Readercon to host the 2008 award Ceremony

Readercon to host ceremony for The 2008 Shirley Jackson Awards

Boston, MA (April 2009) -- The Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented on Sunday, July 12th 2009, at Readercon 20, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts.

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 will be 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.

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.

Nominees for The 2008 Shirley Jackson Awards will be announced later in April.

Website: ShirleyJacksonAwards.org
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