The children had stones already. And someone gave little Davy Hutchinson a few pebbles.

February 9, 2009 4:58 AM

How to raise money for the Shirley Jackson Awards? Why, a Lottery, natch.The Shirley Jackson Awards, established in 2007 to reward "outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic" is holding an online lottery beginning today and continuing through February 23 to raise funds for the program. Participants can buy $1 digital lottery tickets for any of 51 donated prizes from authors, editors, artists, and agents. Which prize will draw the most interest? Perhaps an autographed computer keyboard from Neil Gaiman? Or the chance to be Tuckerized in an upcoming work? [Tuckerization explained] Or ... star in a porn role?

The lottery will be held on February 23rd at midnight. Items are being raffled off individually, and you may purchase as many tickets per item as you would like. For each item, one winner will be chosen using a computerized random number generator, and winning names and prizes will be announced on the website.

By the way, the list of Shirley Jackson literary award winners from 2008 is here. A review of the top award winner for best novel, Elizabeth Hand's "Generation Loss" is here. If you've never read Shirley Jackson's short story "The Lottery" (gasp!), you can read it here, hear it here, or even watch it on youtube.

posted by taz (32 comments total)

Did you just call me a "natch"?
posted by 0xdeadc0de at 5:17 AM on February 9 [2 favorites has favorites]

/Anecdote: When I was in 10th grade, we had to read then write a paper on "The Lottery." A couple of kids chose not to write a paper and instead made a video, in which they went around to various businesses and had employees/customers/random people look into the camera and simply say, "There's always been a lottery." About five minutes of that. An old man with white hair and overalls, a middle-aged woman in a Pizza Hut uniform, some guy shopping at K-mart, a young woman with her two children. All looking calm and bored and staring into the camera, reciting the same thing over and over until it became a crazed mantra of institutionalized, random death. I have no idea if they intended it to be so brilliant, but it was incredibly creepy and profoundly disturbing, high marks for a high school project.

Also, thanks for the links. Perhaps I'll throw a dollar into the pot.
posted by billysumday at 5:19 AM on February 9 [11 favorites has favorites]

Participants can buy $1 digital lottery tickets for any of 51 donated prizes from authors, editors, artists, and agents.

It being the Shirley Jackson Awards, of course there had to be a lottery.
posted by orange swan at 5:30 AM on February 9

of course there had to be a lottery.

Don't take it for granted, Orange Swan. In the north village, they're talking of giving up the lottery.

[Draws spotted slip of paper]

Aw, crap.
posted by Iridic at 6:11 AM on February 9 [2 favorites has favorites]

First prize is Neil Gaiman's keyboard, second prize is a bowl of sugar, third prize is a cup with stars.

You do not want the 3rd prize.
posted by The Whelk at 6:20 AM on February 9

Third prize is you're fired.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:26 AM on February 9 [2 favorites has favorites]

I'm only interested in this lottery if I get to throw rocks at someone.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:43 AM on February 9

I'm sponsoring a "Gift of the Magi" short story contest! To enter, please send wigs and valuable gold watches to me via Metamail.
posted by terranova at 6:49 AM on February 9 [1 favorite has favorites]

The Tuckerization Wikipedia link seemed fun and cool until the Niven/Pournelle examples. Ugh, what a bunch of name-dropping douches they come off as. Which does nothing to raise their estimation of their books either (Mote excepted).
posted by DU at 6:55 AM on February 9

billysumday, I want that video.
posted by mykescipark at 6:59 AM on February 9

I was just thinking that if she were alive today, her Life Among The Savages would be a very funny mommy blog. She had a great gift for writing about the small details which is what made her horror writing so chilling. The attachment to a cup of stars might have been something she observed in one of her own daughters.

What haunts me more on a regular basis than anything from her fictional writings is the "refrigerator of death" from her own real experience-- the idea that your appliance might turn on you and kill your whole family is something that pops into my head sometimes when the fridge smells "funny."
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:12 AM on February 9

the idea that your appliance might turn on you and kill your whole family is something that pops into my head sometimes when the fridge smells "funny." whenever I read a Steven King story
posted by DU at 7:17 AM on February 9

How thoroughly cleaned will the Gaiman keyboard be? I'm asking for a mad scientist/voodoo practitioner friend.
posted by Eideteker at 7:23 AM on February 9

I, um, kinda want to bid on this one.
posted by emmling at 7:34 AM on February 9

I bought my girlfriend a comb, but she had cut her hair.
posted by plexi at 7:47 AM on February 9

I teach that story every year and do a "lottery" in my class to introduce it. Last year, in one class, the girl who "won" happened to have the last name Hutchinson. We were all a little creeped out by that.
posted by etc. at 8:19 AM on February 9

I just can't bring myself to buy a ticket for either of the black spots.
posted by QIbHom at 8:24 AM on February 9

I paid a fiver in a charity auction to help win a Tuckerization. This is why a villain named Plokta now exists in the Marvel universe, so I think it was five pounds well spent.
posted by penguinliz at 8:44 AM on February 9

One of the prizes should be a chance to throw rocks at Dan Brown or Stephenie Meyer.
posted by Ber at 8:59 AM on February 9 [2 favorites has favorites]

There are waaay too many awards for various genres and sub-genres of nerd fiction.
posted by Amanojaku at 9:04 AM on February 9

Wait - so first prize is getting stoned with Neil Gaiman? That bloody rocks!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:07 AM on February 9

The Lottery is one of the few stories that everyone has to read in school that everyone agrees is fucking awesome.

The other one I can think of off the top of my head is Harrison Bergeron.
posted by empath at 9:40 AM on February 9

The Lottery is one of the few stories that everyone has to read in school that everyone agrees is fucking awesome.

I read one that was really weird once. Like, Twilight Zoney. Some kids wake up (?) in a school (?) that's deserted and have to find their way out. That's not nearly enough to ID the story--I was hoping that starting to type a description would trigger more memories.
posted by DU at 9:56 AM on February 9

The other one I can think of off the top of my head is Harrison Bergeron.

Really? I fucking loathed that one. It's a nasty little reactionary straw-man argument dressed up as a short story.

(I did love The Lottery, though.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 10:37 AM on February 9

I sure hope Shirley Jackson didn't drop any Tuckerizations into The Lottery. While it may be cathartic, it sure as hell would've been creepy.
posted by Spatch at 10:45 AM on February 9

Really? I fucking loathed that one. It's a nasty little reactionary straw-man argument dressed up as a short story.

You can read it like that was as an adult, but I still read it as I did when I was 13, as fucking hilarious.

I still get chills about Nell in The Haunting Of Hill house. It's such a dead-on portrayal of going sir-crazy and having a paranoid breakdown
posted by The Whelk at 11:10 AM on February 9

I am Sir Crazy! Of the trapezohedral table natch! I prithee, make with the genuflections forthwith!
posted by Mister_A at 12:22 PM on February 9

And yes, The Lottery was a real watershed story for me too. The eerie quiet of it, the slowly building dread, the simplicity, all make for a wonderful llittle tale.
posted by Mister_A at 12:24 PM on February 9

I read one that was really weird once. Like, Twilight Zoney. Some kids wake up (?) in a school (?) that's deserted and have to find their way out. That's not nearly enough to ID the story--I was hoping that starting to type a description would trigger more memories.

Not House of Stairs, was it?
posted by not that girl at 12:47 PM on February 9 [1 favorite has favorites]

Tis strange...in the past 4 weeks Ms. Jackson's Lottery has come up on a daily basis. There is some deep meaning into all this. A stick..a stone...something peculiar. I dare not
say it. I can hear it in the wind. It is something dark and moist but it aint chocolate. Like a laughing dog who stops laughing when you enter the room or that scarey doll with the fixed stare who blinks whenever Kathie Lee Gifford is on. I shall play this game. I shall play it well.
If I win, will I see you all in Hell.
posted by doctorschlock at 1:50 PM on February 9

It's hilarious you would think of that, not that girl. I got a MeMail from merelyglib with the same guess. And an AskMe from just a few weeks ago!!!

I've got it on hold at the library. Can't wait to check the guesses.
posted by DU at 4:37 PM on February 9

(It wasn't my book. FYI.)
posted by DU at 10:02 AM on February 19