They’re alive!

English and creative writing professor Carol Davison has produced three of the four books on the shortlist for the International Gothic Association’s Allan Lloyd Smith Prize for edited collections.

Awarded along with a prize for the best monograph, it’s the highest honour in the Gothic genre.

“I was told that this is a first — to have three books nominated by the same author,” Dr. Davison said. To have them all shortlisted is a real coup.

Davison’s The Gothic and Death, published in 2017, is a collection of 15 essays. It’s the first study of Gothic and death spanning the mid-18th century to the zombie and vampire fiction of today.

The Edinburgh Companion to Scottish Gothic, also published in 2017 and co-edited by Monica Germanà, contains essays written by some of the top Scottish Studies and Gothic Studies authors.

Global Frankenstein, co-edited by Marie Mulvey-Roberts, was published last year to mark the bicentenary of the publication of the Mary Shelley classic.

Davison began work on the three books while on sabbatical in 2013. The volumes all contain her own chapters and she wrote or co-wrote the introductions.

The prize is in memory of the International Gothic Association’s founding president, who taught creative writing and literature at the University of East Anglia in England.

“I am very honoured to have reached this stage in the journey, especially because I knew Allan well and greatly admire his tremendous contributions to the field,” Davison said.

The winner will be announced at a conference which opens July 30 at Lewis University in Illinois.

—Sarah Sacheli