Shirley Jackson Award

The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards named after Shirley Jackson in recognition of her legacy in writing. These awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic are presented at Readercon, an annual conference on imaginative literature.

Writing in Salon in 2010, Laura Miller noted, "The awards are only 3 years old, but have already proved a fitting tribute to a writer who roamed freely over similar ground and has never quite gotten the respect she deserves."

Award-winners are selected 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 first annual Shirley Jackson Awards were presented July 20, 2007 at the Readercon Conference on Imaginative Literature in Burlington, Massachusetts. The jurors were John Langan, Sarah Langan, Paul G. Tremblay and F. Brett Cox, who now form the Board of Directors along with JoAnn Cox.

List of Shirley Jackson Award winners

2007

• Novel: Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand
• Novella: "Vacancy" by Lucius Shepard
• Novelette: "The Janus Tree" by Glen Hirshberg
• Short Story: "The Monsters of Heaven" by Nathan Ballingrud
• Collection: The Imago Sequence and Other Stories by Laird Barron
• Anthology: Inferno edited by Ellen Datlow

2008

• Novel: The Shadow Year by Jeffrey Ford
• Novella: "Disquiet" by Julia Leigh
• Novelette: "Pride and Prometheus" by John Kessel
• Short Story: "The Pile" by Michael Bishop
• Collection: The Diving Pool by Yōko Ogawa
• Anthology: The New Uncanny edited by Sarah Eyre and Ra Page

2009

• Novel: Big Machine by Victor LaValle
• Novella: "Midnight Picnic" by Nick Antosca
• Novelette: "Morality" by Stephen King
• Short Story: "The Pelican Bar" by Karen Joy Fowler
• Collection: Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson
• Collection: Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman
• Anthology: Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe edited by Ellen Datlow

2010

• Novel: Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett
• Novella: "Mysterium Tremendum" by Laird Barron
• Novelette: "Truth Is a Cave in the Black Mountains" by Neil Gaiman
• Short Story: "The Things" by Peter Watts
• Collection: Occultation by Laird Barron
• Anthology: Stories: All New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio

2011

• Novel: Witches on the Road Tonight, Sheri Holman (Grove Press)
• Novella: "Near Zennor", Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors, Jo Fletcher Books)
• Novelette: “The Summer People,” Kelly Link (Tin House 49/Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories, Candlewick Press)
• Short Fiction: “The Corpse Painter’s Masterpiece,” M. Rickert (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Sept/Oct, 2011)
• Single-Author Collection: After the Apocalypse: Stories, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer Press)
• Edited Anthology: Ghosts by Gaslight, edited by Jack Dann and Nick Gevers (Harper Voyager)

2012

• Novel: Edge, Koji Suzuki (Vertical, Inc)
• Novella: "Sky," Kaaron Warren (Through Splintered Walls, Twelfth Planet Press)
• Novelette: "Reeling for the Empire," Karen Russell (Tin House, Winter 2012)
• Short Fiction: "A Natural History of Autumn," Jeffrey Ford (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August 2012)
• Single Author Collection: Crackpot Palace, Jeffrey Ford (William Morrow)
• Edited Anthology: Exotic Gothic 4: Postscripts #28/29, edited by Danel Olson (PS Publishing)

2013

• Novel: American Elsewhere, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
• Novella: "Burning Girls", Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com)
• Novellette: "Cry Murder! In a Small Voice", Greer Gilman (Small Beer Press)
• Short Fiction: "57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides", Sam J. Miller (Nightmare Magazine, December 2013)
• Single Author Collection (two Winners): Before and Afterlives, Christopher Barzak (Lethe Press) and North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud (Small Beer Press)
• Edited Anthology: The Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. (Miskatonic River Press)

2014

• Novel: Annihilation, Jeff VanderMeer (FSG Originals)
• Novella: We Are All Completely Fine, Daryl Gregory (Tachyon)
• Novellette: “The End of the End of Everything”, Dale Bailey (Tor.com, April 2014)
• Short Fiction: “The Dogs Home”, Alison Littlewood (The Spectral Book of Horror Stories, Spectral Press)
• Single Author Collection: Gifts for the One who Comes After, Helen Marshall (ChiZine Publications)
• Edited Anthology: Fearful Symmetries, edited by Ellen Datlow (ChiZine Publications)

2015

• Novel: Experimental Film, Gemma Files (ChiZine Publications)
• Novella: Wylding Hall Elizabeth Hand (PS Publishing / Open Road Media)
• Novellette: "Even Clean Hands Can Do Damage" Steve Duffy ("Supernatural Tales" #30)
• Short Fiction: "The Dying Season" Lynda E. Rucker (Aickman's Heirs)
• Single Author Collection: The Bazaar of Bad Dreams Stephen King (Scribner)
• Edited Anthology: Aickman's Heirs, edited by Simon Strantzas (Undertow Publications)

2016

• Novel: The Girls, Emma Cline (Random House)
• Novella: The Ballad of Black Tom, Victor LaValle (Tor.com)
• Novelette: “Waxy,” Camilla Grudova (Granta)
• Short Fiction: "Postcards from Natalie,” Carrie Laben (The Dark)
• Single-Author Collection: A Natural History of Hell, Jeffrey Ford (Small Beer Press)
• Edited Anthology: The Starlit Wood: New Fairy Tales, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe (Saga Press)
• Board of Directors Award to Ruth Franklin in recognition of the biography, Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life

2017

• Novel: The Hole, Pyun Hye-young (Arcade Publishing)
• Novella: Fever Dream, Samanta Schweblin (Riverhead Books) and The Lost Daughter Collective, Lindsey Drager (Dzanc Book) TIE
• 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)

2018

• Novel: Little Eve, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
• Novella: The Taiga Syndrome, Cristina Rivera Garza (Dorothy, a publishing project)
• Novelette: Help the Witch, Tom Cox (Unbound)
• Short Fiction: "The Astronaut”, Christina Wood Martinez (Granta Winter ’18)
• Single-Author Collection: All the Fabulous Beasts, Priya Sharma (Undertow)
• Edited Anthology: Robots vs Fairies, edited by Dominik Parisien and Navah Wolfe (Saga)

2019

• 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 and James A. Moore (Twisted Publishing)

2020

• Novel: The Only Good Indians, Stephen Graham Jones (Saga)
• Novella: Night of the Mannequins, Stephen Graham Jones (Tor.com)
• Novelette: The Attic Tragedy, J. Ashley-Smith (Meerkat)
• Short Fiction: "Not the Man I Married”, R.A. Busby (Black Petals)
• Single-Author Collection: Velocities, Kathe Koja (Meerkat)
• Edited Anthology: Black Cranes: Tales of Unquiet Women, edited by Lee Murray and Geneve Flynn (Omnium Gatherum)

External links

• Official site