Laird Barron
Encyclopedia
Laird Samuel Barron is an award winning author and poet, much of whose work falls within the horror
, noir
, and dark fantasy
genres. He has also been the Managing Editor of the online literary magazine Melic Review. He lives in Olympia, Washington
.
, where he raced the Iditarod three times during the early 1990s and worked as fisherman on the Bering Sea
. He has described the circumstances of his youth in various interviews as exceedingly harsh due to his family's dwelling in isolated regions and general poverty. Barron retired from racing and moved to Washington in 1994. He became active on the poetry scene, publishing with a number of online journals and eventually serving as the managing editor of the Melic Review. His professional writing debut occurred in 2001 when Gordon Van Gelder
published Shiva, Open Your Eye in the September issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
. Barron's debut collection, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories, was published in 2007 by Night Shade Books
.
He has stated affection for pulp
fiction, westerns, and noir
, and his work typically combines one or more of these elements with a horrific or weird supernatural intrusion. Barron has frequently referred to the Bible
as "the greatest horror story ever told."
In addition to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
, Barron's work has been featured in SCI FICTION
, Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, Lovecraft Unbound, Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, and The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It has also been reprinted in numerous year's best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards.
He was a 2007 and 2010 Shirley Jackson Award
winner for his collections The Imago Sequence and Other Stories and Occultation and Other Stories and 2009
nominee for his novelette "Catch Hell" Other award nominations include the Crawford Award
, Sturgeon Award, International Horror Guild Award
, World Fantasy Award
, Bram Stoker Award
and the Locus Award
.
His first novel, The Croning, will be published in 2012 by Night Shade Books.
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
, noir
Hardboiled
Hardboiled crime fiction is a literary style, most commonly associated with detective stories, distinguished by the unsentimental portrayal of violence and sex. The style was pioneered by Carroll John Daly in the mid-1920s, popularized by Dashiell Hammett over the course of the decade, and refined...
, and dark fantasy
Dark fantasy
Dark fantasy is a term used to describe a fantasy story with a pronounced horror element.-Overview:A strict definition for dark fantasy is difficult to pin down. Gertrude Barrows Bennett has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". Both Charles L...
genres. He has also been the Managing Editor of the online literary magazine Melic Review. He lives in Olympia, Washington
Olympia, Washington
Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington and the county seat of Thurston County. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. The population was 46,478 at the 2010 census...
.
Biography
Mr. Barron spent his early years in AlaskaAlaska
Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...
, where he raced the Iditarod three times during the early 1990s and worked as fisherman on the Bering Sea
Bering Sea
The Bering Sea is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It comprises a deep water basin, which then rises through a narrow slope into the shallower water above the continental shelves....
. He has described the circumstances of his youth in various interviews as exceedingly harsh due to his family's dwelling in isolated regions and general poverty. Barron retired from racing and moved to Washington in 1994. He became active on the poetry scene, publishing with a number of online journals and eventually serving as the managing editor of the Melic Review. His professional writing debut occurred in 2001 when Gordon Van Gelder
Gordon Van Gelder
Gordon Van Gelder is a Hugo Award-winning American science fiction editor. As of 2008, Van Gelder is both editor and publisher of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, for which he has twice won the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form...
published Shiva, Open Your Eye in the September issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
. Barron's debut collection, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories, was published in 2007 by Night Shade Books
Night Shade Books
Night Shade Books is an independent publishing company based in San Francisco, specializing in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It was started in 1997 by Jason Williams, with Jeremy Lassen coming on board as a partner shortly after the company's founding...
.
He has stated affection for pulp
Pulp magazine
Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...
fiction, westerns, and noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
, and his work typically combines one or more of these elements with a horrific or weird supernatural intrusion. Barron has frequently referred to the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
as "the greatest horror story ever told."
In addition to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is a digest-size American fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House and then by Fantasy House. Both were subsidiaries of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Publications, which took over as publisher in 1958. Spilogale, Inc...
, Barron's work has been featured in SCI FICTION
Sci Fiction
Sci Fiction was an online magazine which ran from 2000 to 2005. At one time, it was the leading online science fiction magazine. Published by Syfy and edited by Ellen Datlow, the work won multiple awards before it was discontinued.- History :...
, Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, Lovecraft Unbound, Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, and The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It has also been reprinted in numerous year's best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards.
He was a 2007 and 2010 Shirley Jackson Award
Shirley Jackson Award
The Shirley Jackson Awards are literary awards named after Shirley Jackson in recognition of her legacy in writing. These awards for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic are presented at Readercon, an annual conference on imaginative...
winner for his collections The Imago Sequence and Other Stories and Occultation and Other Stories and 2009
nominee for his novelette "Catch Hell" Other award nominations include the Crawford Award
Crawford Award
The IAFA William L. Crawford Fantasy Award is a literary award given to a writer whose first fantasy book was published during the preceding 18 months. It's one of several awards presented by the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts , and is presented at the conference each...
, Sturgeon Award, International Horror Guild Award
International Horror Guild Award
The International Horror Guild Award is a recognition presented by the International Horror Guild to recognize the achievements of those who create in the field of horror and dark fantasy. Nancy A. Collins, the founder of the award, felt there was a need for an award granted by a large,...
, World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
, Bram Stoker Award
Bram Stoker Award
The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...
and the Locus Award
Locus Award
The Locus Award is a literary award established in 1971 and presented to winners of Locus magazine's annual readers' poll. Currently, the Locus Awards are presented at an annual banquet...
.
His first novel, The Croning, will be published in 2012 by Night Shade Books.
Novels
- The Croning, Night Shade Books 2012
- The Light is the Darkness, Bloodletting Press 2011
Collections
- Occultation, Night Shade Books 2010
- The Imago Sequence & Other Stories, Night Shade Books 2007; Trade paperback 2009
Anthologies
- The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2011 ed Prime 2011
- The Book of Cthulhu Night Shade Books 2011
- Blood & Other Cravings Tor 2011
- Ghosts by Gaslight HarperCollins 2011
- Supernatural Noir Dark Horse 2011
- The Best Horror of the Year 3 Night Shade Books 2011
- New Cthulhu Prime Books 2011
- Creatures Prime Books 2011
- Wilde Stories 2011 Lethe 2011
- Wilde Stories 2010 Lethe 2010
- Haunted Legends Tor Books 2010
- Cthulhu's Reign DAW Books 2010
- Nostradamus' Fate Dark Regions 2010
- The Best Horror of the Year 2 Night Shade Books 2010
- Black Wings PS Publishing 2010
- Lovecraft Unbound Dark Horse Comics 2009
- The Best Horror of the Year 1 Night Shade Books 2009
- Poe Solaris 2009
- The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 21 2008
- Clockwork Phoenix Norilana Press 2008
- Year's Best Fantasy 8 Tachyon 2008
- The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction & Fantasy Del Rey 2008
- Jack Haringa Must Die! 2008
- Inferno Tor 2007
- Year's Best Fantasy 7 Tachyon 2007
- Trochu divné kusy 2 2006
- Fantastyka Number 4 2006
- The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 19 St. Martin's 2006
- Horror: Best of 2005 Prime 2006
- Fantasy: Best of 2005 Prime 2006
- Year's Best Fantasy 6 Tachyon 2006
- The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 18 St Martin's 2005
- The Three-Lobed Burning Eye Annual Volume No. 2 Legion Press 2005
- The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 17 St Martin's 2004
Stories
- "The Men from Porlock" Night Shade Books 2011
- "The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven" Supernatural Noir 2011
- "The Siphon," Blood & Other Cravings 2011
- "Blackwood's Baby," Ghosts by Gaslight 2011
- The Broadsword, Black Wings 2010
- "Six Six Six," Occultation 2010
- Mysterium Tremendum, Occultation 2010
- "--30--," Occultation 2010
- "Vastation," Cthulhu's Reign 2010
- "The Redfield Girls," Haunted Legends 2010
- "Gula de Saturnus," Nostradamus' Fate 2010
- "Catch Hell," Lovecraft Unbound 2009
- "Strappado," Poe 2009
- "The Lonely Death of Agent Haringa," Kill Jack Haringa 2008
- "Occultation," Clockwork Phoenix 2008
- "The Lagerstätte," Del Rey Book of Science Fiction & Fantasy 2008
- "The Forest," Inferno 2007
- Procession of the Black Sloth, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories 2007
- "The Royal Zoo is Closed," Phantom # Zero 2006
- Hallucigenia, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2006
- "Parallax," SCI FICTION 2005
- The Imago Sequence, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2005
- "Proboscis," The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2005
- "Bulldozer," SCI FICTION 2004
- "Old Virginia," The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2003
- "Shiva, Open Your Eye," The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2001
- "Hour of the Cyclops," Three-Lobed Burning Eye 2000
Other writing
- "In the Shadows of the Pines." Afterword to The Collected Stories of Karl Edward Wagner by Centipede Press 2011
- "Beyond Love, Sex, and the Heat Death of the Universe." Introduction to Engines of Desire, by Livia Llewellyn 2011
- "Calling into the Darkness." Publishers WeeklyPublishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
essay 2010 - "Heart of the North." Introduction to Ballad of the Northland by Jason Barron 2010
- "Death's Head Blues." Introduction to Sin & ashes by Joseph Pulver HippocampusHippocampusThe hippocampus is a major component of the brains of humans and other vertebrates. It belongs to the limbic system and plays important roles in the consolidation of information from short-term memory to long-term memory and spatial navigation. Humans and other mammals have two hippocampi, one in...
2010 - "No Escape." Introduction to The Ones that Got Away by Stephen Graham Jones Prime BooksPrime BooksEdited by two-time Hugo-nominee and 2006 World Fantasy-winner Sean Wallace, Prime Books is an award-winning independent publishing house, specializing in a mix of literary/commercial anthologies, collections, novels, and two magazines: Fantasy Magazine and Lightspeed Magazine. Some of its...
2010 - "Stalking Through the Jungles of Night." Afterword to limited edition of Peter Straub's Koko Centipede Press 2010
- "Vistas of Evil Splendor." Introduction to The Darkly Splendid Realm by Richard Gavin Dark Regions Press 2009
- "Dark Star: The Michael Shea Experience." An introduction to The Autopsy & Other Tales, Centipede Press, 2008
- "Twenty-First Century Ghosts." Essay for LocusLocus (magazine)Locus, subtitled "The Magazine Of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Field", is published monthly in Oakland, California. It reports on the science fiction and fantasy publishing field, including comprehensive listings of all new books published in the genre. It is considered the news organ and trade...
, May 2007 - "Quietly, Now." Essay for Erobos: The New Darkness #1, Summer 2007