The Shirley Jackson Awards | 2017

I know a lot of people on Booktube, Bookstagram, and reading blogs keep up with several literary prizes. The Women’s Prize, International Man Booker, CBC Canada Reads, Bram Stoker, and Pulitzer among the most popular. I decided this year to try to keep up with at least one prize: The Shirley Jackson Awards. This award was created in recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic. My favourite kind!

I am only going to read the novels nominated as I know I won’t be able to find the rest in time (most of the short fiction is found under publications that require subscription). I placed holds on the five novels which have been nominated for this prize at my local library. They will announce the winner by July 15, so I have about a month to get through these five novels, which should be achievable. I may end up reading 2-3 of the novellas but that is where I will stop. Here are the five novels nominated:

• Ill Will, Dan Chaon (Ballantine Books)
• The Bone Mother, David Demchuk (ChiZine Publications)
• The Changeling, Victor Lavalle (Spiegel & Grau)
• The Hole, Hye-young Pyun (Arcade Publishing)
• The Night Ocean, Paul La Farge (Penguin Press)

Boy Eating

The full list of other categories can be found here. I will try to put a review for each of the five within the next month and see how I’d rank them.

Just an update, right now I’m also reading a lot of children’s stories and children’s literature. It’s a “fantastical” kind of mood I’ve been having. I wanted to take on this project because it’s nice to have an ongoing challenge that has a definitive end (July 15). Anything that would be stretched out over a longer period of time…well… I’m afraid I’d fail or lose interest. If you also want to keep up, feel free to join in! The public library should have all these, and you can join in the conversation as I review these. If you already wrote about any of them in the past, or will in the future on your own review blog and would like to share it with me, just put a link below, I’d love to read your thoughts on these. I will start with The Bone Mother by David Demchuck.