My second novel, Wild Fell, has been announced as a finalist for the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award. I have very little to say about this honour, other than the fact that I'm really thrilled, and very aware of how thoroughly outclassed I am by my competition.
The other finalists are Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Jackson Bennett, Yangze Choo, Marisha Peshl, and my fellow Canadian, Andrew Pyper—who wrote The Demonologist, a beautiful, terrifying literary horror novel that I had the great pleasure of hearing him read from in 2013.
Shirley Jackson, the author of The Haunting of Hill House and other novels, as well as peerless short fiction, including the 20th century classic, "The Lottery," has always been something of an idol of mine, not only for her almost supernatural ability to arrange words on the page in a way that creates images that last a lifetime, but also for some of her personal journeys, to which I can relate.
Congratulations to all my fellow nominees in the Novel category, and to all the other finalists. I hope to meet many of you at Readercon in Boston, in July.