Using Award 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.   

Well, this Saturday is Shirley Jackson Day. And it is always celebrated with The John G. McCullough Free Library, in partnership with the Shirley Jackson Awards. Click here for details and see below for the announcement. And Shirley Jackson Day also means the announcement of the titles nominated for the Shirley Jackson Awards. But first the details on SJD:

On Saturday, June 24^th at 7:00pm, The John G. McCullough Free Library, in partnership with the Shirley Jackson Awards at The Left Bank in North Bennington, will host its annual celebration of the career of Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) with readings of her work.

 

The Left Bank is hosting an in-person exhibit “Lottery in June, corn be heavy soon,” inspired by a quote from “The Lottery.” Gallery reception will be from 3:00-5:00pm. The celebration of readings will begin at 7:00PM.

 

Jackson was a prolific author who lived in North Bennington, Vermont. Her several novels include We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House. She also wrote two popular memoirs, four books for children and hundreds of short stories. Jackson, who favored themes of mystery, psychology, and suspense, may be best known for “The Lottery,” one of the most widely read tales in modern fiction. June 27 is the “Lottery Day” of the original story. Its publication in The New Yorker was on June 26, 1948.

And now, on to the awards themselves.

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.

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.

Fourth, the entire concept of the cards, being "genreless," means you have a very WIDE audience to handsell these titles to. 

And fifth, this is collection development gold. You want to have the best dark speculative titles, authors, collections, and anthologies for your patrons? Here is a easy purchasing list.

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 new for this year, the Shirley Jackson Awards have added me to the Advisory Board. One of my jobs is to promote the awards far and wide (the other is to suggest titles to the jury for them to consider).

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.

While I have not reviewed every single nominee here, I have read or have read about almost all of them. Many were just up for or won a Bram Stoker Award last weekend, and many of the small presses with nominated titles are from presses I have featured and or appear on my "Best Independent Horror Presses for Libraries" list.

I would like to give a special shout out to Tenebrous Press and Bad Hand Books, two newer presses on the scene who both not only put out a good product but are good people who use their work to fight for equity, diversity, and inclusion.

THE SHIRLEY JACKSON AWARDS

               Press release

                       For Immediate Release

Contact: JoAnn F. Cox Awards Administrator admin@shirleyjacksonawards.org

         Nominees Announced for the
        2022 Shirley Jackson Awards

Boston, MA (June 2023) -- 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 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)

The 2022 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented in-person on Saturday, July 15 at 8pm at Readercon 32, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Quincy, Massachusetts.

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.

Websites: ShirleyJacksonAwards.org, Readercon.org

______________________________________________________________ 

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

Board of Advisors

Ellen Datlow Elizabeth Hand John Langan Sarah Langan Stewart O’Nan Faye Ringel Becky Spratford Paul Tremblay Ann VanderMeer Kaaron Warren

Jurors – 2022 term

Gwendolyn Kiste Will Ludwigsen Tonia Ransom Zin E. Rocklyn Alyssa Wong

Board of Directors

Linda D. Addison F. Brett Cox JoAnn F. Cox Jack M. Haringa Lisa Morton Victor LaValle

Administrator

JoAnn F. Cox