What was your introduction to the literary magic of Shirley Jackson? Mine was her famous and famously disturbing horror story “The Lottery.” Young people reading it today seem to think “Nothing new here,” or “Where’s the gore and swearing?” I’m sorry for their loss of not being taught the critical thinking skills they needed to appreciate this chilling and cautionary tale.
I read this story in my teens, when, without the ubiquity of spoilers, it was still new and fresh. Jackson’s depiction of an everyday event in an everyday town that suddenly, without notice, turned horrific chilled me to my core. I never recovered from the shock.
While people romanticize the past and create golden ages that never existed, these fantasies can be rooted in a seed of truth. In Jackson’s heyday, the late 1940s, popular culture was full of books that became classics. Her contemporaries, whose work continues to be read, both in and out of school, include Jack Kerouac, Ray Bradbury, Agatha Christie, Robert A. Heinlein, Ngaio Marsh, James A. Michener, Mickey Spillane, John Steinbeck, Truman Capote, Ellery Queen, Jorge Luis Borges, Margaret Wise Brown (Goodnight Moon), Dr. Seuss, Astrid Lindgren (Pippi Longstocking), and Tove Jansson (the Moomins). Publishers thought “Is this a rollicking good story?” not “Is this person famous enough to make huge profits before people realize there’s nothing here?”
Is modern literature designed for a use-it-and-toss it culture? The most highly sought out authors are often famous actors, social media influencers, and conspicuous names, chosen for their fame, not their writing skills.
In many ways, the written word has never been more popular and more readily accessible. Media used to be owned by the rich because it required huge sums of money to employ the people necessary to gather information, print it, and sell it. Now, news is available online, sometimes free, but certainly for a smaller cost. Personal commentary observations are booming because a printing press is no longer needed to write commentary, or, as it’s called now, a blog. Even better, e-books are available anytime, anywhere to read at once.
As behemoths swallow up the traditional publishing houses to focus on quantity over quality, small publishers step into the empty pages left behind. Would today’s major publishers sign Shirley Jackson, a quiet and mousy academic who hated the limelight and was known for her disturbing and grim stories?
“What’s she famous for?”
“Her haunting and astounding writing.”
“And?”
“Her writing is unforgettable!”
“Pass. Can’t sell an unknown.”
Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House is considered a masterpiece. It’s been interpreted in film and other media. Today’s audience knows it from the limited series Netflix debuted in 2018. In 1959, this horror novel, a piece of genre fiction by an unknown woman, was a finalist for the prestigious National Book Award.
How would today’s next Shirley Jackson get her writing to the audience? She would choose a small business focused on good stories and writing that makes people think.
Jane Gwaltney learned from Jackson’s quality writing. Gwaltney’s stories in magazines and anthologies have amazed, puzzled, and horrified, but most importantly, have made readers think. That’s the legacy of literary heroes like Jackson.
Many of Gwaltney’s stories have been collected into a collection called Dark Hearts & Tattletales: A Collection by Poe’s Sparrow, published by Sandra Murphy Presents, an imprint of White City Press. Although the collection made its first appearance in the fall, this is definitely the time to revisit it.
Shirley Jackson’s adopted hometown of North Bennington, Vermont, celebrates a day in her honor every year on June 27 to commemorate the date the chilling events in “The Lottery” took place.
Why so much fuss over “just” a little horror story? It’s not “just” anything, except a masterpiece. People may ask, “What makes this story different from the overwhelming amount of horror entertainment we can consume today at the tap of finger?”
I’m glad you asked. Unlike much of the lowest-common-denominator word salad masquerading as stories, newer fiction like Gwaltney’s promotes critical thinking and conversation.
When “The Lottery” was published in The New Yorker in 1948, people devoured books and magazines. There were no TikTok reels. Public education was different. High schoolers learned critical thinking skills, Latin, Greek. They read history, classical literature, and books important to understand American culture and society. They took the time to think about what they read and react to it.
No one was bombarded with information 24/7 from access to social media, the World Wide Web, cable and satellite television, or streaming services with on-demand shows. Much of the media-meal we consume is mass-produced. It’s bread and circuses in a societal sleight-of-hand trick aimed to divert our attention. When entertainment is spoon-fed to us in Happy Meal formats to appeal to the largest number of people, its purpose is to distract and siphon money from us all.
In the mass-market culture, we’ve lost editors and the gatekeepers who retained the high quality to assure we’d read good, satisfying stories. Education is being “fast-foodified,” so we don’t learn how wonderful well-crafted, written, or visual literate art is. If everyone could take the time to read and think, we wouldn’t consume fast and expensive commodities we don’t need.
Small publishers, like White City Press, and skilled writers, like Jane Gwaltney, have chosen a smaller way to bring thoughtful entertainment to readers who were starved for it. We’re targeting critical thinkers. We’re expanding.
And that’s okay. It’s a quiet revolution.
Dark Hearts & Tattletales: A Collection by Poe’s Sparrow
by Jane Gwaltney
Sandra Murphy Presents, an imprint of White City Press, 2024
Linda Kay Hardie writes horror, crime, and SF/fantasy stories, as well as essays (usually about cats, sometimes about baseball). Her latest stories appear in A Killing at the Copa (White City Press, 2025) and Sex & Violins (White City Press, 2024), as well as in charity anthologies: Nature Triumphs (Dark Moon Rising Publications, 2024), The Perp Wore Pumpkin (Misti Media, 2023), and Under Her Eye (Black Spot Books, 2023). Linda’s writing has won awards dating back to fifth grade, with first place for an essay on fire safety. In 2022, the Sierra Arts Foundation honored her with its Literary Arts Award for fiction. Linda is a member of Horror Writers Association, Short Mystery Fiction Society, Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators, and Cat Writers’ Association. Linda is a writer, writing coach, and professional teddy bear (and cat) builder.
