The finalists for the third annual Shirley Jackson Awards—for writers of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic—have been announced. The winners of the juried awards will be announced at Readercon 21 in Burlington, Massachusetts, this July.
This year’s nominees are:
Novel:
Last Days by Brian Evenson (Underland Press)
The Red Tree by Caitlin R. Kiernan (Roc)
Big Machine by Victor LaValle (Speigel & Grau)
The Owl Killers by Karen Maitland (Delacorte Press)
White is for Witching by Helen Oyeyemi (Nan A. Talese)
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters (Riverhead)
Novella:
Midnight Picnic by Nick Antosca (Word Riot Press)
Shrike by Quentin Crisp (PS Publishing)
“Sea-Hearts” by Margo Lanagan (X6)
The Witnesses are Gone by Joel Lane (PS Publishing)
The Language of Dying by Sarah Pinborough (PS Publishing)
Vardøger by Stephen Volk (Gray Friar Press)
Novelette:
“Catch Hell” by Laird Barron (Lovecraft Unbound)
The Night Cache by Andy Duncan (PS Publishing)
“Each Thing I Show You Is a Piece of My Death” by Gemma Files and Stephen J. Barringer (Clockwork Phoenix 2)
“Lonegan’s Luck” by Stephen Graham Jones (New Genre 6)
“Morality” by Stephen King (Esquire)
Short Story:
“The Crevasse” by Dale Bailey and Nathan Ballingrud (Lovecraft Unbound)
“Strappado” by Laird Barron (Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe)
“Faces” by Aimee Bender (The Paris Review, Winter 2009)
“The Jacaranda Smile” by Gemma Files (Apparitions)
“The Pelican Bar” by Karen Joy Fowler (Eclipse 3
“Procedure in Plain Air” by Jonathan Lethem (The New Yorker, 5 April 2010)
Single-Author Collection:
Fugue State by Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)
Zoo by Otsuichi (Haikasoru/VIZ Media)
There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor’s Baby: Scary Fairy Tales by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya (Penguin)
Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Shearman (Big Finish Productions)
Tunneling to the Center of the Earth by Kevin Wilson (Harper Perennial)
Everland and Other Stories by Paul Witcover (PS Publishing)
Edited Anthology:
Lovecraft Unbound edited by Ellen Datlow (Dark Horse)
British Invasion edited by Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon, and James A. Moore (Cemetery Dance)
Apparitions edited by Michael Kelly (Undertow Publications)
Exotic Gothic 3: Strange Visitations edited by Danel Olson (Ash Tree Press)
Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe edited by Ellen Datlow (Solaris)
More details on the nominees and the awards are available on this page.