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The Best Horror of the Year: The Winners of the Shirley Jackson Awards

Here are the winners of this year's Shirley Jackson Awards, recognizing outstanding achievement in horror and related genres.

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The Shirley Jackson Awards recognize “outstanding achievement in the literature of horror, the dark fantastic, and psychological suspense.” Beginning in 2007, they award works in these genres according to format, including Novel, Novelette, Short Fiction, and Anthology. This year’s winners are all books published in 2021.

Winner in the Novel category:

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones book cover

My Heart Is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones

Runners up:

Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

All the Murmuring Bones by A.G. Slatter

No Gods, No Monsters by Cadwell Turnbull

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer

Other Winners:

Novella: Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn

the cover of When Things Get Dark

Single-Author Collection: Folk Songs for Trauma Surgeons: Stories by Keith Rosson

Edited Anthology (TIE): Professor Charlatan Bardot’s Travel Anthology to the Most (Fictional) Haunted Buildings in the Weird, Wild World edited by Eric J. Guignard and Unfettered Hexes: Queer Tales of Insatiable Darkness edited by dave ring

Special Award: Ellen Datlow, for editing When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired By Shirley Jackson

Novelette: “We, the Girls Who Did Not Make It” by E. A. Petricone (Nightmare 2/21)

Short Fiction: “You’ll Understand When You’re a Mom Someday” by Isabel J. Kim (khōréō 8/21)

Find all winners and nominees at Locus Magazine.

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