News & Blog

The nominees for the 2012 Shirley Jackson Awards — my favorite literary award for psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic — have been officially announced! And they are:

NOVEL

• The Drowning Girl, Caitlín R. Kiernan (ROC)
• The Devil in Silver, Victor LaValle (Spiegel & Grau)
• Edge, Koji Suzuki (Vertical, Inc.)
• Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn (Crown Publishers)
• Immobility, Brian Evenson (Tor)

NOVELLA

• 28 Teeth of Rage, Ennis Drake (Omnium Gatherum Media)
• Delphine Dodd, S.P. Miskowski (Omnium Gatherum Media)
• I’m Not Sam, Jack Ketchum and Lucky McKee (Sinister Grin Press/ Cemetery Dance Publications)
• The Indifference Engine, Project Itoh (Haikasoru/VIZ Media LLC)
• “Sky,” Kaaron Warren (Through Splintered Walls, Twelfth Planet Press)

NOVELETTE

• “The Crying Child,” Bruce McAllister (originally “The Bleeding Child,” Cemetery Dance #68)
• “The House on Ashley Avenue,” Ian Rogers (Every House is Haunted, ChiZine Publications)
• “Reeling for the Empire,” Karen Russell (Tin House, Winter 2012)
• “Wild Acre,” Nathan Ballingrud (Visions, Fading Fast, Pendragon Press)
• “The Wish Head,” Jeffrey Ford (Crackpot Palace, William Morrow)

SHORT FICTION

• “Bajazzle,” Margo Lanagan (Cracklescape, Twelfth Planet Press)
• “How We Escaped Our Certain Fate,” Dan Chaon (21^st Century Dead, St. Martin’s)
• “Little America,” Dan Chaon (Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, William Morrow)
• “The Magician’s Apprentice,” Tamsyn Muir (Weird Tales #359)
• “A Natural History of Autumn,” Jeffrey Ford (Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July/August 2012)
• “Two Houses,” Kelly Link (Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, William Morrow)

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION

• Crackpot Palace, Jeffrey Ford (William Morrow)
• Errantry, Elizabeth Hand (Small Beer Press)
• The Pottawatomie Giant and Other Stories, Andy Duncan (PS Publishing)
• Remember Why You Fear Me, Robert Shearman (ChiZine Publications)
• The Woman Who Married a Cloud, Jonathan Carroll (Subterranean Press)
• Windeye, Brian Evenson (Coffee House Press)

EDITED ANTHOLOGY

• 21^st Century Dead, edited by Christopher Golden (St. Martin’s)
• Black Wings II, edited by S. T. Joshi (PS Publishing)
• Exotic Gothic 4:  Postscripts #28/29, edited by Danel Olson (PS Publishing)
• Night Shadows, edited by Greg Herren and J. M.  Redmann (Bold Strokes Books)
• Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, edited by Sam Weller and Mort Castle (William Morrow)

Congratulations to all the nominees, but especially to my good friends Victor LaValle, Jack Ketchum, Ian Rogers, Nathan Ballingrud, Jeffrey Ford, Kelly Link, Robert Shearman, Christopher Golden, and Mort Castle. Not that I’m playing favorites!

The 2012 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented on Sunday, July 14^th at Readercon 24 in Burlington, Massachusetts and will be hosted by Guest of Honor Maureen McHugh.

As 2012 draws to a close, the recommendation/nomination periods for the Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards do too. The Bram Stoker Award deadline is January 15, and the Nebula Award deadline is February 15. To assist you in finding materials you will hopefully find worthy, I’ve assembled this list of works I’ve published in 2012.

• For the Nebula Award, my science fiction novelette “The Sorcerer’s Apprenticebot” was published in IDW’s prose anthology Zombies vs. Robots: This Means War! in May 2012. If you are an Active or Associate SFWA member, feel free to email me at nick DOT kaufmann AT gmail DOT com to request a free copy of the story, as either a Word document or a PDF.

• For the Bram Stoker Award, my horror collection Still Life: Nine Stories was published by Necon eBooks in August 2012. If you are an HWA member, feel free to email me at nick DOT kaufmann AT gmail DOT com to request a free copy of the book, as either a mobi or epub file.

• Also for the Bram Stoker Award, there are two original horror stories in Still Life: “The Beat of Her Wings,” which is eligible for the Short Fiction category, and “(F)Earless,” which is eligible for the Long Fiction category. If you are an HWA member, feel free to email me at nick DOT kaufmann AT gmail DOT com to request free copies of these stories as Word documents.

Thanks, and happy reading!

The 2012 World Fantasy Award final ballot has been announced!

Novel
• Those Across the River, Christopher Buehlman (Ace)
• 11/22/63, Stephen King (Scribner; Hodder & Stoughton as 11.22.63)
• A Dance with Dragons, George R.R. Martin (Bantam; Harper Voyager UK)
• Osama, Lavie Tidhar (PS Publishing)
• Among Others, Jo Walton (Tor)

Novella
• “Near Zennor”, Elizabeth Hand (A Book of Horrors)
• “A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong”, K.J. Parker (Subterranean Winter 2011)
• “Alice Through the Plastic Sheet”, Robert Shearman (A Book of Horrors)
• “Rose Street Attractors”, Lucius Shepard (Ghosts by Gaslight)
• Silently and Very Fast, Catherynne M. Valente (WSFA Press; Clarkesworld)

Short Fiction
• “X for Demetrious”, Steve Duffy (Blood and Other Cravings)
• “Younger Women”, Karen Joy Fowler (Subterranean Summer 2011)
• “The Paper Menagerie”, Ken Liu (F&SF 3-4/11)
• “A Journey of Only Two Paces”, Tim Powers (The Bible Repairman and Other Stories)
• “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees”, E. Lily Yu (Clarkesworld 4/11)

Anthology
• Blood and Other Cravings, Ellen Datlow, ed. (Tor)
• A Book of Horrors, Stephen Jones, ed. (Jo Fletcher Books)
• The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Harper Voyager US)
• The Weird, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer, eds. (Corvus; Tor, published May 2012)
• Gutshot, Conrad Williams, ed. (PS Publishing)

Collection
• Bluegrass Symphony, Lisa L. Hannett (Ticonderoga)
• Two Worlds and In Between, Caitlín R. Kiernan (Subterranean Press)
• After the Apocalypse, Maureen F. McHugh (Small Beer)
• Mrs Midnight and Other Stories, Reggie Oliver (Tartarus)
• The Bible Repairman and Other Stories, Tim Powers (Tachyon)

Artist
• John Coulthart
• Julie Dillon
• Jon Foster
• Kathleen Jennings
• John Picacio

Special Award Professional
• John Joseph Adams, for editing – anthology and magazine
• Jo Fletcher, for editing – Jo Fletcher Books
• Eric Lane, for publishing in translation – Dedalus books
• Brett Alexander Savory & Sandra Kasturi, for ChiZine Publications
• Jeff VanderMeer & S.J. Chambers, for The Steampunk Bible

Special Award Non-Professional
• Kate Baker, Neil Clarke, Cheryl Morgan & Sean Wallace, for Clarkesworld
• Cat Rambo, for Fantasy
• Raymond Russell & Rosalie Parker, for Tartarus Press
• Charles Tan, for Bibliophile Stalker blog
• Mark Valentine, for Wormwood

2012 World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Awards
The convention is pleased to announce that the 2012 World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Awards will be presented to Alan Garner and George R.R. Martin.

Congrats to all the nominees! Extra special huge congrats to my publishers, Brett Savory and Sandra Kasturi of ChiZine Publications, for their Special Award Professional nomination! Also, big congrats to my friend Ellen Datlow for the Blood and Other Cravings nomination in Anthology!

I know it’s April Fool’s Day and this list of Stoker winners might appear suspicious because it actually includes some authors and publishers you’ve heard of, instead of just the usual HWA members and small presses that almost exclusively publish them, but I assure you it’s real! I suspect the new semi-juried system is to thank for making this list of winners somewhat less embarrassing than the lists have been of late, at least in my opinion. (Though, as you’ll see, at least one of the old issues is unfortunately still alive and kicking.) So here are the winners, announced at a ceremony last night at the World Horror Convention in Salt Lake City, which also marked the 25th anniversary of the awards:

Superior Achievement in a NOVEL
Flesh Eaters by Joe McKinney (Pinnacle Books)

Superior Achievement in a FIRST NOVEL
Isis Unbound by Allyson Bird (Dark Regions Press)

Superior Achievement in a YOUNG ADULT NOVEL (tie)
The Screaming Season by Nancy Holder (Razorbill)
Dust and Decay by Jonathan Maberry (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)

Superior Achievement in a GRAPHIC NOVEL
Neonomicon by Alan Moore (Avatar Press)

Superior Achievement in LONG FICTION
“The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine” by Peter Straub (Conjunctions: 56)

Superior Achievement in SHORT FICTION
“Herman Wouk Is Still Alive” by Stephen King (The Atlantic Magazine, May 2011)

Superior Achievement in a SCREENPLAY
American Horror Story, episode #12: “Afterbirth” by Jessica Sharzer (20th Century Fox Television)

Superior Achievement in a FICTION COLLECTION
The Corn Maiden and Other Nightmares by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)

Superior Achievement in an ANTHOLOGY
Demons: Encounters with the Devil and his Minions, Fallen Angels and the Possessed edited by John Skipp (Black Dog and Leventhal)

Superior Achievement in NON-FICTION
Stephen King: A Literary Companion by Rocky Wood (McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers)

(Here, unfortunately, is the issue I mentioned up top. With all due respect to Mr. Wood, in the year when Jason Zinoman’s superlative Shock Value comes out, not to mention John Landis’ extensive and gorgeously illustrated Monsters in the Movies, to give the award to the organization’s president for his Nth book on Stephen King minutia, strikes me as indicative that some of the old nepotistic problems with the Stokers still exist. Hopefully, the continuation of a semi-juried approach will eventually make this a thing of the past, but every time the organization eschews quality works to give the award to its own president–this isn’t the first time–the Stoker’s legacy and import are cheapened.)

Superior Achievement in a POETRY COLLECTION
How to Recognize a Demon Has Become Your Friend by Linda Addison (Necon Ebooks)

But that’s not all! The HWA, in conjunction with the Bram Stoker Family Estate and the Rosenbach Museum & Library, also presented the special Vampire Novel of the Century Award. Regular readers of this blog know that I had my virtual money on either Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend or Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot, with Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire a possible but distant spoiler. Well, the winner is:

I Am Legend by Richard Matheson

No surprises there, really. Frankly, I would have been more surprised if Interview had won, since it features romantic vampires and the HWA kind of hates that. But I love I Am Legend and thus am satisfied with the award.

Congratulations are in order to all the winners, and also to Rick Hautala and Joe R. Lansdale, both of whom were awarded the HWA’s annual Lifetime Achievement Award. I know Rick personally, and he’s such a great, sweet man that I kind of wish I could have been there to congratulate him in person. It’ll just have to wait until this year’s NECon, I suppose. I’d say drinks are on me, but hell, you’d have to have Mitt Romney levels of money to buy anyone drinks at NECon!