Using Awards Lists As A RA Tool: Shirley Jackson Awards Edition

This is part of my ongoing series on using Awards Lists as a RA tool. Click here for all posts in the series in reverse chronological order. Click here for the first post which outlines the details how to use awards lists as a RA tool.   

In yesterday's post I mentioned an author whose story appeared in a Shirley Jackson Award Nominated Anthology. So today, let's talk Shirley Jackson Awards. They are coming out a little later than normal this year, but that is because they are part of the larger Boston Book Festival this year and that is happening October 29th.

I am on record, multiple times, saying that  this is my favorite award. If I had to pick only 1 award for fiction, this would be it. And that is saying a lot because I have been on the juries for multiple awards and not this one.

But why this one? A few reasons,

First, the Shirley Jackson Awards are an excellent RA tool not only for the normal reasons I outline with the links to start this post, but also because they are an award that is NOT bound by genre. The entire point of the books that are nominated for and win this award is that they represent the legacy of Jackson, herself. Books that are darkly speculative and/or are intensely psychological; books that defy conventions but are great.  Each and every year titles are honored that are amazing reads but are almost always overlooked by genre awards, not because they aren't great [because they are], but because when push comes to shove, they do not fit as easily into the genre box as the other options.

Second, because books that win the Shirley Jackson Award already live on the fringes, the jurors and the titles they choose are more diverse than your average award.

And third, this award can be used as a "readalike" list on its own. Why? Because the main thing these nominated titles all share is a connection to Jackson and her brand of storytelling; thus, they all have an appeal connection that other awards can not promise in the same way. 

Which reminds me, the Shirley Jackson Awards not only have annual jurors who rotate every year but they also have a board of directors and an advisory board. You can access all of those people and their bios on this one page. Every single one of those authors is also readlaike option. 

And of course, the super easy backlist access of nominees and winners going back to 2007, all avaiable with 1 easy click. 

You want a display of weird, unsettling, and compelling titles, look no further than these tales, all of which are singled out for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. Those nominated for this year and all past years. There are so many options you will never run out of a suggestion for your patrons searching out this type of read.

Below I have reposted the nominees announcement and added access to my reviews, if applicable, with a link on the title.

2021 Shirley Jackson Awards Nominees

Boston, MA (September 2022) — 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 Fiction, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.

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., also is committed to promoting the legacy of Shirley Jackson and, as part of this mission, 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).

2021 SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS CEREMONY

The 2021 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented in-person on October 29, 2022, as part of the Boston Book Festival, in partnership with Readercon, Conference on Imaginative Literature. The awards ceremony will be hosted by Elizabeth Hand and Paul Tremblay.