Ormeshadow

Shirley Jackson Award

2019 Shirley Jackson Awards

The awards are handed out annually to the works of horror, dark fantasy and psychological suspense that best exemplify the legacy of horror author Shirley Jackson. Due to Covid-19, this year’s ceremony was a virtual one rather than its normal venue at ReaderCon in Massachusetts, USA. I was delighted just to be listed in the novella category alongside an amazing list of writers and genuinely suprised to win.

Congratulations to everyone on the list.

Here are this year’s winners (listed in bold) and nominees:

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

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

NOVELETTE

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

SHORT FICTION

• “Kali_Na,” Indrapramit Das (The Mythic Dream)
• “How to Become a Witch-Queen,” Theodora Goss (Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery)
• “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

• Song for the Unraveling of the World, Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
• 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 (Riverhead Books)
• Wounds, Nathan Ballingrud (Saga Press)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

• The Twisted Book of Shadows, edited by Christopher Golden & James A. Moore (Twisted Publishing)
• Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, edited by Ellen Datlow (Saga Press)
• The Mythic Dream, edited by Rivers Solomon (Saga Press)
• 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)

Nominations for the Shirley Jackson Awards 2019

The nominees for the 2019 Shirley Jackson Awards have been announced. I am absolutely thrilled to be included in the novella category for “Ormeshadow”. I haven’t a cat in hell’s chance, but it’s really something to be in there alongside some amazing authors. My congratulations to all.

NOMINATIONS:

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 Elenhaven,” 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 (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 Rivers Solomon (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)

 

 

Shirley Jackson Award

 

2018 Shirley Jackson Awards

My huge congratulations to ALL the winners and nominees of the 2018 Shirley Jackson Awards. The awards — for outstanding achievement in horror, psychological suspense, and dark fantasy fiction — were presented on 14th July 2019 at Readercon 30 Quincy MA, USA.

I feel very honoured to have been listed alongside Gemma Files, Michael Griffin, Lucy A. Snyder, and Sean O’Brien in the Single Author Short fiction Collection group. And I also can’t believe that I’ve won. Is this real? Will someone announce they’ve made a mistake?? (If so it’s too late, you can’t take it back).

Novel

WINNER: Little Eve, Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

In the Night Wood, Dale Bailey (John Joseph Adams)
Social Creature, Tara Isabella Burton (Double Day)
We Sold Our Souls, Grady Hendrix (Quirk)
Everything Under, Daisy Johnson (Jonathan Cape)

Novella

WINNER: The Taiga Syndrome, Cristina Rivera Garza (Dorothy)

The Only Harmless Great Thing, Brooke Bolander (Tor.com Publishing)
The Sea Dreams It Is the Sky, John Hornor Jacobs (HarperCollins)
Judderman, D.A. Northwood (Dead Ink)
The Atrocities, Jeremy C. Shipp (Tor.com Publishing)

Novelette

WINNER: Help the Witch, Tom Cox (Unbound)

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

Short Fiction

WINNER: “The Astronaut”, Christina Wood Martinez (Granta Winter ’18)

“Hell”, David Hansen (Fairy Tale Review 3/18)
“Back Seat”, Bracken MacLeod (Lost Highways)
“The Woman Dies”, Aoko Matsuda (Granta Summer ’18)
“How to be a Horror Writer”, Tim Waggoner (Vastarien Summer ’18)

Single-Author Collection

WINNER: All the Fabulous Beasts, Priya Sharma (Undertow)

Drawn Up from Deep Places, Gemma Files (Trepidatio)
The Human Alchemy, Michael Griffin (Word Horde)
Quartier Perdu, Sean O’Brien (Comma)
Garden of Eldritch Delights, Lucy A. Snyder (Raw Dog Screaming)

Edited Anthology

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

Thank you to all  the WONDERFUL people in the writing community who have sent messages

This was my speech:

My huge thanks to everyone at the Shirley Jackson Awards- the Board of Directors, the Members of the Advisory Board, and the Jurors, for this tremendous honour.
I owe a massive thanks to Undertow Publications- to Mike Kelly for his encouragement and editor’s eye, and to Carolyn McDonnell-Kelly and Courtney Kelly. Also to Jeffrey Alan Love and C7 – Shiina for the use of their beautiful artwork and the multi-talented Vince Haig for his cover design.
I’m still amazed that I’ve had the chance to work with the tremendous Ellen Datlow, who has been a huge part of my life as a reader as well as a writer. Thank you so much, Ellen. Thanks also to the warm and wise Paula Guran. I am grateful to the publications who have supported my work, such as TTA Press, Albedo One, Nightmare, The Dark and Tor.com.
Thanks to my parents and brother, who filled my life with stories. And to my partner, Mark Greenwood, who is first, last and always.
Finally, thank you to the genre writing community, who never fail to astonish me with their generosity and kindness. You are all fabulous beasts.

paperback

 

Shirley Jackson Award Nominations

The nominees for the 2018 Shirley Jackson Award have been announced. Awarded every year in recognition of Shirley Jackson’s legacy, the awards honor exceptional work in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and dark fantasy.

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

Congratulations to everyone on the list and my huge thanks to everyone at Undertow Publications, without whom I would never have made the shortlist.

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)

 

2015 Shirley Jackson Awards

The 2015 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented on Sunday, July 10^th at Readercon 27, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Quincy, Massachusetts. Readercon Guests of Honor,  Catherynne M. Valente and Tim Powers hosted the ceremony.

A massive congratulations to the winners!

Shirley Jackson

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)

 

The Shirley Jackson Awards

 

I am tremedously proud to be included in the novelette category for the Shirley Jackson Awards 2105 with Fabulous Beasts which appeared on Tor.com in July 2015. I can’t say thank you enough to my editor Ellen Datlow  (who is also nominated for The Doll Collection- see below) and Tor.com for taking this story.

The gorgeous artwork is by Jeffrey Alan Love.

Shirley Jackson wrote the marvellous The Haunting of Hill House and We Always Lived in the Castle, as well as numerous short stories including The Lottery which appeared in The New Yorker in 1948.

“In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards were established in 2007 for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.”  (From the Shirely Jackson Awards website)

Nominees and the final winners are voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics and academics.

Massive congratulations to all the 2015 Shirley Jackson Awards nominees:

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)