2013 Shirley Jackson Awards Finalists

The Shirley Jackson awards are presented each year to recognize the legacy of Shirley Jackson's work by honoring stories of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic. The juried awards are presented each year at ReaderCon in Burlington MA. Here's the list of finalists for 2013:

Novel: The Accursed, Joyce Carol Oates

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Princeton, New Jersey, at the turn of the twentieth century: a genteel town for genteel souls. But something dark and dangerous lurks at its edges, corrupting and infecting its residents. Vampires and ghosts haunt the dreams of the innocent and a powerful curse besets the families of the elite–their daughters begin disappearing. And in the Pine Barrens that border the town, a lush and terrifying underworld opens up.

When a shape-shifting, vaguely European prince, who might just be the devil, abducts a young bride on the verge of the altar, her brother sets out against all odds to find her. His path will cross those of Princeton's most formidable people, including Grover Cleveland, fresh out of his second term in the White House, soon-to-be commander in chief Woodrow Wilson, a complex individual obsessed to the point of madness with his need to retain power, the young idealist Upton Sinclair and his charismatic comrade Jack London, and the most famous writer of the era, Mark Twain–all of whom are plagued by "accursed" visions.

Novel: American Elsewhere, Robert Jackson Bennett

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Some places are too good to be true.

Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map.

In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things.

After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother's home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother's past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different ...

From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew.

Novel: The Demonologist, Andrew Pyper

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Professor David Ullman is among the world’s leading authorities on demonic literature, with special expertise in Milton’s Paradise Lost. Not that David is a believer—he sees what he teaches as a branch of the imagination and nothing more. So when the mysterious Thin Woman arrives at his office and invites him to travel to Venice and witness a “phenomenon,” he turns her down. She leaves plane tickets and an address on his desk, advising David that her employer is not often disappointed.

That evening, David’s wife announces she is leaving him. With his life suddenly in shambles, he impulsively whisks his beloved twelve-year-old daughter, Tess, off to Venice after all. The girl has recently been stricken by the same melancholy moods David knows so well, and he hopes to cheer her up and distract them both from the troubles at home.

But what happens in Venice will change everything.

First, in a tiny attic room at the address provided by the Thin Woman, David sees a man restrained in a chair, muttering, clearly insane… but could he truly be possessed? Then the man speaks clearly, in the voice of David’s dead father, repeating the last words he ever spoke to his son. Words that have left scars—and a mystery—behind.

When David rushes back to the hotel, he discovers Tess perched on the roof’s edge, high above the waters of the Grand Canal. Before she falls, she manages to utter a final plea: Find me.

What follows is an unimaginable journey for David Ullman from skeptic to true believer. In a terrifying quest guided by symbols and riddles from the pages of Paradise Lost, David must track the demon that has captured his daughter and discover its name. If he fails, he will lose Tess forever.

Novel: The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo

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Li Lan, the daughter of a respectable Chinese family in colonial Malaysia, hopes for a favorable marriage, but her father has lost his fortune, and she has few suitors. Instead, the wealthy Lim family urges her to become a “ghost bride” for their son, who has recently died under mysterious circumstances. Rarely practiced, a traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home for the rest of her days, but at what price?

Night after night, Li Lan is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, where she must uncover the Lim family’s darkest secrets—and the truth about her own family.

Novel: Night Film, Marisha Pessl

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On a damp October night, beautiful young Ashley Cordova is found dead in an abandoned warehouse in lower Manhattan. Though her death is ruled a suicide, veteran investigative journalist Scott McGrath suspects otherwise. As he probes the strange circumstances surrounding Ashley’s life and death, McGrath comes face-to-face with the legacy of her father: the legendary, reclusive cult-horror-film director Stanislas Cordova—a man who hasn’t been seen in public for more than thirty years.

For McGrath, another death connected to this seemingly cursed family dynasty seems more than just a coincidence. Though much has been written about Cordova’s dark and unsettling films, very little is known about the man himself.

Driven by revenge, curiosity, and a need for the truth, McGrath, with the aid of two strangers, is drawn deeper and deeper into Cordova’s eerie, hypnotic world.

The last time he got close to exposing the director, McGrath lost his marriage and his career. This time he might lose even more.

Novel: Wild Fell, Michael Rowe

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The crumbling summerhouse called Wild Fell, soaring above the desolate shores of Blackmore Island, has weathered the violence of the seasons for more than a century. Built for his family by a 19th-century politician of impeccable rectitude, the house has kept its terrible secrets and its darkness sealed within its walls. For a hundred years, the townspeople of Alvina have prayed that the darkness inside Wild Fell would stay there, locked away from the light. Jameson Browning, a man well acquainted with suffering, has purchased Wild Fell with the intention of beginning a new life, of letting in the light. But what waits for him at the house is devoted to its darkness and guards it jealously. It has been waiting for Jameson his whole life - or even longer. And now, at long last, it has found him!

Novella

Burning Girls, Veronica Schanoes

Children of No One, Nicole Cushing

Helen's Story, Rosanne Rabinowitz

It Sustains, Mark Morris

"The Gateway," Nina Allan

The Last Revelation of Gla'aki, Ramsey Campbell

Whom the Gods Would Destroy, Brian Hodge

Novelette

Cry Murder! In a Small Voice, Greer Gilman

"A Little of the Night," Tanith Lee

"My Heart is Either Broken," Megan Abbott

"Phosphorus," Veronica Schanoes

"Raptors," Conrad Williams

Short Story

"57 Reasons for the Slate Quarry Suicides," Sam J. Miller

"Furnace," Livia Llewellyn

"The Memory Book," Maureen McHugh

"The Statue in the Garden," Paul Park

"That Tiny Flutter of the Heart," Robert Shearman

"The Traditional," Maria Dahvana Headley

Collection: Before and Afterlives, Christopher Barzak

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Discover the haunting stories of Crawford Award-winning author Christopher Barzak in his new collection Before and Afterlives. These are tales of relationships with unearthly domesticity and eeriness: a woman falls in love with a haunted house; a beached mermaid is substituted for a lost missing daughter; the imaginary friend of a murdered young mother stalks the streets of her small town; a teenage boy is afflicted with a disease that causes him to vanish; a father exploits his daughter's talent for calling ghosts to her; and a wife leaves her husband and children to fulfill her obligations to a world from which she escaped.

Collection: Everything You Need, Michael Marshall Smith

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An aimless driver in the mountains comes upon something that s both more and less than he hoped for. A child discovers why you should always stay in bed if you wake up in the middle of the night. A homeowner unpacks the wrong bag of groceries, and comes to suspect his neighbors might have secrets that he doesn t want to know. A cable shopping channel presenter is confronted with disgruntled customers from a VERY long way out of town ... and a man sets himself to rid the world of one of its most famous lies, and winds up destroying himself instead. Michael Marshall Smith s last short story collection was hailed as 'stellar' by Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) and a 'major publishing event' by Ellen Datlow, and it won the International Horror Guild Award. You re invited to return to the short fiction of New York Times and Sunday Times bestselling author Michael Marshall Smith: it is Everything You Need.

Collection: In Search of and Others, Will Ludwigsen

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In Will Ludwigsen’s beautiful collection of nine reprinted and six original stories, the universe has a way of being weird in just the ways we need it to be. There are answers to many of our deepest questions…and they’re usually far more personal and mysterious than we expect. 

What are you in search of? And what is in search of you?

Collection: North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud

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These are love stories. And also monster stories. Sometimes these are mon-sters in their traditional guises, sometimes they wear the faces of parents, lovers, or ourselves. The often working-class people in these stories are driven to extremes by love. Sometimes, they are ruined; sometimes redeemed. All are faced with the loneliest corners of themselves and strive to find an escape.

Collection: The Story Until Now, Kit Reed

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Called “one of our brightest cultural commentators” by Publishers Weekly, Kit Reed draws from life—with a difference. This new collection brings together thirty-four of her strong, original stories, from early classics like “The Wait” and “Winter” to six never-before-collected short stories, including “The Legend of Troop 13” and “Wherein We Enter the Museum.” An early favorite, “Automatic Tiger,” is the first in a series of Reed’s stories about animals. There’s a monkey who grinds out bestsellers with the help of a “creative writing” app. Her uncanny black dog can enter a crowded room and sit down at the feet of the next man to die. Her characters confront war in various arenas: mother/daughter battles, the war of the sexes, the struggles of men scarred by war. Kit Reed’s self-described “transgenred” fiction is confirmation of an “extraordinary talent” (The Financial Times). The range and complexity of her work speaks for itself in The Story Until Now.

Anthology: The Book of the Dead, edited by Jared Shurin

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The Book of the Dead addresses the most fascinating of all the undead: the mummy. This anthology includes nineteen original stories of revenge, romance, monsters and mayhem, ranging freely across time periods, genres and styles.

Anthology: End of the Road, Jonathan Oliver

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The critically acclaimed editor of Magic, The End of The Line and House of Fear has brought together the contemporary masters and mistresses of the weird from around the globe in an anthology of travel tales like no other. Strap on your seatbelt, shoulder your backpack, or wait for that next ride... into darkness.

Each step will lead you closer to your destination, but who, or what, can you expect to meet at journey’s end?

Here are stories of misfits, spectral hitch-hikers, nightmare travel tales and the rogues, freaks and monsters to be found on the road.

The critically acclaimed editor of Magic, The End of The Line and House of Fear has brought together the contemporary masters and mistresses of the weird from around the globe in an anthology of travel tales like no other. Strap on your seatbelt, or shoulder your backpack, and wait for that next ride... into darkness.

Anthology: Grimscribe’s Puppets, edited by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr

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Thomas Ligotti is beyond doubt one of the Grandmasters of Weird Fiction. In The Grimscribe's Puppets, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., has commissioned both new and established talents in the world of weird fiction and horror to contribute all new tales that pay homage to Ligotti and celebrate his eerie and essential nightmares. Poppy Z. Brite once asked, "Are you out there, Thomas Ligotti?" This anthology proves not only is he alive and well, but his extraordinary illuminations have proven to be a visionary and fertile source of inspiration for some of today’s most accomplished authors.

Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy, edited by Ellen Datlow

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“Gaslamp Fantasy,” or historical fantasy set in a magical version of the nineteenth century, has long been popular with readers and writers alike. A number of wonderful fantasy novels, including Stardust by Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke, and The Prestige by Christopher Priest, owe their inspiration to works by nineteenth-century writers ranging from Jane Austen, the Brontës, and George Meredith to Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope, and William Morris. And, of course, the entire steampunk genre and subculture owes more than a little to literature inspired by this period.

Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells is an anthology for everyone who loves these works of neo-Victorian fiction, and wishes to explore the wide variety of ways that modern fantasists are using nineteenth-century settings, characters, and themes. These approaches stretch from steampunk fiction to the Austen-and-Trollope inspired works that some critics call Fantasy of Manners, all of which fit under the larger umbrella of Gaslamp Fantasy. The result is eighteen stories by experts from the fantasy, horror, mainstream, and young adult fields, including both bestselling writers and exciting new talents such as Elizabeth Bear, James Blaylock, Jeffrey Ford, Ellen Kushner, Tanith Lee, Gregory Maguire, Delia Sherman, and Catherynne M. Valente, who present a bewitching vision of a nineteenth century invested (or cursed!) with magic.

Where thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Steve Berman

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The canon of Edgar Allan Poe, one of the foremost writers of dark and atmospheric fiction and poetry, offers readers haunted shores teeming with various erudite men brooding in the waning light over their feelings for unobtainable women. Yet, whether the tales or verses are grotesque or sinister, Poe's narrators are Outsiders, dealing with emotions that so many LGBT individuals feel: isolation and abandonment as well as loneliness and lost love. In Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, editor Steve Berman has assembled a range of tales that queer the prose and poetry of the Poe, the man himself, as well as dark and eerie stories about reading Poe's work.