Saturday, October 25, 2008
"Shelley’s Daughters" and The Shirley Jackson Awards
"...in Elizabeth Hand’s startling, unclassifiable GENERATION LOSS (Small Beer, $24), which was recently honored with the first Shirley Jackson Award for what the award’s Web site calls “outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic.” (Sarah Langan was one of the judges.) Amorphous as this definition may sound, it suits the kind of unsettling stories Hand likes to tell..."
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Help Support the Shirley Jackson Awards
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Ellen Datlow's photos of the KGB Shirley Jackson group reading
Ellen's pictures.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Boston, MA (July 2008) -- 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 Shirley Jackson Awards were presented on Sunday, July 20th 2008, at Readercon 19, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts. National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novelist Jonathan Lethem was the Master of Ceremonies.
The winners for the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards are:
NOVEL
Generation Loss, Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer Press)
NOVELLA
“Vacancy,” Lucius Shepard (Subterranean #7, September 2007)
NOVELETTE
“The Janus Tree,” Glen Hirshberg (Inferno, Tor)
SHORT STORY
“The Monsters of Heaven,” Nathan Ballingrud (Inferno, Tor)
COLLECTION
The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
ANTHOLOGY
Inferno, edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)
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.
Website: ShirleyJacksonAwards.org
Readercon.org
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Media representatives who are seeking further information or interviews should contact JoAnn F. Cox.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Shirley Jackson Awards Fundraiser at KGB bar in NYC
In honor of Shirley Jackson, Ellen Datlow will be hosting a reading of Shirley Jackson’s work by award-winning and leading authors of the dark fantastic and horror on July 23rd at the KGB Bar in New York City. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Shirley Jackson Awards.
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.” “The Lottery” was first published on June 28, 1948 in The New Yorker.
Ms. Jackson’s 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 Ms. Jackson’s work are:
F. Brett Cox's 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.
An evening of live readings from Ms. Jackson’s work is sure to unsettle audience members. The event will take place at KGB Bar, well-known for its regularly held readings of poetry and non-fiction, and for the Fantastic Fiction reading series, co-hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel. KGB is located at 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave) New York City.
Readings from Shirley Jackson’s work will begin at 7pm and end by 9pm. The cover charge is $5 per person.
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 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented on Sunday, July 20th 2008, at Readercon 19, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Websites: http://www.ShirleyJacksonAwards.org
http://www.kgbbar.com/bar
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Media representatives who are seeking further information or interviews should contact JoAnn
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Joe Hill
Since "Thumbprint" is partially based on current events, was this the type of story that you heard on the news and you felt "I must write this story..." or is it more along the lines that you were looking for a compelling story to write and this is what turned up?
"Thumbprint" was the first story I wrote, post GHOSTS, that felt fresh, that excited me enough to finish... I think, in part, because I had never written a story with a convincing female lead. All of the stories in GHOSTS - and my novel - were about troubled, morally adrift boys and men. What I responded to, what led me to tell this particular story, was the chance to explore this very angry haunted woman, to get inside Mal Grennan's head and find out how she felt about the things she had done in Iraq. So, no, I didn't decide to write about Abu Ghraib and then build a story around that subject. I decided to write about Mal, and it happened that Mal had served in Abu Ghraib.
How do you think the Iraq War has affected the horror genre?
For one thing, we've seen a whole avalanche of movies often referred to as torture-porn: flicks like Hostel and Saw. I think those films are pretty obviously a reaction to what's been going on in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, and a shared cultural fear that America might have done some things in the last few years, in the name of self-preservation, that will come back to bite us later. We don't want to be torturers, and suddenly we are.
You see this, though, throughout pop culture history. In the fifties, when people were afraid of being infiltrated by the communists, you had stories about invasion: Body Snatchers and The Thing. Fears of atomic weapons and atomic power provided the fuel for movies like THEM! and books like On the Beach. In the Seventies, you had Charlie Manson, so it was only natural you'd have films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. When you watched the evening news, you saw naked babies with Napalm burns, and soldiers covered in their own blood, so it made sense that stories and films would also correspondingly become more violent and gory. Fiction is always a tool for grappling with questions that frighten and discomfit us, questions with difficult answers, or maybe no answers at all.
You've written your fair share of supernatural horror stories but that's not the case with "Thumbprint". How do you decide whether to include or not include the supernatural in your stories?
I always work from concept first. I need an idea that excites me, an absurd or frightening or unexpected what if to explore. Such as, what if someone loved the movies so much that they kept going to them after they died? Or what if you started getting letters from some mysterious person, blank letters, nothing on them except a single black thumbprint? How scary would that be? And so I usually know before I go into a story, whether it has a supernatural element or not, because it's right there in the idea.
That's easy. It has to be scary.
Having written both novels and short stories, which format do you prefer?
I don't really have a preference. My attitude is that a story shouldn't go on one sentence longer than it needs to. I don't care whether it takes a year to write or an evening, whether it's a movie, a novel, a short story, or a comic book. I always want the same things out of a story. I want a character to explore, someone with secrets and regrets, someone struggling to become a better person, someone with something to confess. And I also want the narrative to rush the reader along toward some powerful final moment, without wasting their time, and without making them feel like what they're doing is work and it would really be more fun to turn on the TV. That's what I'm after every time I write, and I'm content to let a story tell me whether it ought to be thirty pages or three hundred.
What in your opinion is the advantage of the short story format, at least when it comes to the horror genre and how you write?
In a short story, you've only got thirty pages to operate in, and so by necessity much is left to the reader's imagination. And in horror especially, the things the reader imagines are often much worse than anything the writer could come up with. The voice screaming behind the door is dreadful because you don't know what's happening to that person. The thing moving in the darkness is much less terrifying once it moves into the light.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews William Browning Spencer
I think my first allegiance is to story (the thing that happened, that needs to be told, that someone wants, perhaps needs, to hear). Details of character and setting are what draw a reader into the story. Horror, with its fantastical elements, probably needs to create a deeper sense of verisimilitude to counter its inherent weirdness. Anyway, the visible world and its inhabitants warrant close observation; it’s fun to try to make the old new, part of the joy of writing fiction. Horror, as I see it, isn’t designed for fable or myth; it isn’t Everyman facing Existential Horror. It is more apt to be an exclamation of personal dread, something like: “Jeez! This is happening to me!”
Were there any parts in "The Tenth Muse" that was based on personal experience? What kind of research did you have to do for the story?
I was living in a small town in Missouri when I wrote this story. I had also just finished reading a biography of Harper Lee. What more can I say? I guess I can say I am really, really glad to be back in Austin, Texas.
What is it about the horror genre that appeals to you?
John Fowles, in his novel, Daniel Martin, has the narrator state the following: “The hyperactive imagination is as damaging a preparation for reality as it is useful in writing.” True words. My hyperactive brain always hears the bad news in a ringing phone. Horror is hard to dodge in the world. I suspect my first thought, on being born, was Oh great! I’m in a hospital! Writing fiction appeals to me, and horror often feels like the most accurate and appropriate perspective for a writer considering the disturbing aspects of trapped sentience. Stephen King understands this mortality problem—but so does Flannery O’Connor, so does Cormac McCarthy (our most gruesome horror writer). Most writers are, to one degree or another, horror writers.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Monday, June 30, 2008
Chalres Tan Interviews Elizabeth Ziemska
The title of my story, "A Murder of Crows," came to me, almost as a gift, while I was writing the second draft. A friend was telling me about all these wonderful names for groups of animals: a something-of-something, a parliament of owls, a murder of crows--and I had an AHA! moment.
I had wanted to write something about animals turning the tables on humans ever since I read Patricia Highsmith's "Beastly Tales of Animal Murder," particularly "Ming's Biggest Prey," about a Siamese cat that kills her mistress's lover.
What is your writing process like? Did you initially know where the story would take you or was the fable-like style and ending a product of your subconscious?
"A Murder of Crows" began with a scene: a man is burying his wife in the backyard; a tiny lapdog (Chekhov's animal protagonist in "Lady With a Dog") runs out onto the lawn. I sat down to write and the story kind of poured out of me. When I sent the story to David Gates, my first teacher at the Bennington Writing Seminars, he pulled it out of my pile of pale T.C. Boyle imitations, and said "this may not be the sort of story that you want to write, but it may be the sort of story that you do write." Or something like that. Anyway, he helped me get on the road of fantastical fiction.
In the first draft, I had given the story a comic happy ending, but Martha Cooley, my second teacher at Bennington, chastised me for pulling my punches. That's when I realized that the crows would not be able to go on living their happy crow lives after killing the man. So it's Martha's fault that the crows had to die.
How does it feel to be a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Awards? Will we be seeing more fiction from you in the future?
I'm about 2/3 finished with a novel entitled, LIFE CYCLE OF THE STURGEON. It's about Russian history, the concept of the "10th muse," and two women who come to realize that they are mythological creatures.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Jack Haringa Must Die! reviewed
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Glen Hirshberg
What inspired you to write "The Janus Tree"?
As is often the case with me, bits and pieces of the story came from different sources. At the core is my memory of the only actual fist fight I’ve ever had. It occurred in 8th grade, and as in “The Janus Tree,” the thing that made the deepest impression on me wasn’t the completely ridiculous fight but the surprisingly complex personality revealed by the bully I believed I was confronting.
Then there is the astonishing, tragic, fascinating history of Butte, Montana, which really was the richest city in America for a very brief time and is now an environmental disaster area whose inhabitants are still struggling to redefine their hometown decades after the largest mining companies abandoned the region. In my story, I use the name Silver City for Butte. That name actually first appears in a melodramatic but wonderfully colorful and affecting novel called WIDE OPEN TOWN by the Montana writer Myron Brinig, and is meant as an homage of sorts.
Did you have to do a lot of research for the story?
My Silver City is a sort of impressionist’s dream of Butte, and while resemblance is not only inevitable but intentional, the city in the story is my own invention. A number of the historical events mentioned in the story, from the mining laws to the boxers that the narrator researches, are again based on actual events or people. But the formation of this piece came less from pure research than from living in Montana for several years, delving into the incredibly rich past of the whole place, and then letting everything I’d seen and discovered mix itself up with my own memories.
What elements are needed to make a horror story effective? Were you conscious of this when writing "The Janus Tree"?
I don’t believe in any one set of elements that will always make a horror story—or any story, for that matter—effective. For me, each individual piece generates its own set of requirements and poses its own challenges. “The Janus Tree” is driven, I think, partially by the volatile, unpredictable, and increasingly desperate kids at its heart and partially by the scarred and transfigured landscape. Therefore, I devoted much of my writing time on this story to infusing the whole brooding, half-imaginary streets of my Silver City with life. I also tried to give every character the space to develop into layered individuals hopefully capable of seeming disconcerting and sympathetic at the same time.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Jim Shepard
It's really a matter of my reading turning into stories, in that what happens is that I read a lot of weird stuff -- mostly non-fiction -- like a history of plague, or whatever, just out of an interest in the subject, and then some of the details that I encounter continue to seem plangent to me. They give off a little emotional resonance that's simultaneously evocative and mysterious. Details stay with me. And I begin to suspect, or assume, that they're touching on something in my emotional life that I want to further explore. At that point, I begin researching as though writing a story: in other words, looking to fill in the gaps in my knowledge that the narrative requires.
How different is your novel-writing process as opposed to your short-fiction process? What do you think is the strength of the latter?
Novel-writing is much more elaborate and longer-sustained for me, but otherwise it's the same process. But I've recently become more impatient with those aspects of the novel that seem to me like furniture moving: setting things up. I've gotten more attracted lately to the appeal of guerilla tactics, as it were -- get in and get out fast -- no matter how much research I've done.
What were your conscious goals when writing the stories in Like You'd Understand, Anyway?
I just each time wanted to tell a story that held my interest and might hold someone else's, and didn't seem lame, in terms of its emotional complexity.
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Thursday, June 26, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Nathan Ballingrud
In as much as I can't imagine a worse situation than losing your child and knowing you're the one responsible for it, yes. Like many parents, I'm sure, I can't imagine life would be endurable afterwards. Being a parent is the highest responsibility afforded to us. I suspect single parents like myself are particularly sensitive to that. I know I frequently worry about failing her in some fundamental, yet currently invisible, way. The protagonist of this story fails his son on a catastrophic level. To me, it's absolutely the worst thing imaginable, because it brings with it the possibility of the child's continued suffering, and -- possibly even worse -- a sustained, doomed hope for all parties.
But as much as fatherhood impacted this story, I think it was more deeply affected by being a husband. I went through a divorce just before writing the bulk of this story, and that experience was a huge influence. There's nothing like a divorce to make you question your self-worth, and so I sought a kind of catharsis, I think, by writing about a man who was living at the bottom of the barrel, who had failed in his role as a husband and a father in just about every sense. Right or wrong, the means by which many men gauge their own value center around their effectiveness as a family protector, their virility, and their strength. That some or all of these notions may be outdated doesn't change the fact that many still set their scales by them. If these things are lost or undermined, is there any value left? If so, how do you find it? How do you measure it?
"The Monsters of Heaven" uses powerful imagery and juxtaposition. How conscious were you of these elements?
I was very conscious of them. The element of horror fiction I respond to most viscerally is the juxtaposition of horror with beauty. In this I am very much influenced by early Clive Barker. I like to take it a little further, though, and apply it both to characters who might initially seem unsympathetic or even criminal, and to events which taken at face value seem ghastly and unforgivable. In this story specifically, there are two characters whose marriage is dissolving in the wake of their child's disappearance. They want to go on together, ultimately, but in order to do so they must pay a grievous price. Parents have to do this in real life, all the time, on a much smaller scale. Whether it's surrendering custody or simply acknowledging the thousand minor failures in a normal life, they somehow have to come to terms with letting their children down. It's a selfish act that's absolutely necessary for survival.
As for the imagery, well, that's where I have the most fun as a writer. As a reader, I respond to strong, vibrant imagery in a story, maybe more so than to any other sensory detail. Maybe that's because I'm a child of the cinema, or maybe I'm just wired that way. In each of my stories there's usually one image that stands out as a personal favorite, usually because it comes without forethought and signifies that the story has taken on a life of its own; often it's a small detail that doesn't impact the actual narrative at all. In this story it's of the obese man on the tv news stepping out of his house and holding aloft the severed head of an angel. It made me feel like things were happening in the story that were beyond my sphere of influence, and that's always a good feeling.
What was the inspiration behind your story?
Fear. Plain and simple. When I write horror stories I write them because something scares the bejesus out of me. I'm not talking about monsters, of course. Monsters are just the pulpy element that makes the story fun to write and, I hope, to read. I'm talking about losing your family, bankruptcy, illness, powerlessness ... the things that we're all vulnerable to. I'm not afraid of serial killers, for pete's sake; I'm afraid of being inadequate. If written well and honestly, I believe horror stories exploring these more mundane fears can be as scary and disturbing as anything the genre has to offer.
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The Lottery
So opens "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson, first published in The New Yorker (which you could purchase for 20 cents) 60 years ago today, June 26th, 1948.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Sarah Monette
Well, I think it depends on the reader. Many readers find Booth an extremely appealing and sympathetic protagonist; others enjoy the prose style or the ghost stories just as ghost stories. I know that for me, what keeps me writing stories about Booth is the combination of this very articulate but shy and fearful narrator with the kind of classic ghost stories that I can maneuver him into.
In the collection, the story is narrated from the point of view of Booth. When you wrote the first Booth story, did you know it'll lead you to all these different stories?
No, I had no idea. I expected "Bringing Helena Back" to be a one-off experiment. But then I had an idea for another story about the same character, and then another . . . and well, now there are twelve of them (all either published or in press), and I'm working on the thirteenth, fourteenth, and maybe fifteenth.
How have the authors M.R. James and H.P. Lovecraft influenced your work and how did you make your own fiction distinct from theirs?
I love both James and Lovecraft quite madly, Lovecraft for the sheer lush lunacy of his imagination, James for his ability to write highly intellectual, sesquipedalian, decorous prose which nevertheless scares the living daylights out of the reader. I love the way they work by indirection and implication: that they can scare you without wading through blood up to their knees. Where I differ from them, the reason that my stories are more than just pastiches, is that I'm interested in the psychology of haunting--and the psychology of my poor hapless characters. So there's another layer to my stories that mostly Lovecraft and James weren't interested in.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Sunday, June 22, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Ellen Datlow
From the reader’s POV it means that she can approach the anthology with no expectations and can be constantly surprised by each story.
From the editor’s POV, initially at least, anything goes. Instead of worrying that a submission fits the theme she can just enjoy the first flush of submissions. Eventually of course, the acceptance window narrows whatever type of anthology one is editing. You begin to notice patterns and perhaps push for different kinds of stories. At the end of the process the narrowing goes even further and one becomes very picky about what to include.
I enjoy both. I’ve mostly worked on themed anthologies, only relatively recently editing unthemed anthologies in any subgenre of the fantastic. When I edit a theme anthology, I try to expand that theme as broadly as possible which keeps it fresh for me, and hopefully for my readers. If anything, editing an anthology on a theme perceived as “stale” is a challenge, which is why I loved editing my two vampirism anthologies: Blood is Not Enough and A Whisper of Blood.
What was your criteria for accepting stories in Inferno?
First of all, most of the submissions were commissioned, that is, I approached the writers whose work I admire and want to publish, as always leaving some room for serendipity (via word of mouth). I was looking for fresh approaches to horror and a variety of types of horror stories from the quietly disturbing to the visceral. But most importantly, I picked the stories I loved and knew I’d enjoy reading and rereading.
What do you think are the advantages of short horror fiction (as opposed to novels)?
I think that short horror fiction is usually a better form for horror, especially supernatural horror fiction. I’ve said this many times and will repeat it. It’s much easier for a reader to suspend her disbelief in the supernatural for the length of a story up to novella than for an entire novel length piece of work. And of course, in short horror fiction you can experience a short sharp shock which is impossible in a novel. Third, short stories are more convenient to read if you have limited time. I only bring novels to read on long trips. I just don’t have the time to read them otherwise (of course, that might be because I’m constantly reading short stories for various original and reprint anthologies).
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews M. Rickert
Many years ago I wrote a poem that revolved around the idea of a young beauty queen child having been killed by her parents. On several occasions I set aside this particular poem to be included in a submission packet, or I thought I did, but when I checked the packet prior to sending it out, that particular poem would be missing, though it always showed up later. Rather than focus on whether the strange disappearance and reappearance of this poem was caused by a trickster ghost or a subconscious act on my part, I thought about what I knew for sure. Eventually, I decided it was unethical for me to suggest that this child was killed by her parents when I had nothing to base the assumption on other than gossip. I tucked the poem into the “Do Not Send” file where it was soon joined by all the poetry I ever wrote because I discovered that I am not a poet, though that is another story, for another cup of tea.
When I assembled my short stories I realized that I had written, over the years, many that featured dead or missing children. The publication of my collection seemed a good time to break free of that theme and move on to others. I issued myself an edict. No more dead children stories.
Then she came back. I don’t often have ideas for stories; they generally come to me as voices. I’ll just sit down and start writing, sometimes several pages in different voices until one sticks. This day, I wrote, “She says her name is Holiday, but I know she is lying.” Then I wrote a few more lines, realized what it was about, folded it up, tucked it into a desk drawer and tried to forget about it (her).
It stayed there for a long time, until, after a cross country move, I came across the haunted paragraph and, desperate for something to write, gave myself permission to write one more, final, dead child story. But before I did, I needed to do some research. I read every book our local library has on this particular case, including the one written by her parents. In the end, I have no idea who killed her. I thought I’d have a hunch, but I don’t.
I wrote “Holiday” for the dead kids. Not just the famous ones, but the others as well, the kids whose skin color correlates with less news coverage, those whose names we don’t remember. I’m not happy with the ending of this story, but I’m not happy with the beginning of it either. It’s that kind of story.
What for you is more terrifying: the story wherein the horror is internal or external? How has this influenced your writing?
What terrifies me most is the inner beast, the unspoken thoughts, the secret deeds, the unbearable legacy of damage humans have done to each other, the way we pretend none of it has occurred, or if we admit that it has, it is an anomaly, an enigma, a strange crack in the perfect world, when, in fact, the bad things we do to each other defines us.
Humans have the ability to consider existence, time, and space. That so many, in the light of this potential for creation, choose destruction instead, terrifies me. This is why I write horror the way I do. When I have met the monster, its name has always been Human.
Were there any elements of the story that scare you in real life (i.e clowns, ghosts, criminals)?
I’m not afraid of snakes, even rattlers, even when I almost stepped on one, or spiders, though I do prefer they stay outside, or lightening, or bears but once, when I was hiking alone in the high Sierras, a man passed me going the other way on the trail and he sent a shiver down my spine that I remember all these years later. I thought, at the time, how happy I was that there was a group of German tourists hiking not far behind me. That’s what I’m scared of most of all, the stranger whose proximity turns my blood to ice, and, most especially, the one who doesn’t, but should.
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Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Christopher Fowler
I think horror and horrified amusement are a natural reactions to the modern world. No lives are ever certain, and this uncertainty makes us fearful. I always think of Ms Jackson herself as someone who wrote more about uncertainty and why we should be afraid than what we should be afraid of. As times change our fears change, so there's always something new to write about. And it's cathartic to dissect your fears in public.
When writing stories that combine horror and humor, do you initially plan these out or do you find that the latter is merely an extension of the former? How effective a tool has humor been for you?
A sense of humor is a key tool in my survival kit. Some stories naturally suggest a humorous approach (as in my story 'The Night Museum' in 'Old Devil Moon' - written, I should point out, long before a similarly titled movie). There are some subjects that would lose strength if they weren't taken seriously. But humor can be used to make a point. I wrote a story called 'Night After Night Of The Living Dead' that used humor to set up an unexpectedly serous ending.
Were there any particular aspects of horror that you attempted to nurture when writing the stories in Old Devil Moon?
Each collection I write allows me to try new angles, and 'Old Devil Moon' gave me a chance to test some types of story I'd never tackled before. Being gruesome is easy. It's harder to create a tale that leave behind a disturbing feeling, a ghost-trace of something that lingers. I also wanted to take several stories in entirely unexpected directions, but wanted to mix them with other more conventional tales, so that the reader would come away from the collection with the sense of having experienced many different aspects of the horror story, both traditional and experimental. I think it's the most varied collection I've yet written. One day I hope I'll be able to put all my most extreme and unusual stories in one big 'Best Of' anthology!
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Peter Crowther
Publishing standalone novellas was the raison d'etre of the company when I started it back in 1998. The novella (20,000 to 40,000 words) is, for me, the perfect length with which to develop characters. It's not as brief as the short story but it can still be read easily in one sitting. Our first four novella-length books appeared in the summer of 1999, our entire output for that year: in 2000 we published five more, again as our entire output. Last year, we managed to put out some thirty books, mainly novellas but also including full-length novels, collections, anthologies and four issues of our digest magazine, Postscripts. But I still consider the novella to be our 'bread-and-butter' work.
I'm impressed with the diversity of authors under your wing. What's your criteria for picking up others? Do the authors approach your company, you seek them out, or both?
Right now we have a big inventory so we're not really considering unsolicited material for our book-lines . . . though we still happily look at stories for Postscripts. But, of course, every now and again, an author will email us with an interesting outline of something he or she has written and we'll ask them to let us see it. That happened with the Dead Earth book by Justice and Wilbanks. But mainly we approach the authors we'd like to see something from and ask them to try us with a novella -- those authors can be household names or complete newcomers: I'm pleased to say our customers seem to trust us now and, generally speaking, they buy the titles from the newcomers almost as readily as the ones from the Big Guns. I guess there's a perceived quality in our output and that's a wonderful feeling. We believe it's there, naturally, but it's what the punters think that counts in the long run.
What's the appeal of genre fiction for you?
I grew up reading science fiction and horror -- it's the best material in which to lose oneself. But that's not to say I don't enjoy other areas of literature: I love Richard Ford's work (Rock Springs is one of the all-time great short story collections); Avery Corman's The Old Neighborhood, John Irving's The Cider House Rules and Ford's The Sportswriter are three of my Desert Island Books (and I'd be hard-pressed to decide which of John Updike's Rabbit quartet should be included as a fourth . . . and then, as a fifth, Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird); I adore reading Robert B. Parker's Spenser novels (almost a guilty pleasure!) and I loved William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Highways, Max Shulman's Dobie Gillis stories, Hemingway's, John Cheever's, Ed Gorman's and Daphne DuMaurier's short stories ('The Killers', 'The Swimmer', 'Render Unto Caesar' and 'The Birds' respectively are exemplars of the short-form) and so on. And I also feverishly devour old comicbooks (most usually those from DC -- particularly their Strange Adventures and Mystery In Space titles). But horror and SF is where my heart lies and, though I've loved and championed the work -- both novel-length and short story -- of many writers, there are two authors who, for me, take the cake: Ray Bradbury and Stephen King. Bradbury's novel Something Wicked This Way Comes says all there is to say about the relationship between a boy and his father: it should be available on prescription. By the same token, his Dandelion Wine (which we're particularly pleased to have re-published recently . . . with a wonderful Intro from King himself -- both of my heroes between two covers!) . . . that book can still bring tears to my eyes more than thirty years since I first read it (and I've read parts of it many many times in between).
And Stephen King . . . well, his work is maligned almost as much as it's revered -- go figure. Those early King titles have still not been surpassed, his mid-period work (notably the harrowing Pet Sematary) takes some beating and even much of his recent work shows an artist still able to flick all the switches when he really wants to. But it's King's ability to document the minutiae of American Small-town Life that will be what he's best remembered for over the years and, yes, the centuries to come. He's the Mark Twain and the Homer of his generation. And I don't make such claims lightly. Go re-read 'Salem's Lot -- it looks like a book about vampires but it's much much more. And his 'Hearts In Atlantis' segment of the book of that title is, along with Connie Willis's 'The Winds from Marble Arch', one of the all-time best novellas/short novels -- 'Atlantis' should have netted King the Pulitzer, in my book, but the self-appointed cognoscenti and the literati know best, of course (a pox on both their houses, say I).
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Zoran Zivkovic
What made you decide to use the format presented in 12 Collections?
Many prose books of mine share that format. Ursula LeGuin called it a "mosaic-novel": A whole that is bigger than the mere sum of its constituent parts. An amalgam, not just a conglomerate. I find the term quite appropriate. The stones my literary mosaics are made of can be read and, hopefully, enjoyed, individually, but their true meaning emerges only when seen in entirety of the big picture. This is particularly evident in "Twelve Collections": The final, twelfth collector collects collections, as if giving a frame to the picture...
The color purple recurs repeatedly in 12 Collections. What is the significance of the color purple?
It is the pivotal leitmotif of my mosaic-novel. As the author I am not entitled, of course, to interpret my own book, but I guess it wouldn't be improper if I tell you that "the color purple" has strong intertextual references to a number of capital works of the contemporary world literature — certain novels of Umberto Eco, Orhan Pamuk, Milan Kundera, Haruki Murakami...
What are the elements that comprise a good story? How conscious are you of these elements when writing?
There are many elements that comprise a good story. It takes two long semesters to teach my students about them. (I am a creative writing professor at the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade.) But if I had to determine the greatest virtue a work of prose should aim to, I would say it's the impeccable internal harmony. Use only as many words as required. No more, no less. Add or take one, and the beauty isn't perfect any more...
I am quite unconscious of these elements when writing. Fortunately, my subconscious, the very source of my creative imagination, is very much aware and in control of them...
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Conrad Williams
I had written a novella set in that universe in 2001 and had always intended to return to write a sequel. I wanted to write more about the Mowers, and felt they could have a more prominent role. I also wanted to write about a father and his relationship with his child. I had become a father in 2002 and this was pretty much the first thing I wrote about that father/son axis.
Butchery and the slaughter house seems to be a recurring theme. What made you cling to this idea and did you have to do a lot of research?
I read a book by Eric Schlosser called 'Fast Food Nation'. There's a jaw-dropping sequence in that about abattoir accidents. I thought it would make for a great setting, a slaughterhouse that was filled with broken tools and broken men. The Schlosser book and a number of articles and documentaries on abattoirs really stoked my imagination. It's a pretty grim subject. I take much more care to find out the provenance of the meat I eat these days...
Did you determine early on that The Scalding Rooms would be a novella or did you simply write until it was finished? How do you determine the length your fiction will be?
I set out to write a novella, and to this end I had a main idea for the story, and one or two sub-strands. For a novel I usually find I come up with three central elements and any number of offshoots. That said, I would happily have written a novel if the story had demanded to be taken into that sort of territory. But I think, generally, ideas suggest themselves to you in the form they end up as. I'm working on some ideas now that I hope will go towards a novel set in Howling Mile. I've had some very good reaction for the two books so far. I think it's time to go large.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Monday, June 9, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Christopher Golden
Mike and I have known each other for years, and speak fairly often. For ages, I'd heard details from him about a "vampire graphic novel" he planned to write. Out of the blue one day, he phoned me up and said he had come to the conclusion that he wouldn't ever have the time to do it, and would I like to write it as a novel. Of course I said yes. Mike sent me his notes and outline, which I revised, filling holes and adding sequences, fleshing out characters. Once we had agreed on the story, I set about writing. Every twenty pages or so I would send him the work in progress and we'd go over it on the phone, making changes, debating the fine points. There were places where he had specific visions he was passionate about, and I wanted to make sure he got precisely what he wanted, while in other places I pursued my own instincts. But the end result is very much a combination of our sensibilities and interests.
Did the artwork always come first (and how did it influence your writing) or were there instances where your prose affected the way Mignola illustrated the book?
Actually, other than a few sample drawings Mike did for the publisher when we were in the process of selling it, the illustrations were always done AFTER. Once a certain segment of the book had been completed, Mike would go and do illustrations for that section. We had talked about a number of different ways of approaching the art, but in the end Mike was determined that the illustrations should provide a counterpoint, a punctuation of sorts. Most illustrated novels feature art that is simply--though often beautifully--a repetition of the information in the text. Mike wanted most of the art in Baltimore to add emphasis and atmosphere, to work in tandem with the text instead of just presenting the events or ideas in a different medium.
What do you think will readers find appealing in Baltimore?
I'd like to think they'll enjoy it because its unique. To my knowledge, there's literally nothing else like it. We approached it through our love of the gothics, keeping Stoker and Shelley very much in mind, but also Melville and Poe and a million folk tales and legends we've read. On the other hand, we wanted to make sure the language was accessible for modern readers who might find some classic gothic lit a bit daunting. Beyond that, there's a definite human commentary in the story, though I'll leave that for others to parse. And, of course, readers are also treated to an amazing cover and over 150 interior illustrations by one of the great artists of our time. Mignola is a true original.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Barbara and Christopher Roden
One thing that sets it apart is the fact that since Ash-Tree is a small press doing limited editions, we have the freedom to include any authors we please, without the constraint of a marketing department telling us that we need to include certain 'big names' in order to ensure sales. This means that we're free to choose the best of the stories submitted to us, whether they're by established authors or new writers. We also choose not to 'theme' our anthologies, which gives writers the freedom to write what they choose, in a variety of styles. And since we are not necessarily looking for 'horror', we're able to include a wider variety of supernatural/macabre/weird fiction.
What was the editing process like? How did both of you decide which stories made it to the anthology and which didn't?
The editing process was time-consuming, because we both read every story submitted and jot down our thoughts on whether or not we think it should be on a final list for consideration. At Ease With the Dead is our fourth anthology, and the previous two received award nominations, while its immediate predecessor, Acquainted With the Night, won IHG and World Fantasy awards. Given that precedent, we knew that the stories we chose for At Ease With the Dead had to live up to those in the previous books, which meant that we already had a certain benchmark in place. While the process of submitting for our anthologies is somewhat open, in that word of mouth gets round, the majority of the stories were submitted by writers whom we'd invited to take part.
As far as deciding which stories were included goes, we have both read enough work in the genre over the years that we know what we like, and which stories are sufficiently original or thought-provoking that we want to include them. On the rare occasions when one of us particularly likes a story and the other doesn't, we talk the matter over, but the fact that one of us sufficiently likes the story enough to want to include it usually wins out.
What were your criteria for what constitutes a good horror story?
Basically, if the story is well written, and incorporates the supernatural enough that it moves us in some way - either because it is frightening, or because it illuminates something about human nature - then we're happy to put it on our final list. If a story stays in the mind after the last page has been read, then we feel it warrants serious consideration. Above all, however, it has to be well written and well considered, with an indication that the 'horror' genre means more to the writer than just a chance to go for the gross-out.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Charles Tan Interviews Carrie Laben
It's based on a true story - in a sense. I was reading Jan Bondeson's The Feejee Mermaid and Other Essays in Natural and Unnatural History (an excellent book, by the way) and found an illustration of a mermaid in a German museum that according to the caption was made from a human fetus and a fish tail. There was no explanation in the text, so of course I started wondering how the heck that could happen. What circumstances could possibly exist in which it would be preferable to use a fetus rather than a monkey?
Is "Something in the Mermaid Way" your first professional story sale? What does it feel like to get published--and have your story nominated for the Shirley Jackson Awards?
It is my first pro sale - I had a couple of pieces show up in small zines along the way, but this feels very different. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm enjoying the attention immensely. Working with Nick Mamatas and the other folks at Clarkesworld has also been wonderful - they run a tight ship there.
I've been a bit surprised by the praise that the story has gotten - before I started submitting it, I was worried that people would find it gratuitous, or think it was all about the shock value. Of course I fantasized about being nominated for awards, but I assumed that would come much later. Now I just have to move on to fantasizing about winning awards, I guess.
What is your writing process like and what was the biggest challenge?
"Something in the Mermaid Way" was actually written fairly atypically for me, in that I wrote the first draft in one sitting, edited it in one sitting, and submitted it right away. Usually I have to let stories steep for some time before I'm happy with them (although given the results, maybe I should try the lightening-fast approach more often!) The biggest problem for me is letting stories go. I don't mind rejections, but I'm a huge perfectionist and if I let a story go out and notice even a tiny flaw later I'm very embarrassed. This is good up to a point, but it slows me down when I take it to extremes, especially when I'm working on longer projects. I'm trying to finish a novel right now and it's taking far too long, because there's always something that I could go over one more time.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10.
Friday, May 30, 2008
Charles Tan interview with Laird Barron
Much of my work in The Imago Sequence & Other Stories is composed of traditional noir and thriller elements. I like to manipulate certain aspects of narrative, to play with structure, to defy reader expectations at crucial moments -- thus the supernatural intrusions, the allusions to the unknown. However, at heart these stories are powered by classic pulp and crime tropes. I admire and am influenced by John le Carré, Martin Cruz Smith, Robert Parker, and William Goldman, among a slew of others. I'm also particularly fond of Peter Hoeg's Smilla's Sense of Snow. I recall closing the book at the end and staring out the window, thinking, How did he get away with that? Here we have an elegant, yet thoroughly by the numbers mystery-thriller that suddenly turns on you and smacks you across the face with a finale straight out of Lovecraft's playbook. I decided right there this was the kind of thing I'd like to do.
Your fiction tends to feature an other-worldly horror that is reminiscent of Lovecraft. What for you is the appeal of such "alien" visions?
I experience recurring nightmares. My dreams are vivid, so I'm often able to transfer highlights to paper. "The Imago Sequence" novella originated from such a nightmare. I woke up shaking and cramping from adrenaline, as if I'd just been running for my life. This was around 4 A.M and I made my hapless wife listen to the whole nightmare; then I schlepped off to the office and jotted the details into a note pad. A few months later I had the story in the mail. Certainly the process of translating visceral and often nonsensical dream imagery into a coherent narrative is cathartic.
A measure of my fascination with externalized, macrocosmic aspects of horror is derived from youthful encounters with the more titillating passages of the Bible. When mining the Bible for the fantastical, artists usually reach for Book of Revelation. For my money, nothing in all of the dark fantastic competes with the fearsome images conjured by a rousing sermon from the Old Testament. Nor, to my way of thinking, has Lovecraft ever constructed a more alien or otherworldly pantheon than the beings which populate Christian mythology. The cosmic horror mode addresses my desire to rationalize and codify philosophical and spiritual beliefs, to make peace with my overactive subconscious.
"Procession of the Black Sloth" debuted in in your collection The Imago Sequence and Other Stories. Was this an old story (and underwent changes and revisions) or did you write it particularly for your collection? What made you decide to include it?
"Procession of the Black Sloth" is a novella written exclusively for the collection. Because The Imago Sequence and Other Stories is comprised of reprints, Night Shade Books wanted an original piece. I felt obligated to provide buyers with material more substantial than a short story, or even a middleweight novelette. The story originated from a brief passage of another, much more traditional novella of mine. A character in this unfinished novella is telling a ghost tale set in modern Hong Kong. The story threatened to become so complicated and so divergent, I lifted the passage and let it roll.
"Procession of the Black Sloth" does not follow the Lovecraftian mode prevalent throughout the rest of the collection. The story was a tremendous challenge in that it's probably my most ambitious piece from a technical perspective. Normally, my work is layered, but here I pushed myself to exceed the limitations I'd set in the noir pieces by attempting to tackle and execute a stylistically unorthodox narrative on a larger scale. On the surface I endeavored a cinematic approach in an homage to classic horror authors and filmmakers, something I think is readily apparent from the most cursory review. However, my inspiration was almost exclusively Asian horror cinema. I'm a fan of Takashi Miike and Kiyoshi Kurosawa. Miike's Audition and Gozu, and Kurosaw's Cure made an impression on me and these films acted as cynosures as I battled to hammer the novella into a comprehensible shape. I was under deadline, so after coming home from the day job I'd stick out writing until two in the morning, settling for three or four hours sleep. Weekends, I chopped away at it practically around the clock. Consequently, I submerged emotionally and cognitively into the project. Nightmarish in itself, the narrative seeped under my skin and transported me into a weird head space for the two months of its creation. I'm glad it's over.
My other motivation for including a piece divergent from the eldritch theme, was due to my conception of the book as analogous to a concept album. "Procession of the Black Sloth" is a segue into the storytelling mode I'm currently pursuing -- more intimate tales, and tales more overtly tied to the ghostly, the weird, and the psychological. Some of these new stories will explore more of the alien and the cosmic, but much of what I've had to say in the collection is out of my system. I'm excited to shift in new directions. "Procession of the Black Sloth" is a precursor to that progression.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
SJA Benefit Anthology Now Available
Go here for more information concerning the book and how to order a copy.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Shirley Jackson Awards fund raiser at KGB bar
Press Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: JoAnn F. Cox
Awards Administrator
admin@shirleyjacksonawards.org
Leading authors read from Shirley Jackson canon to commemorate 60th anniversary of “The Lottery”
Event takes place July 23rd at KGB Bar in New York City
Peter Straub and Jack Ketchum among readers
Boston, MA (May 200 – In honor of Shirley Jackson, Ellen Datlow will be hosting a reading of Shirley Jackson’s work by award-winning and leading authors of the dark fantastic and horror on July 23rd at the KGB Bar in New York City. Proceeds from the event will benefit the Shirley Jackson Awards.
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.” “The Lottery” was first published on June 28, 1948 in The New Yorker.
Ms. Jackson’s 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 Ms. Jackson’s work are:
F. Brett Cox's 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.
An evening of live readings from Ms. Jackson’s work is sure to unsettle audience members. The event will take place at KGB Bar, well-known for its regularly held readings of poetry and non-fiction, and for the Fantastic Fiction reading series, co-hosted by Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel. KGB is located at 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave) New York City.
Readings from Shirley Jackson’s work will begin at 7pm and end by 9pm. The cover charge is $5 per person.
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 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented on Sunday, July 20th 2008, at Readercon 19, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Websites: http://www.ShirleyJacksonAwards.org
http://www.kgbbar.com/bar
______________________________________________________________
Media representatives who are seeking further information or interviews should contact JoAnn F. Cox.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Charles Tan interviews Lucius Shepard
Vacancy grew slowly at first, like most of my stories. Five years back, I had a kind of video clip image of a man sitting on one of those lounging chairs with an aluminum frame at night in a used car lot on Ridgewood Ave in South Daytona where I used to live. He would look up now and again and stare at something across the street.
The image stuck with me and a couple of weeks later I wrote the first few pages, trying to fix Cliff's character, using a friend of mine, a minor Hollywood actor who I went to high school with as the model, and deciding that what he was staring at was the Vacancy sign of the Celeste Motel; but beyond that I could not go. I set it aside and didn't come back to it for a year or so. Then I wrote a few more pages and figured out two or three more things. Then I stalled again.
I picked up the story now and again over the next few years and just couldn't finish it. Then Ellen Datlow called me up and asked if I could write her a novella in two weeks. Sure, I said, and picked up Vacancy again. This time I seemed to know a lot more about the story--not everything, there were still surprises, but a lot. And after that it went fairly easily.
In some of your stories, you've mentioned the Philippines but it plays a bigger role in "Vacancy". Why that particular country and did you have to do much research or was it based on personal experience?
I was in Manila once for about a week, waiting for friend to meet me and then go on to Thailand together. I stayed in very cheap hotel with a zoo of lizards and bugs in every room. I did a lot of walking around and the city appealed to me. I walked through one neighborhood where almost every morning they had shit-fights, hurling feces at each other over back fences. It impressed me as a very effective and reasonable way of settling one's differences. I drank a lot, got hustled by bar girls, and was able to use my Spanish. What's not to like? My friend arrived and we went off to Thailand, I thought I'd return to Manila, but India took too much of my time--maybe that frustration is why it pops up in my fiction now and then. And maybe my experience in Manila played into Vacancy.
What in your opinion are the elements that make a story not only good but powerful and effective?
I really don't know how to answer that and I'm not sure I want to know. For me, I guess, every story that works well is grounded in experience--in those stories there's a depth that comes across, a surety with the basic materials, a substantiality that speaks through the characters and gives the story weight, even when I'm writing about something that couldn't possibly happen. But I don't think about my work analytically. I just try to write until the emotions of the characters impinge upon me, until I get a hit of emotion. Then I know I'm there, where the story wanted to me to take it.
Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Price: $10.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Charles Tan interviews with the Shirley Jackson Nominees
Watch this space!
(Our fundraising anthology, Jack Haringa Must Die! is now available. Please e-mail MerricatPublications@gmail.com to order a copy. Price: $10.)
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Note from a Juror on the SJA
With the SJA final ballot announced (phew!), now seems like a good time to talk about the Shirley Jackson Awards, why they were established, how they work, and what our goals are.
Over the last few years, dark fiction has returned, and is even popping up on the best-seller lists. Big publishers are paying attention, and acquiring titles they wouldn’t have touched with ten-foot poles in the 90s and early 00’s. Dark fiction is getting serious critical attention. The New York Times’ Book Review initiated a semi-annual column devoted to horror. So, now seemed like a good time to start an award honoring those works of fiction that would likely be overlooked by Booker Awards and Pen-Faulkner Awards as well as Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, but whose merit, often brilliance, is undeniable.
And so, the Shirley Jackson Awards. Ms. Jackson’s work represents everything we seek in our nominees. Smart, dark, and able to tread the line between psychological and visceral with aplomb. Not only was her short story “The Lottery” published in The New Yorker, but it also elicited the most hate mail that magazine has ever received. Now that’s a writer.
A few of us got together and decided that such a new award might draw more attention to our vibrant, dynamic genre. The Stokers (happily for me) honor a slightly different kind of horror fiction, and I suspect that the final ballot of IHG, the other juried award, will look quite different from our own. All the finalists for all the awards deserve the recognition they receive, and it is our earnest hope that the SJA will expand dark fiction readers’ conceptions of horror. In fact, we hope people who’ve never read what’s traditionally considered horror will seek out our nominees, because it’s not about the confines of genre. It’s about these splendid works that transcend their labels. The dark fiction market is growing, and fortunately, there is more than enough room for all of us.
And onto the manner in which nominees were selected. The jury (F. Brett Cox, John Langan, Paul Tremblay, and I) read widely and often. We read until our eyes were bleary. We read the recommendations of the advisory board, we read the submissions from publishers, we solicited material, heard about somebody who heard from somebody about a good book, and tracked it down. We begged, borrowed, and stole material. Okay, we didn’t steal. Well, maybe that other Langan. Anyway, we’re writers, too, so we took it seriously, because it’s important.
When we were ready, we voted privately among the four of us, and arrived at our stellar final ballot. We disqualified our own fiction, but we did consider the fiction written or edited by advisors. Ellen Datlow volunteered to withdraw her anthology Inferno in order to preserve the reputation of the award, and prevent catcalls of favoritism, but we jurors agreed that the disqualification of such a work from consideration would ultimately harm the reputation of the SJA. It’s too good not to consider, and if we truly want our final ballot to reflect the best work of the year, our consciences could not allow us to disqualify it.
I imagine this will happen again, and often. Our excellent and growing list of advisors will no doubt edit and produce some of the best fiction of the year—that’s why they’re our advisors. While jurors will rotate over the years to keep the award fresh, our commitment to impartiality will remain constant, and we take that job seriously.
And so, this year, we’ve come out with what, collaboratively, we believe is the best fiction in the tradition of Shirley Jackson, to be published in 2007. Read the nominees. I dare you to disagree!
Thanks again for your support; it means a lot.
Sincerely,
Sarah Langan
Friday, May 2, 2008
2007 Shirley Jackson Awards Finalists and Award Ceremony Location Announced
Boston, MA (May 2008) -- 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 will be 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.
The nominees for the 2007 Shirley Jackson Awards are:
NOVEL
Baltimore, Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden (Bantam Spectra)
Generation Loss, Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer Press)
Sharp Teeth, Toby Barlow (William Heinemann Ltd)
The Terror, Dan Simmons (Little, Brown)
Tokyo Year Zero, David Peace (Knopf)
NOVELLA
12 Collections, Zoran Zivkovic (PS Publishing)
Illyria, Elizabeth Hand (PS Publishing)
The Mermaids, Robert Edric (PS Publishing)
"Procession of the Black Sloth," Laird Barron (The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, Night Shade Books)
The Scalding Rooms, Conrad Williams (PS Publishing)
"Vacancy," Lucius Shepard (Subterranean #7, September 2007)
NOVELETTE
"The Forest," Laird Barron (Inferno, Tor)
"The Janus Tree," Glen Hirshberg (Inferno, Tor)
"The Swing," Don Tumasonis (At Ease with the Dead, Ash-Tree Press)
"The Tenth Muse," William Browning Spencer (Subterranean #6, February 2007)
"Thumbprint," Joe Hill (Postscripts #10, March 2007)
SHORT STORY
"Holiday," M. Rickert (Subterranean #7, September 2007)
"The Monsters of Heaven," Nathan Ballingrud (Inferno, Tor)
"A Murder of Crows," Elizabeth Ziemska (Tin House 31, Spring 2007)
"Something in the Mermaid Way," Carrie Laben (Clarkesworld, March 2007)
"The Third Bear," Jeff VanderMeer (Clarkesworld, April 2007)
"Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse," Andy Duncan (Eclipse One, Night Shade Books)
COLLECTION
The Bone Key, Sarah Monette (Prime Books)
The Entire Predicament, Lucy Corin (Tin House)
The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, Laird Barron (Night Shade Books)
Like You'd Understand, Anyway, Jim Shepard (Knopf)
Old Devil Moon, Christopher Fowler (Serpent’s Tail)
ANTHOLOGY
At Ease with the Dead, edited by Barbara and Christopher Roden (Ash-Tree Press)
Dark Delicacies 2, edited by Del Howison and Jeff Gelb (Running Press)
Inferno (Tor), edited by Ellen Datlow (Tor)
Logorrhea, edited by John Klima (Bantam Spectra)
Wizards, edited by Jack Dann and Gardner Dozois (Berkley)
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.
The Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented on Sunday, July 20th 2008, at Readercon 19, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts.
Website: ShirleyJacksonAwards.org
Media representatives who are seeking further information or interviews should contact JoAnn F. Cox.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
2007
Monday, January 21, 2008
Eligibility Rules
2. The Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented annually for each year beginning January 1 and ending on December 31. Awards are given for work appearing for the first time in English during that calendar year.
3. Determinations of nominations (the final ballot) and final recipients are made solely by the Jury.
4. Members of the Advisory Board recommend works to the Jurors but do no nominate or vote on works.
5. General eligibility concerning the judges and advisory board members:
a. Judges’ works are not eligible during the calendar year for which they are serving as judges.
b. Advisory Board members’ works are eligible.
6. Only book and magazine (both online and print) publishers may formally submit works to the jury. Please contact Administrator JoAnn Cox for details admin at shirleyjacksonawards.org
7. Awards will be made in the following categories:
a. Novel: A work of fiction at least 40,000 words in length.
b. Long Fiction (Novella): fiction between 17,500 and 39,999 words in length.
c. Mid-Length Fiction (Novelette): fiction between 7,500 and 17,499 words in length.
d. Short Fiction: fiction 7,499 words or less.
e. Collection: At least 40,000 words, consisting of at least 3 fictional works by a single author. A collection may contain nonfiction, illustrations, or collaborative works; however at least half of the collection’s contents must be fiction.
f. Anthology: At least 40,000 words, consisting of at least 3 stories by 3 or more authors. An anthology may contain nonfiction, but its content must be at least half fiction. In addition, to be eligible for this award, no less than half of the material contained in the anthology must be original, that is, unpublished prior to its appearance in the anthology.
8. Each category must have three qualified nominees in order to be in contention for an awards year. If three nominations cannot be made for the Awards year, the category will be dropped for that year.
9. The final ballot should contain no more than five works per category. In the event that two works are tied for 5th place, the jurors may revote to break the tie or may include both works on the final ballot, for a total of six items in the category. In the event more than two works are tied for 5th place, the jurors will revote to break the tie. The form of the revote will be at the discretion of the jurors.
10. Special Awards may be given at the discretion of the Jury and shall be announced at the same time the final ballot is made public.