Measuring Up to Jackson

Joyce Carol Oates, Marisha Pessl, Michael Marshall Smith, and sometime Rap Sheet contributor Megan Abbott are among the nominees for the 2013 Shirley Jackson Awards. These commendations are named in honor, of course, of Shirley Jackson, the author of such classic works as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. They are intended to recognize “outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.” And the nominees are …



Novel:
• The Accursed, by Joyce Carol Oates (Ecco)
• American Elsewhere, by Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)
• The Demonologist, by Andrew Pyper (Simon & Schuster)
• The Ghost Bride, by Yangsze Choo (Morrow)
• Night Film, by Marisha Pessl (Random House)
• Wild Fell, by Michael Rowe (ChiZine Publications)

Novella:
• Burning Girls, by Veronica Schanoes (Tor.com)
• Children of No One, by Nicole Cushing (DarkFuse)
• Helen’s Story, by Rosanne Rabinowitz (PS Publishing)
• It Sustains, by Mark Morris (Earthling Publications)
• “The Gateway,” by Nina Allan (from Stardust, by Nina Allan;
PS Publishing)
• The Last Revelation of Gla’aki, by Ramsey Campbell (PS Publishing)
• Whom the Gods Would Destroy, by Brian Hodge (DarkFuse)

Novelette:
• Cry Murder! In a Small Voice, by Greer Gilman (Small Beer Press)
• “A Little of the Night,” by Tanith Lee (from Clockwork Phoenix 4, edited by Mike Allen; Mythic Delirium)
• “My Heart Is Either Broken,” by Megan Abbott (from Dangerous Women, edited by George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois; Tor)
• “Phosphorus,” by Veronica Schanoes (from Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri
Windling; Tor)
• “Raptors,” by Conrad Williams (Subterranean Press Magazine,
Winter 2013)

Short Fiction:
• “57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides,” by Sam J. Miller (Nightmare Magazine, December 2013)
• “Furnace,” by Livia Llewellyn (from Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.; Miskatonic River Press)
• “The Memory Book,” by Maureen McHugh (from Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy)
• “The Statue in the Garden,” by Paul Park (from Exotic Gothic 5,
Vol. 2, edited by Danel Olson; PS Publishing)
• “That Tiny Flutter of the Heart,” by Robert Shearman (from Psycho-Mania!, edited by Stephen Jones; Constable & Robinson)
• “The Traditional,” Maria Dahvana Headley (Lightspeed, May 2013)

Single-Author Collection:
• Before and Afterlives, by Christopher Barzak (Lethe Press)
• Everything You Need, by Michael Marshall Smith (Earthling Publications)
• In Search of and Others, by Will Ludwigsen (Lethe Press)
• North American Lake Monsters, by Nathan Ballingrud
(Small Beer Press)
• The Story Until Now, by Kit Reed (Wesleyan)

Edited Anthology:
• The Book of the Dead, edited by Jared Shurin (Jurassic London)
• End of the Road, edited by Jonathan Oliver (Solaris)
• Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr. (Miskatonic River Press)
• Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Tor)
• Where thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Steve Berman (Lethe Press)

These prizes are scheduled to be given out on Sunday, July 13, at Readercon 25, Conference on Imaginative Literature, which will be held in Burlington, Massachusetts.

Congratulations to all of the contenders!