Paul Tremblay's Blog, page 13

Jurors announced for The 2011 Shirley Jackson Awards

Boston, MA (September 2011) – In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson's writing, and with permission of the author's estate, the Shirley Jackson Awards have 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, with input from a Board of Advisors. The awards are given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.

The jurors for the 2011 Shirley Jackson Awards are, alphabetically:

Laird Barron is the author of two collections: The Imago Sequence, and Occultation, both of which won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection. His work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. An expatriate Alaskan, he currently resides in the mountains of Montana. His LiveJournal, Domination of Black, is http://imago1.livejournal.com

Matthew Cheney has published fiction and nonfiction with a wide variety of venues, including One Story, Weird Tales, Locus, Rain Taxi, Las Vegas Weekly, Web Conjunctions, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and elsewhere. He is a regular columnist for the online magazines Strange Horizons and Boomtron, the former series editor forBest American Fantasy, and a past juror for the Speculative Literature Foundation's Fountain Award. He currently lives in New Hampshire, where he teaches at Plymouth State University and The New Hampton School. His blog,The Mumpsimus, was nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2005.

Maura McHugh's short stories have appeared in markets such as Black Static, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror and Shroud Magazine. She is the writer of two comic book series: Róisín Dubh and Jennifer Wilde, and her story "The Nail" will appears in theWomanthology comic book anthology. One of her screenplays was made into a short film, and she has served on the jury of the Octocon Golden Blaster Awards and the Galway Junior Film Fleadh Pitching Awards. She co-organized the Campaign for Real Fear short horror fiction competition with author Christopher Fowler. She lives in Ireland. Her website is http://splinister.com.

Kaaron Warren has three novels in print: The critically-acclaimed and award-winningSlights, Walking the Tree and Mistification. She has two short story collections, The Grinding House and Dead Sea Fruit. Her short fiction has appeared in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror and she was one of the winners of Maura McHugh's 'Campaign for Real Fear'. She lives in Canberra, Australia, with her family. Her website is http://kaaronwarren.wordpress.com/

Gary K. Wolfe is contributing editor and reviewer for Locus magazine, and is a board member of the Locus Science Fiction Foundation. He has written considerable academic criticism of science fiction and fantasy, including the Eaton Award-winning The Known and the Unknown: The Iconography of Science Fiction. Soundings: Reviews 1992-1996 received the British Science Fiction Association Award for best nonfiction, and both it and Bearings: Reviews 1997-2001 were Hugo Award finalists. Wolfe has also received the SFRA Pilgrim Award, the IAFA Distinguished Scholarship Award, and a World Fantasy Award for criticism and reviews. Evaporating Genres: Essays on Fantastic Literature, appeared in 2011. Wolfe is Professor of Humanities and English at Roosevelt University in Chicago.

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. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem has called Jackson "one of this century's most luminous and strange American writers," and multiple generations of authors would agree.

Website: ShirleyJacksonAwards.org

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

Scary Movies according to the youth of today (a very unscientific poll)

Today's extra credit question for my freshman was "What was the scariest movie you've ever seen?" Keep in mind these kids were all born in this range: 1995-1997 (yikes!). Number of students picking each film is on the left.

3: Texas Chainsaw Massacre (not the original) and Paranormal Activity

2: Insidious and The Shining

1: (in no particular order) Blair Witch Project, Jennifer's Body, Saw, Willy Wonka (the remake), It, The Strangers, The Grudge, The Creep (don't know what this is), Friday the 13th (remake), Halloween 2 (remake, I assume), I Am Legend, and Ghost Hunters (remake I assume…hey, 21 out of 22 students following directions well enough to put down a movie is pretty good)

Two students wrote to say that they didn't generally watch scary movies. IT still resonates with kids (as it was discussed by more than a few students).

Later this week, I'll poll my seniors, and see if there's a different range of movie.

 

The German and A Killer's Essence

The German by Lee Thomas is an accomplished, gut-wrencher of a novel. Ernst Lang is a former German soldier who fled the Nazis and relocated to a small town outside of Austin, TX. The year is 1944 and someone is killing boys and leaving pro-Nazi notes in the victims mouths. The locals quickly display an all too familiar and realistic display of xenophobia and homophobia in accusing/confronting Lang and other Germans who live in the area.

Lee does a fantastic job with wide cast of characters and shifting POVs, particularly with the powerful Lang, who is made to suffer the indignities and atrocities of ignorance with a dignity that is as authentic as it is heartbreaking. Reminiscent of Ketchum's THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, THE GERMAN unflinchingly confronts the consequences of ignorances inevitable turn to violence.

A Killer's Essence by Dave Zeltserman: This mix of police procedural, noir, spec lit, and domestic character study is entertaining and expertly plotted. Set against the backdrop of the 2004 ALCS, and the collapse of the Yankees against the Red Sox, New York City police detective Stan Greene investigates a brutal series of random murders while juggling (and dropping) the pieces of his personal life. Oh, and there's a witness, a veritable shut-in who might be able to help despite his neurological damage and his demonic hallucinations. Like all of Dave's novels, A KILLER'S ESSENCE is tightly plotted storytelling featuring realistically flawed and memorable characters.

more reads: The Family Fang, Ready Player One, Machine Man, The End of Everything

Putting off prepping for back to school with quick, half-formed mini-reviews of books I read. Lucky you!

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. This is Wilson's first novel (he previously published the fantastic short story collection TUNNELING TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH), and it more than lives up to the promise of his stellar short fiction. The Family Fang: Caleb (Dad), Camille (Mom), then Kid A (Annie) and Kid B (Buster). The Fangs spent the 80s and 90s performing art in public. Fang art is generally comprised of creating small pockets of shock and chaos out in the world (handing out fake coupons for a free chicken sandwich at a mall food court, having the children street perform terribly, as examples). Of course Annie and Buster aren't the most well-adjusted people in the world, but would you be if your parents had you wear fangs for the family photo? Yeah, I suppose you would. Anyway, the novel bounces back and forth between family art exploits from the past, and how Annie and Buster are trying to put the pieces back together in their own crumbling adult lives, while also trying to figure out where their parents disappeared to, or if their parents actually died horribly. I'm sucking at this plot synopsis and I don't care. Just read the book and enjoy the kookiness, the unforgettable characters, the writing (chops galore, mr. wilson has), and the emotional payoff you get from my new favorite dysfunctional family. The Fangs abide.

Ready Player One by Earnest Cline: It's the novel that most folks seem to be talking about. Or at least most geeky folks. I am a geeky folk. And there's no denying it's a fast, fun, entertaining book. Cline is incredibly clever with almost all of the 80s (and some not 80s) trivia, and the techno world he built was mighty impressive as well. That said, I thought the characters were a little flat, and maybe I'm looking for something to be there that doesn't have to be, but I was looking for a little more depth, and meaning, and some sort of exploration of why we cling to obscure pop cultural reference points; why (beyond simple escapism) some of us, particularly in geek culture, measure worth for find a measure of our own worth in how well we know a movie, a band, a comic, a video game.

Let me put it this way with a geek comparison. I wanted this book to be like an episode from the golden years of the Simpsons. I can watch an episode like the stonecutters or the lemon tree and not only recognize the pop cultural references, but the use of the references bring a deeper meaning to the joke, the story, the characters, the satire, and even the viewer, and it's those jokes/bits/scenes from the best of the Simpsons episodes that become instantly memorable, or quotable.

Instead of classic Simpsons, this book was like a decent Family Guy episode (which are few and far between). Yeah, a FG episode can be entertaining, but only minutes after a viewing, I usually can't remember any of the jokes because it's all surface and very little substance.

Now that that's settled…

Machine Man by  Max Barry: Odd dude loses a leg in an industrial accident, builds a better leg, then wants to lop off other parts to become a better being. The conceit is straightforward, and props to Barry for following the story to it's extreme conclusion. Purposefully detached, robotic first person account notwithstanding, the book could've used a little more heart.

The End of Everything by Megan Abbot: She's fast becoming a favorite author of mine. It's Reagan-era 80s and thirteen year old Lizzie's best friend has just gone missing. It's a first person account (from Lizzie's POV) and a memorable one. It's a hazy and fevered narrator who's trying to figure herself out, her own urges and desires and fears, while trying to understand the people around her. Simultaneously quiet and riveting, The End of Everything is challenging and vibrant.

August non-fiction: Make with the scary movies!

(disclaimer: I am not a film expert, nor am I a non-fiction expert. I just have strong opinons. So there.)

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SHOCK VALUE: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror by Jason Zinoman is one of my favorite books published this year.

Zinoman details the move away from the goofy, safe horror films of the 50s and 60s to the mix of exploitation, confrontation, and art of the late 60s and 70s. Horror movies where the source of the horror is murky, or cannot be easily explained or rationalized away. Exhaustively researched, the main arc of the book's argument/definition of the modern horror film are: Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist, The Last House on the Left, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, and Alien. Each film and their filmmakers are dissected and discussed within the framework of what was happening in horror and Hollywood at the time. While I sometimes disagreed with the artistic merit of some of these films, Zinoman does the reader the tremendous service of patiently outlining his hypothesis, his case as it were, then meticulously offering his reasons, evidence, etc, for the argument.

He also wisely leaves room for the reader to disagree. He never speaks down at the reader or authoritatively; he never pulls the don't-look-behind-the-curtain Oz thing that too many non-fiction writers fall prey to. And the result is an extremely well-written, wildly informative, entertaining book; one that, for me, has put the origins of some of the movies and directors I don't like (Wes Craven for one) in a new light.

As much as I enjoyed SHOCK VALUE, I was terribly disappointed with BFI's JAWS by Antonia Quirke. Quirke's approach was very heavy handed; consistently attributing subtext to the film without giving evidence (for one, insisting that Ellen Brody was contemplating divorce, essentially from scene one of the movie…a plot that was in the Benchley book, but not in the film). Huge swaths of this book was written in a strange, novelization style, voicing strange, tangental thoughts from the characters. And a poorly written novelization at that. There's some interesting tidbits here, but overall, a huge disappointment.

More successful is Anne Billson's BFI take on Carpenter's THE THING. She better places the film in its historical context (why it flopped, why most critics originally panned it), and then goes through a plot synopsis and scene by scene breakdown. I found her defense of Carpenter's miminalist approach to the characters especially effective, as well as the comparison to the original novella, Who Goes There?

Creatures Blog

Creatures: Thirty Years of Monster Stories (an anthology I co-edted with John Langan) is coming out in September. For the next few months, we'll be blogging about all things monsters over at the Creatures blog:

Rawr!

 

We're posting fun links, news, author interviews, and monster recommendations. Do keep an eye on it!

 

August is when I do things; things being books and movies, and a future plan to hiss

In the waning weeks before school starts up again, each summer I get into an almost panicked reading mode. I have to read as many books as I can before school starts, as if I'll never be able to read again!!! If I were to step back and be rational about the end-ish of summer  (which I can't, sorry; it looms heavy and large), I'd remember that I still actually read quite a bit during school as well. But let's not quibble. To the books!

Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti by Genevieve Valentine 

Shortish and weird version: I love this book. If I were a tattoo person (by which I mean a person who gets tattoos, not a literal tattoo person, imprisoned in someone else's skin), I'd want this book tattooed on my body, but a 3D style tattoo, which would look weird (and would probably look like a growth or a goiter), I know, but I can't help how I feel!

Longer version: This book is another lesson in there being no absolutes in "things I don't like" statements, at least when it comes to art. A lesson I'm happy to continually learn (as I learned with The Last Werewolf). So, I usually don't like circus stories, a trope used in many a bad horror story/novel. I have also uttered the phrase "I can't stand steampunk" multiple times, out loud, even saying it once in front of Genevieve only hours after having met her. Foot in mouth and personal tastes notwithstanding, Mechanique is a brilliant novel.

The circus troup Tresulti (complete with strong man, aerialists, and more, including them once having a winged-man) travels a war-ravaged landscape, their shows equal parts beauty, wonder, menace, and unease. Most of the performers have been brutally rebuilt with copper bones and other metal parts (all of which become integral extensions of the characters and the story) by the mysterious circus ringleader Boss (she of the large griffin tattoos on her arms). The latest/greatest attempt at government wants to use Boss's talents to create super soldiers, to help bring back the old world, a world that Boss was once a part of  and secretly longs for. But that's really only one of the many threads of the story. The interplay of all the characters, their motivations and desires, is brilliantly done. The short chapters from various points of view, tenses, and styles acts as an extension of the circus itself and all its myriad bits. Part of the magic of this gothic, dark, wildly imaginative book is that Genevieve has somehow managed to create an incredibly complex story that is still, I think, quite accessible. Certainly unforgettable. Go read it right now.

Revenants by Daniel Mills:

Like Mechanique, this another first novel. I'm getting sick of talented authors and excellent first novels.

Revenants takes place in late 1600s New England, in a small, isolated town of Cold Marsh. Three women have disappeared and the minister and most residents fear the devil is loose in the surrounding woods. Old sins (individual and societal) return to haunt each of the inhabitants. Mills has the patience to slowly build the large cast of characters toward a climax that is both inevitable and still shocking. If not for some of the harsher, more violent details that emerge (that Mills wisely choose to not gloss over and show the reader), this read like a book that easily could've been written during Hawthorne's time.  An atmospheric, pensive, and impressive debut novel by Mills.

The Sundial by Shirley Jackson:

What a wonderfully weird, creepy, funny book, with such an oddball cast of characters. The plot is pretty simple: an aristocratic family believes the world is going to end on August 30th, and only people within the Halloran family homestead will survive the apocalypse and be reborn to paradise. Mrs. Halloran, the controlling, overbearing matriarch is the star of the novel. Her wit, cruelty, and vulnerability shines on every page. It's a twisted novel of manners, really. And it's not at the same time. I guess. Yeah. Can't say I've ever read a book quite like The Sundial.

Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day by Ben Loory

A collection of 40 flash fiction pieces. Similar to Etgar Keret's work, though a bit more minimalistic in its approach, the best stories here start with a striking image or surrealistic premise and offers enough of a glimmer or hint at the bigger picture that the reader can fill in the blanks, the possibilities, her/himself. Some stories recall the urban legends of youth, with a delicious twist at the end. The stories that stick around with you longer, though, like "The Octopus" (an octopus living in the big city is visited by his newphews) speaks to the larger, sometimes darker, but still sweetly hopeful universe of the human heart. I'm making my soon to be 11-year-old son read the collection as we speak (we are speaking; don't quibble with me).

The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock:

All right. Another brilliant first novel. Sigh.

Like his short story collection, Knockemstiff, this novel is set in and around down-and-out rural Ohio, and follows the lives of a compelling set of damaged, depraved, and desperate characters. One of the threads follow a husband and wife team of serial killers who travel the country on summer vacations, picking up hitchhikers. Another thread details Willard Russell, a WWII vet, and his struggle to save his dying wife by making blood sacrifices to the prayer log, and what that does to his only son Arvin. There are more characters and it all fits together, and everything is bleak and in it's own way, grotesquely beautiful.

Cropsey

Cropsey is a documentary about the dovetailing of urban legends, a disgraced mental institution, and a handful of children who go missing on Staten Island in the 70s and 80s.

The filmmakers grew up on Staten Island and retell with a charming nostalgic whimsey the urban legends of a crazed killer stalking the woods in and around the Willowbrook State School (institution) that they'd heard as kids. Starting with this almost innocent framework of the urban legend of the local psycho, quickly descends into the very real madness and tragedy of the truly deplorable conditions of Willowbrook, an exploration of the deeply deranged suspect Andre Rand (who may or may not be guilty as there is a stunning lack of physical evidence), and the still unknown fates of many of the missing children, the desperate rumors (satanism?) and search for answers within a community. A deeply affecting movie.

JAWS

So it was like my 40th time watching, but I got to see it on the big screen at the beautiful Somerville Theatre. I think I could write a book on the movie. Heck, I think I could write a book on the let's-drink-compare-scars-and-let-Quint-tell-us-about-the-Indianapolis scene by itself. And I'll do it at any reputable publisher's request!

Anyway, sharky fun was had. I saw the movie at 11am, so it wasn't as crowded as say a midnight viewing would've (next year, for sure). But there was one older dude who sat left, front row. He clapped at the appearance of Chief Brody and Quint. He hissed at Dryfuss's Hooper. Hooper! Why? Then he fell asleep for most of the movie, and woke up in time to see the shark get all blown up (sorry for the spoiler). He hissed that too.

Who hisses at movies anymore? I'm thinking it might be worth bringing back.

And I still can't watch Quint get bit in half. I closed my eyes. Next time, I'll close my eyes and hiss.

Guest Post: Caleb J. Ross, A Dead Artsist is a Bankable Artist

A dead artist is a bankable artist

This is a guest post by Caleb J Ross as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He will be guest-posting beginning with the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011 to the release of his second novel, I Didn't Mean to Be Kevin and novella, As a Machine and Parts, in November 2011. To be a groupie and follow this tour, subscribe to the Caleb J Ross blog RSS feed . Follow him on Twitter: @calebjross.com . Friend him on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb

Chuck Palahniuk's short story, "Ambition," explores the strange practice of paying for human life. This isn't a back-alley, black market exchange I'm referring to, but is instead a morally acceptable and commercially validated activity promoted via high-stakes art auctions. Though the physical transaction of blood for money isn't directly acknowledged, the fact stands that work by deceased artists opens wallets wider than those by living artists. The work stays this same; the story of the work changes, irreversibly.

Story as a commodity. It's something we generally think of in tangible terms—a book, a movie, a video game—but we aren't as consciously aware of the value-added benefit of story when the main object of sale isn't one presented strictly as a narrative vehicle. Pawn shops, the aforementioned art auctions, and one of my more recent addictions, the Discovery Channel show Oddities, all traffic in story. These business people are aware of the importance of story, even if their customers aren't. Catholicism has for centuries been taking offerings in exchange for prayers and proximity to blessed relics. Museums do the same thing.

Significant Objects, since 2009 (but is now on hiatus…booooooo!), has traveled perhaps the most creative, yet direct, route to commoditizing story. They take an ordinary object and inject monetary value into it by literally creating a story with the object as its subject. But what about those of us interested only in the intangible story. What about the museum goers of us, the fashionistas with a penchant for the extravagant entrance, or the simple tattoo lover? There are, respectively, the Bodies Exhibition, clothing designed to look like human skin, and a book bound in tattooed human skin.

Jackson Jacoby, the protagonist in my upcoming novel, I Didn't Mean to Be Kevin, share a business ethos with the latter crowd. On the way to visit his "mother" (quotations intentional), Jackson takes every opportunity to talk about an underground human appendage trade which may or may not exist. To Jackson, knowing that the trade exists isn't nearly as important as getting people to believe that it does. Why? For validation, for the chance to be throned by one of his own stories.

Why is story so collectible, so sought after, even when we don't realize it?

Photo credit: http://inventorspot.com/articles/clothing_shocks_awes__7215

Glen Duncan's THE LAST WEREWOLF

Okay, a werewolf novel. My first gut reaction to hearing of a new werewolf movie or novel runs from 'meh' to 'oh, that's silly.' I'm not sure why, to be honest. I'm a fan of horror. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON (I bought my brother a Slaughtered Lamb tee shirt as a gift), WOLFEN, and even THE HOWLING are films that remain near and dear to my heart, along with the original Lon Cheney Jr. WOLFMAN. And one of my favorite cheap jokes from YOUNG FRANKENSTIEN is Marty Feldman saying, "There wolf!" after Terri Gar says, "Werewolf?" One of my favorite novels of the new millenium is Toby Barlow's SHARP TEETH; it's a fricken prose poem about LA werewolves!

Yet those great movies/book have been the exception to the wolfy rule, at least in my experience anyway. All the cheesy CGI and truly bad horror novels of the last twenty or so years makes me weary of lycanthropy. And maybe it's the rigorous mythology of full moons and silver bullets that seems too restraining, even defining. Yes, a werewolf book/movie/comic/story, I know what that'll be about. 

So it was with almost apprehension that I picked up Glen Duncan's THE LAST WEREWOLF. I'm glad I did. It's the best novel of 2011 thus far.

Jake Marlowe is 201 years old (was bitten by a werewolf in Wales, 1846) and is the presumed last werewolf. He's the last because no one has survived a werewolf attack in decades (due to, possibly, some sort of virus that now blocks the transmission of werewolfness) and WOCOP (a world-wide organization dedicated to eradicating werewolves and assorted occult beasties) has hunted the wulf to extinction. Part of the genius of this novel is that Duncan sets up the basic, primitive survival parameters early in the novel, and then throws in his wolf: an erudite, worldly, arrogant, witty, depraved, disturbed, lonely and horny guy who doesn't want to live anymore within those parameters. It's not that he can't live with being the monster anymore, he can't face living during those intermnible months where he's not the monster.

"In ages past the beast in man was hidden in the dark, disavowed. The transparency of modern history makes that impossible:…  The beast is redundant. It's been us all along."

"Yes," I said. "I keep telling myself I'm just an outmoded idea. But you know, you find yourself ripping a child open and swallowing its heart, it's tough not to be overwhelmed by … the concrete reality of yourself."

I'm guessing (there's no guessing really, go read some reviews on Goodreads or Amazon if you wish, my favorite bit from a…cough…reader at goodreads, "Why is this book so terrible? Because Glen Duncan is a literary asshole who isn't passionate about werewolves." I love me an in-depth review!) some fans of paint-by-the-numbers thrillers and horrah novels might be put off the 'lit'ry' aires Duncan dare bring to the werewolf party. By lit'ry aires I mean fully drawn, compelling characters, irony, metaphor, proper use of first person narrative, and an expansive vocabulary.

Don't be a player hater. Enjoy every indulgence. Duncan has plenty of fun and ironic winks with the double-crossings of agents and vampires and thriller pacing of the plot. But the heart meat of the book is Jake Marlowe and his all-to0-human existential crisis. Ennui of the immortals has been done plenty of times before, particularly within the tiresome vampire novels/movies. But it hasn't been done with this much fun, bloodlust and the other kind of lust, intelligence, humor, and yeah a big, complex, twisted, but beautiful heart. Jake Marlowe the werewolf really loves us all so much he could just eat us all up.

2010 Shirley Jackson Awards winners announced

Winners Announced for the 2010 Shirley Jackson Awards

Boston, MA (July 2011)– 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, with input from a Board of Advisors. The awards are given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Story, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.

The 2010 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented on Sunday, July 17th, 2011, at Readercon 22, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts. Victor LaValle, winner of the 2009 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel, acted as host.

The winners for the 2010 Shirley Jackson Awards are:

NOVEL

Mr. Shivers, Robert Jackson Bennett (Orbit)

NOVELLA

"Mysterium Tremendum," Laird Barron (Occultation, Night Shade)

NOVELETTE

"The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains," Neil Gaiman (Stories: All-New Tales, William Morrow)

SHORT STORY

"The Things," Peter Watts (Clarkesworld, Issue 40)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

Occultation, Laird Barron (Night Shade)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

Stories: All-New Tales, edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio (William Morrow)

The first Board of Directors Special Award was presented to Joyce Carol Oates for her work on the Library of America edition of Shirley Jackson's works.

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