Shirley Jackson

Born in California, Shirley Jackson achieved posthumous fame as one of America's most significant horror and mystery writers. Her work often explored psychological torment, the sinister undercurrents of small-town life, and the anxieties of domesticity, making readers wonder if their neighbors were really all that friendly.

Her most famous short story, "The Lottery," published in The New Yorker in 1948, caused a national sensation and sparked more reader mail than any other story in the magazine's history—most of it outraged. Clearly, a lot of people took issue with the idea of communal stoning being a bad thing. Or perhaps they just didn't appreciate having their idyllic suburban fantasies shattered.

Jackson also penned classic novels such as "The Haunting of Hill House" and "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," both masterclasses in dread and psychological suspense. While her characters grappled with isolation and madness, Jackson herself was a prolific author, wife, and mother, somehow managing to conjure existential terror between school runs and dinner.

Despite her profound influence on subsequent generations of horror writers (and her uncanny ability to make you sleep with the lights on), Shirley Jackson herself was not Jewish. She was, however, exceptionally good at making everyone else feel uneasy.