Online "Lottery" to Benefit the Shirley Jackson Awards

Online "Lottery" to Benefit the Shirley Jackson Awards
Takes place from February 9 through February 23, 2009
Boston, MA (January 2009) – The Shirley Jackson Awards will hold
a "lottery" to raise funds for the award. This on-line event takes
place from February 9, 2009 through February 23, 2009. Persons buy
as many "lottery tickets" as they want in hopes of being selected the
winner for any of an array of donated prizes from well-known authors,
editors, artists, and agents.

"Lottery" tickets are $1 each and can be purchased from
http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/store/

Persons may purchase as many tickets as desired. Tickets will be
available from February 9th, 2009 through February 23rd, 2009. At
midnight on February 23rd, "lottery" winners will be selected
randomly for each item and announced on the website. Prizes will be
mailed to the lucky winners.

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
psychological suspense, horror, and the dark fantastic.

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. National Book Critics Circle Award-
winning novelist Jonathan Lethem has called Jackson "one of this
century's most luminous and strange American writers," and multiple
generations of authors would agree.

Partial List of Donations to be Awarded
• From Ash-Tree Press: Collections of Sheridan Le Fanu: Mr.
Justice Harbottle; The Haunted Baronet; Schalkin the Painter.
• From Laird Barron: A signed/personalized copy of his award
winning short story collection, The Imago Sequence (Nightshade), plus
an original piece of short fiction, in a separate, unbound manuscript.
• From Elizabeth Bear: Personally inscribed copy of The Chains
That You Refuse, an out of print collection of short stories
• From James Blaylock: Signed copy (by James Blaylock and Tim
Powers) of The Devils in the Details (Subterranean Press)
• From Douglas Clegg: Signed copy of the Vampyricon trilogy
• From Jeffrey Ford: Keyboard used to write several novels &
collections, signed by Jeffrey Ford, to the winner.
• From Neil Gaiman: Keyboard, signed by Neil Gaiman, to the
winner.
• From Brian Keene: Signed galley for Scratch, his forthcoming
novel
• From Nightshade Books: Limited edition of Tim Lebbon's Light
and other tales of Ruin
• From Stewart O'Nan: Signed copy of unproduced screenplay, POE
• From Paul Riddell: Carnivorous plant terrarium
• From Peter Straub: A reading copy of The Skylark, Part 1, read
at ICFA in Orlando 3/2008.
• Tuckerizations by Ekaterina Sedia, Laura Anne Gilman, Nick
Mamatas
• Manuscript/Proposal critiques from John Douglas, Alice Turner,
Beth Flesicher, Helen Atsma, and Stephen Barbara

"Lottery" Rules
Tickets will be on sale from February 9th through February 23rd,
midnight, Eastern Daylight Time. The lottery will be held on February
23rd at midnight. Items will be raffled off individually. Persons may
purchase as many tickets per item as desired. For example, a person
may purchase ten tickets for the "ITEM" and fifty tickets for "ITEM
2." Each ticket purchase increases your chances of winning. For
example, if you purchase five tickets of the "ITEM 3" and a total of
ten tickets for that item have been sold , your odds of winning are 5
out of 10.

For each item, one winner will be chosen using a computerized random
number generator. The winning names and prizes will be announced on
the Shirley Jackson Awards website,
http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org. The donating party will mail or
deliver the prize to the lucky winner.

All proceeds from the lottery go to support the Shirley Jackson
Awards.

Lottery Information website:
http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/lottery/

List of All Lottery Items:
http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/store/

Contact Information:
Media representatives who are seeking further information or
interviews should contact:
JoAnn F. Cox, Awards Administrator, admin [at] shirley jackson awards
[dot] org

For more information about the on-line "lottery", contact:
Matthew Kressel, Lottery Administrator, matt [at] senses five [dot]
com

A trip to the doctor

Appointment at noon with my internist. Ellie came with me.

My doc and I talked, he said I needed to see a surgeon (from what I told him) and he set me up with his upstairs office neighbor about half an hour later. Very cool guy from Montreal. He listened to the story, unwrapped it and although I said I did NOT want to see it I peeked and it wasn't sooo bad. Clean, no infection any more--pink and as Ellie and I agreed, looks exactly like a zombie took a bite out of my leg before the bad stuff sets in.

Options: First was the surgical one--(he IS a surgeon after all)--skin graft--would need a decent bit of skin from my outer thigh --that would hurt. Wound would not. It would be done out patient but have to be checked regularly and could reject the graft. Would take awhile to heal. And although it's minor surgery it is surgery

Second--some kind of surgical pump that would have to be attached to my leg and which I would have to lug around with me for weeks--not so good

So I'd pretty much decided on the graft and he wrapped me and then he said..there is one other option: the unaboot, a pressure bandage impregnated withe meds that promotes healing and needs to be changed once a week. There's the possibility that the wound will stop healing at a certain point over the next few weeks but even if that's the case, the wound would be substantially smaller, hence any skin graft would be similarly smaller. I can live with that.

So that's what I got--he wrapped gauze around it that he says will fall apart and that I need to replace with an ace bandage (I bought some) and I'll be back to see him Thursday afternoon for a look as to how it's doing.

Slight update 7:15
One of the nurses on Mary Ward C just called me from London to see how I'm doing. I cannot express how moved I am by this. I asked her to give everyone on the ward an update on how my leg is.

Three more reviews of Poe

The Speculator by Paul Di Filippo
and
Horror World


Also:

The Tomb
(scroll down for all of them).

Green Man Review's wake for YBFH

A bittersweet wake (but aren't they all?)