The nominees for the for the 2025 Shirley Jackson Awards have been announced!

The 2025 Shirley Jackson Awards will be presented in-person on Saturday, July 11, 2026, at 8pm at Readercon 35, Conference on Imaginative Literature, in Burlington, Massachusetts. Readercon 35 Guests of Honor P. Djèlí Clark and David Gerrold will host the ceremony.

In recognition of the legacy of Shirley Jackson’s writing, and with permission of the author’s estate, The Shirley Jackson Awards, Inc. has 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. The awards are given for the best work published in the preceding calendar year in the following categories: Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Fiction, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology.

 

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 horror, the dark fantastic, and psychological suspense.

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 English in the following categories:  Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Fiction, Single-Author Collection, and Edited Anthology. The Shirley Jackson Awards is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.

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.

 

CLOSED TO SUBMISSIONS

Thank you for your interest in the Shirley Jackson Awards. Submissions are now closed to works first published in English in 2025. To be included on the notification list for submissions for the 2026 term, we ask publishers to provide their name and email address in the space provided to “Sign up for our newsletter.” Complete eligibility guidelines can be found here. Please contact the administrator with any questions at admin (at) shirleyjacksonawards.org.