Why Didn't You Just Leave is a Shirley Jackson Award Finalist!

Why Didn’t You Just Leave is a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award! Congratulations to all the authors who wrote incredible things for us!

Why Didn't You Just Leave is a Shirley Jackson Award Finalist!
Shirley Jackson Award finalists for 2025 in the Edited Anthology catergory

I'm delighted to share that Why Didn’t You Just Leave is a finalist for the Shirley Jackson Award! This is amazing! My co-editor Nadia Bulkin and I love all the stories in this anthology, and we are thrilled to see them getting some recognition. Congratulations to all the authors who wrote incredible things for us!

the cover of Why Didn't You Just Leave, edited by Julia Rios and Nadia Bulkin, featuring a shadowy figure in a window.

If you haven't yet picked up this terrifying collection of ghost stories, you can get it in paperback here: https://www.cursedmorselspress.com/product/why-didn-t-you-just-leave-paperback/25

You can also get it in ebook here: https://www.cursedmorselspress.com/product/why-didn-t-you-just-leave-ebook/26

Extra congratulations to contributors who also are finalists for other works, including Christa Carmen, who is up in the same category as us for Monsters in the Mills! Eden Royce and Nadia are both up in Novella, and Lyndsey Croal is up in Novelette! Additionally, Bury Your Gays (another of the finalist anthologies) was published by Ghoulish Books, which is run by another of the Why Didn't You Just Leave contributors, Max Booth.

The rest of the Shirley Jackson Awards list this year is also full of fantastic work, and you can check the whole thing out at https://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org.

The awards will be presented at Readercon in July, and I am planning to be there to celebrate all the nominees and winners. If you are coming, do say hello!