The winners of the fourth annual Shirley Jackson Awards—honoring the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic—were handed out at this weekend’s Readercon. We detailed the nominees in this article. The winners were voted upon by a jury of professional writers, editors, critics, and academics (which included Andy Duncan, Gemma Files, Lee Thomas, and David Wellington), with input from a Board of Advisors (including Bill Congreve, Stefan Dziemianowicz, Liz Hand, Jack M. Haringa, S.T. Joshi, Sarah Langan, Mike O’Driscoll, Stewart O’Nan, Peter Straub, Paul G. Tremblay, and Ann VanderMeer). The winners are:
Novel: Mr. Shivers by Robert Jackson Bennett (published by Orion)
Novella: “Mysterium Tremendum” by Laird Barron (published in Occultation)
Novelette: “Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains” by Neil Gaiman (published in Stories: All New Tales)
Short Story: “The Things” by Peter Watts (published in Clarkesworld #40)
Single-Author Collection: Occultation by Laird Barron (published by Night Shade)
Edited Anthology: Stories: All New Tales edited by Neil Gaiman and Al Sarrantonio (published by William Morrow)
The jurors listed above were for 2009. This year’s jurors were Andy Duncan, Gemma Files, Lee Thomas, and David Wellington. Also, Mr. Shivers is by Robert Jackson Bennett; Michelle Paver wrote one of the other finalists, Dark Matter (not to be confused with yet another finalist, Peter Straub’s A Dark Matter).
Thanks for the corrections, Brett. I’ve gone ahead and corrected the article to reflect them, since keeping the mistakes in serves no one’s interest.
–Ian, the Editor