics.

The 2020 awards will be presented as a pre-recorded event on Sunday, August 15 at Readercon 31.

NOVEL

  • Sisters by Daisy Johnson (Jonathan Cape)
  • Death in Her Hands by Ottessa Moshfegh (Penguin Press)
  • Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (Del Rey / Penguin Random House)
  • Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth (William Morrow)
  • The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones (Saga Press, Gallery Books)
  • True Story by Kate Reed Petty (Viking)

NOVELLA

  • The Best of Both Worlds by S. P. Miskowski (Trepidatio Publishing)
  • History of an Executioner by Clancy McGilligan (Miami University Press)
  • Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones (Tordotcom Publishing)
  • Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark (Tordotcom Publishing)
  • Agatha’s Barn: A Carpenter’s Farm Story by Michael Bailey (Written Backwards)
  • Her Mad Song by C J Halbard (Man on Fire Press)

 NOVELETTE

  • “I Will Find You, Even in the Dark” by Jessica Landry (Dim Shores Presents Vol. 1)
  • Many Restless Concerns: The Victims of Countess Bathory Speak in Chorus (A Testimony) by Gayle Brandeis (Black Lawrence Press)
  • The Attic Tragedy by J. Ashley-Smith Meerkat Press)
  • Faith by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori (Granta)
  • “Heritage Hill” by Matthew R. Davis (Outback Horrors Down Under:  An Anthology of Antipodean Terrors)
  • “Pale Toes” by Marko Hautala, translated by Sanna Terho (The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories)
  • “Señor Ligotti” by Bernardo Esquinca, translated by James D. Jenkins (The Valancourt Book of World Horror Stories)

SHORT FICTION

  • “Holes” by R.A. Busby (Graveyard Smash:  Women of Horror Anthology Vol.2 collection)
  • Graceful Burdens by Roxane Gay (Amazon Original Stories)
  • “Isn’t Your Daughter Such a Doll” by Tobi Ogundiran (Shoreline of Infinity 18)
  • “Not the Man I Married” by R. A. Busby (Black Petals Issue #93 Autumn, 2020)
  • “Room and Board Included, Demonology Extra” by Eden Royce (Broken Eye Books)
  • “The Memory Game” by Franki Haber (The Gravity of the Thing)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • Settling the World: Selected Stories by M. John Harrison (Comma Press)
  • Mannequin and Wife by Jen Fawkes (LSU Press)
  • Thin Places by Kay Chronister (Undertow Publications)
  • Velocities: Stories by Kathe Koja (Meerkat Press)
  • Moonflower, Nightshade, All the Hours of the Day by JD Scott (Lake Forest College Press)
  • Aftermath of an Industrial Accident: Stories by Mike Allen (Mythic Delirium Books)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • After Sundown, edited by Mark Morris (Flame Tree Press)
  • Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, edited by Lee Murray & Geneve Flynn (Omnium Gatherum)
  • Miscreations: Gods, Monstrosities & Other Horrors, edited by Doug Murano & Michael Bailey (Written Backwards)
  • The Night Bazaar Venice: Thirteen Tales of Forbidden Wishes and Dangerous Desires, edited by Lenore Hart (Northampton House Press)
  • Lullabies for Suffering: Tales of Addiction Horror, edited by Mark Matthews (Wicked Run Press)
  • Shadows & Tall Trees, Vol. 8, edited by Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)
  • Tiny Nightmares, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto (Catapult)

 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.

[Thanks to Mike Allen for the story. Based on a press release.]

2019 Shirley Jackson Awards

The winners of the 2019 Shirley Jackson Awards were announced July 12.

The awards are given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. They are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics.

The awards are usually presented at Readercon, which was cancelled for this year, so the winners were revealed on YouTube. 

NOVEL

  • The Book of X, Sarah Rose Etter (Two Dollar Radio)

NOVELLA

  • Ormeshadow, Priya Sharma (Tor.com)

NOVELETTE

  • Luminous Body, Brooke Warra (Dim Shores)

SHORT FICTION

  • “Kali_Na,” Indrapramit Das (The Mythic Dream)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • Song for the Unraveling of the World, Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • The Twisted Book of Shadows, edited by Christopher Golden & James A. Moore (Twisted Publishing)

[Via Andrew Liptak.]

2019 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees

The nominees for the 2019 Shirley Jackson Awards were announced June 9.

The awards are given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. They are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics.

The awards are usually presented at Readercon, which has been cancelled for this year. Plans the 2019 Shirley Jackson Awards ceremony will be forthcoming.

The nominees for the 2019 Shirley Jackson Awards are:

NOVEL

  • The Book of X, Sarah Rose Etter (Two Dollar Radio)
  • Curious Toys, Elizabeth Hand (Little, Brown and Co)
  • Goodnight Stranger, Miciah Bay Gault (Park Row Books)
  • Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo (Gollancz)
  • Nothing to See Here, Kevin Wilson (Ecco)
  • Tinfoil Butterfly, Rachel Eve Moulton (MCD x FSG Originals)

NOVELLA

  • Into Bones Like Oil, Kaaron Warren (Meerkat Press)
  • Late Returns, Joe Hill (Full Throttle)
  • The Monster of Elendhaven, Jennifer Giesbrecht (Tor.com)
  • Ormeshadow, Priya Sharma (Tor.com)
  • This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone (Gallery/Saga Press)

NOVELETTE

  • Black Bequeathments, Simon Strantzas (Dim Shores)
  • The Couvade, Joanna Koch (Demain Publishing)
  • “Deeper, Darker Things,” Steve Dillon (Deeper, Darker Things and Other Oddities)
  • Luminous Body, Brooke Warra (Dim Shores)
  • Pwdre Ser, Kurt Fawver (Dim Shores)
  • “Taproot,” M. R. Carey (Ten-Word Tragedies)

SHORT FICTION

  • “How to Become a Witch-Queen,” Theodora Goss (Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery)
  • “Kali_Na,” Indrapramit Das (The Mythic Dream)
  • “The Truth About Josh Enloe,” Nick Straatmann (Parhelion)
  • “The Well,” Mariana Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell (issue 55.1 of The Southern Review)
  • “Whistle, My Lad, and I Will Come,” Gina Ochsner (The Pink Issue of Fairy Tale Review)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • Collision: Stories, J. S. Breukelaar (Meerkat Press, LLC)
  • Every Human Love: Stories, Joanna Pearson (Acre Books)
  • Homesick, Nino Cipri (Dzanc Books)
  • Mouthful of Birds, Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell (Riverhead Books)
  • Song for the Unraveling of the World, Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
  • Wounds, Nathan Ballingrud (Saga Press)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, edited by Ellen Datlow (Saga Press)
  • The Mythic Dream, edited by Navah Wolfe and Dominik Parisien (Saga Press)
  • The Twisted Book of Shadows, edited by Christopher Golden & James A. Moore (Twisted Publishing)
  • The Unquiet Dreamer: A Tribute to Harlan Ellison, edited by Preston Grassmann (PS Publishing)
  • Wonderland: An Anthology of Works Inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane (Titan Books)

[Based on a press release.]

2018 Shirley Jackson Awards

The 2018 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented on Sunday, July 14 at Readercon 30, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Quincy, Massachusetts. (Kate Maruyama livetweeted the ceremony.)

The awards are given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

They are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics. The jurors for the 2018 awards were Chikodili Emelumadu, Michael Thomas Ford, Gabino Iglesias, Kate Maruyama and Lynda E. Rucker.

NOVEL

  • Little Eve, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group)

NOVELLA

  • The Taiga Syndrome, Cristina Rivera Garza (Dorothy, a Publishing Project)

NOVELETTE

  • “Help the Witch,” Tom Cox (Help the Witch)

SHORT FICTION

  • “The Astronaut,” Christina Wood Martinez (Granta 142: Animalia)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • All the Fabulous Beasts, Priya Sharma (Undertow Publications)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • Robots vs Fairies, edited by Navah Wolfe and Dominik Parisien (Saga Press)

2018 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees

The nominees for the 2018 Shirley Jackson Awards were announced May 2.

The awards are given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

They are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics. The jurors for the 2018 awards are Chikodili Emelumadu, Michael Thomas Ford, Gabino Iglesias, Kate Maruyama and Lynda E. Rucker.

2018 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees

NOVEL

  • Everything Under, Daisy Johnson (Jonathan Cape)
  • In the Night Wood, Dale Bailey (John Joseph Adams Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
  • Little Eve, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group)
  • Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton (Double Day/Raven Books)
  • We Sold Our Souls, Grady Hendrix (Quirk Books)

NOVELLA

  • Judderman, DA Northwood (Gary Budden) (Dead Ink Books/Cinder House Publishing)
  • The Atrocities, Jeremy C. Shipp (Tor.com)
  • The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com)
  • The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky, John Hornor Jacobs (HarperCollins Publishers)
  • The Taiga Syndrome, Cristina Rivera Garza (Dorothy, a Publishing Project)

NOVELETTE

  • “Adriftica,” Maria Dahvana Headley (Robots vs. Fairies)
  • “Blood and Smoke, Vinegar and Ashes,” D.P. Watt (The Silent Garden)
  • Ghostographs: An Album, Maria Romasco Moore (Rose Metal Press)
  • “Help the Witch,” Tom Cox (Help the Witch)
  • “The Black Sea,” Chris Mason (Beneath the Waves – Tales from the Deep, April 2018)

SHORT FICTION

  • “Back Seat,” Bracken MacLeod (Lost Highways)
  • “Hell,” David Hansen (The Charcoal Issue of Fairy Tale Review, March 2018)
  • “How to be a Horror Writer,” Tim Waggoner (Vastarien: A Literary Journal vol 1., issue 2 – Summer / Grimscribe Press)
  • “The Astronaut,” Christina Wood Martinez (Granta 142: Animalia)
  • “The Woman Dies,” Aoko Matsuda, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton (online edition of Granta 144: genericlovestory)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • All the Fabulous Beasts, Priya Sharma (Undertow Publications)
  • From Deep Places, Gemma Files (Trepidatio Publishing)
  • Garden of Eldritch Delights, Lucy A. Snyder (Raw Dog Screaming Press)
  • Quartier Perdu, Sean O’Brien (Comma Press)
  • The Human Alchemy, Michael Griffin (Word Horde)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • Chiral Mad 4: An Anthology of Collaborations, edited by Michael Bailey and Lucy A. Snyder (Written Backwards)
  • Robots vs Fairies, edited by Navah Wolfe and Dominik Parisien (Saga Press)
  • The Silent Garden: A Journal of Esoteric Fabulism, edited by The Silent Garden Collective (Undertow Publications)
  • This Dreaming Isle, edited by Dan Coxon (Unsung Stories)
  • Tiny Crimes: Very Short Tales of Mystery and Murder, edited by Lincoln Michel and Nadxieli Nieto (Black Balloon)

The 2018 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented on Sunday, July 14 at Readercon 30, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Quincy, Massachusetts.

[Thanks to Mark Hepworth for the story.]

2017 Shirley Jackson Awards

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Congrats to Kurt Fawver!

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The winners of the 2017 Shirley Jackson Awards were announced at Readercon 29 on July 15.

The Shirley Jackson Awards are given for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. They are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics.

NOVEL

  • The Hole, Hye-young Pyun (Arcade Publishing)

NOVELLA

    (TIE)

  • Fever Dream, Samantha Schweblin (Riverhead Books)
  • The Lost Daughter Collective, Lindsey Drager (Dzanc Books)

NOVELETTE

  • “Take the Way Home That Leads Back to Sullivan Street,” Chavisa Woods (Things to Do When You’re Goth in the Country)

SHORT FICTION

  • “The Convexity of Our Youth,” Kurt Fawver (Looming Low)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

  • Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

  • Shadows and Tall Trees Volume 7, edited by Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)