Ellen Datlow is hosting a reading of Shirley Jackson’s work to honor the author and as a fund-raiser for the new Shirley Jackson Awards. The reading, on 23 July, will honor the 60th anniversary of the publication of Jackson’s “The Lottery”, which first appeared in the 28 June 1948 issue of The New Yorker.
The event, KGB Bar (85 East 4th Street, New York City) will begin at 7PM. The $5 per person cover charge will benefit the newly established Shirley Jackson Awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. The winners of the first awards will be announced at Readercon this July in Massachusetts. The nominees are detailed in this article.
Shirley Jackson (1916-1965) wrote such classic novels as The Haunting of Hill House and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. 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.
Authors who will read from Jackson’s work at the event include:
F. Brett Cox: His most recent stories appeared in Black Static and Postscripts. His newest story, “She Hears Music Up Above”, is forthcoming in the original anthology from Prime Books, Phantom. With Andy Duncan, he co-edited Crossroads: Tales of the Southern Literary Fantastic. He is a juror for the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards.
Jeffrey Ford is author of the novels The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque and The Girl in the Glass, and the story collection The Empire of Ice Cream. In 2008 he will have out a new novel, The Shadow Year, and a new collection, The Drowned Life.
Jack Ketchum is the author of many novels, including Joyride, Red, Only Child, and Hide and Seek. His book of two novellas was just released by Leisure, and his collection of memoirs, titled Book of Souls, is about to be published by Bloodletting Press.
Carrie Laben’s story “Something in the Mermaid Way”, is a nominee in the short story category for the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards. Another story is just out in the anthology Phantom. She is currently working on her first novel, in which most of the nicer characters are rats.
John Langan’s collection, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, is forthcoming from Prime Books. His novella, “How the Day Runs Down”, or, as he likes to call it, “my zombie Our Town,” will appear in John Joseph Adams’s massive zombie anthology, The Living Dead, in September. He is a juror for the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards.
Sarah Langan’s first novel, The Keeper, was a New York Times Editor’s Pick. Her second novel, The Missing, won the Stoker Award for outstanding novel of 2007. Her third novel, Audrey’s Door, is slated for publication in early 2009. She’s currently at work on a collection of short stories. She is a juror for the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards.
Peter Straub is the author of seventeen novels, including Ghost Story, Koko, Mr. X, In the Night Room, and two collaborations with Stephen King. He also has written two volumes of poetry and two collections of short fiction, and he edited the Library of America’s edition of H. P. Lovecraft’s Tales. He has won many awards for his writing and in 1998, was named Grand Master at the World Horror Convention. In 2006, he was given the Horror Writers Association’s Life Achievement Award.
David Wellington is the author of Monster Island, 13 Bullets, 99 Coffins, and the forthcoming Vampire Zero. His work is serialized online for free at www.davidwellington.net.
Jack Womack is the author of Ambient, Terraplane, Heathern, Elvissey, Random Acts of Senseless Violence, Let’s Put the Future Behind Us, and Going, Going, Gone. He was in 1994 a co-winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for Elvissey.