When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson
About this audiobook
A chilling anthology collecting stories from today’s best horror writers, inspired by and in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson
Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant, and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and readers.
This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, brings together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson.
Featuring Joyce Carol Oates, Josh Malerman, Carmen Maria Machado, Paul Tremblay, Richard Kadrey, Stephen Graham Jones, Elizabeth Hand, Kelly Link, Cassandra Khaw, Karen Heuler, Benjamin Percy, John Langan, Laird Barron, Jeffrey Ford, M. Rickert, Seanan McGuire, Gemma Files, and Genevieve Valentine.
About the author
Josh Malerman is the acclaimed author of Bird Box, as well as the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band The High Strung. He lives in Michigan.
SEANAN McGUIRE is the author of the Hugo, Nebula, Alex and Locus Award-winning Wayward Children series, the October Daye series, the InCryptid series, and other works. She also writes darker fiction as Mira Grant. Seanan lives in Seattle with her cats, a vast collection of creepy dolls, horror movies, and sufficient books to qualify her as a fire hazard. She won the 2010 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and in 2013 became the first person to appear five times on the same Hugo ballot. In 2022 she managed the same feat, again!
Ellen Datlow has been editing science fiction, fantasy, and horror short fiction for forty years as fiction editor of Omni magazine and editor of Event Horizon and Sci Fiction. She currently acquires short stories and novellas for Tor.com. In addition, she has edited about one hundred science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologies.She’s won multiple World Fantasy Awards, Locus Awards, Hugo Awards, Bram Stoker Awards, International Horror Guild Awards, Shirley Jackson Awards, and the 2012 Il Posto Nero Black Spot Award for Excellence as Best Foreign Editor. Datlow was named recipient of the 2007 Karl Edward Wagner Award, given at the British Fantasy Convention for “outstanding contribution to the genre,” was honored with the Life Achievement Award by the Horror Writers Association, in acknowledgment of superior achievement over an entire career, and was honored with the World Fantasy Life Achievement Award at the 2014 World Fantasy Convention.She lives in New York and co-hosts the monthly Fantastic Fiction Reading Series at KGB Bar. More information can be found at Datlow.com, on Facebook, and on Twitter as @EllenDatlow. She’s owned by two cats.
Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.
Others, as in, not you
Elizabeth Hand is the author of more than nineteen cross-genre novels and collections of short fiction. Her work has received the Shirley Jackson Award three times, the World Fantasy Award four times, and the Nebula Award twice, as well as the James M. Tiptree Jr. and Mythopoeic Society awards.
BENJAMIN PERCY has won a Whiting Award, a Plimpton Prize, two Pushcart Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and the iHeartRadio Award for Best Scripted Podcast. He is the author of the novels The Ninth Metal, The Unfamiliar Garden, The Dark Net, The Dead Lands, Red Moon, and The Wilding; three story collections; and an essay collection, Thrill Me. He also writes Wolverine and X-Force for Marvel Comics. He lives in Minnesota with his family.
Feodor Chin, an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, is an actor classically trained at the American Conservatory Theater and UCLA. His acting career includes numerous credits in film, television, theater, and voice-over.
Patrick Cullen (a.k.a. John Lescault), a native of Massachusetts, is a graduate of the Catholic University of America. He lives in Washington, DC, where he works in theater.
Cassandra Campbell has recorded over one hundred audiobooks and directed many more. She has received eight Earphone Awards and has been nominated for an Audie Award. As an actress and director, she has worked off Broadway and in regional theaters across the country, as well as doing voice work on numerous commercials and films.
Kate Mulligan has acted with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for more than ten seasons in productions including Hairspray, Alice in Wonderland, and Sense and Sensibility. Her film and television work includes Being John Malkovich and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
Joniece Abbott-Pratt has narrated many audiobooks for children, young adults, and adults. She has won several AudioFile Earphones Awards and in 2021 was a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for Best Fantasy Narration. She earned an MFA degree in acting from the University of Iowa and has performed on regional theater stages across the country, including the Public Theater in New York City. She has also appeared on television shows, including The Good Fight, Law and Order: SVU, Luke Cage, and Orange Is the New Black, and has voiced commercials and projects for US Bank, Johnson & Johnson, and others.
Erin Moon is a professional AEA/CAEA/SAG-AFTRA actor and the award-winning narrator of over 325 novels. She is celebrated for her facility with accents and characterization, as well as her ability to read with humor and heart. Erin narrates everything from YA to romance (under a romance pseudonym) to holistic health nonfiction (as she happens to be a Certified Yoga Therapist). She is a fifteen-year veteran in audiobooks, having worked as a director and editor for four-and-a-half years, working on at least 400 books before she even started narrating. Now, understandably, she is also a sought-after coach, director, and panelist. After thirteen years in NYC she now lives, gardens, hikes, and records in beautiful Vancouver, Canada.
Bernadette Dunne has been honored to narrate the work of some of the finest fiction and nonfiction writers of our time, including Margaret Atwood, Joyce Carol Oates, and Sandra Day O'Connor. The winner of more than a dozen Earphones Awards and a three-time Audie Award nominee, she has voiced countless bestsellers, including Memoirs of a Geisha, The Devil Wears Prada, and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She studied at The Royal National Theater and lives in New York.
Nicol Zanzarella is an award-winning audiobook narrator, with titles spanning multiple genres in both fiction and nonfiction. She came to audiobook narration after (literally) growing up within the walls of a local radio station that her father ran, and brings with her a background in both classical and contemporary theater, as well as film. She also has numerous television and radio commercials to her credit. Originally from Yonkers, New York, she currently lives in California, where, when not in the booth, you can usually find her drinking coffee, cooking her grandmother's Italian recipes, or in the local boxing gym. Thank you for listening!
