-•- Guests of Honor -•-
-•- Guests of Honor -•-
(announced as confirmed)
DAVID J. SCHOW would prefer not to be remembered solely for writing the screenplay for The Crow, assembling the exhaustive Outer Limits Companion, or coining the term “splatterpunk” (although he is perversely proud of getting that word into the Oxford English Dictionary).
His short stories have been regularly selected for over 25 volumes of “Year’s Best” anthologies across three decades and have won the World Fantasy Award, the ultra-rare Dimension Award from Twilight Zone magazine, plus a 2002 International Horror Guild Award for Wild Hairs, his compendium of “Raving & Drooling” columns written for Fangoria. His novels include The Kill Riff, The Shaft, Rock Breaks Scissors Cut, Bullets of Rain, Gun Work, Hunt Among the Killers of Men (part of Hard Case Crime’s “Gabriel Hunt” series), Internecine, Upgunned and the forthcoming The Big Crush. His short stories are collected in Seeing Red, Lost Angels, Black Leather Required, Crypt Orchids, Eye, Zombie Jam, Havoc Swims Jaded, and a not-to-be-named new book.
He has written extensively for films (Leatherface: Texas Chainsaw Massacre III, The Hills Run Red) and television (Tales from the Crypt, Perversions of Science, The Hunger, Masters of Horror). When a legendary movie poster artist asked him to write text for his next book of images, the result was The Art of Drew Struzan (Titan, 2010).
As expert witness you can see him talking and moving around on documentaries and DVDs for everything from Creature from the Black Lagoon, Incubus and The Shawshank Redemption to Scream and Scream Again (a BBC4 special about the horror film boom of the Eighties available on YouTube), Never Sleep Again, Beast Wishes and The Psycho Legacy. He is also the editor of the three-volume Lost Bloch series for Subterranean Press and Elvisland by John Farris (Babbage, 2004). He co-produced supplements for such DVDs as Reservoir Dogs, From Hell, I, Robot, The Dirty Dozen Special Edition and Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. His bibliography and many other fascinating details are available online at his official site, Black Leather Required: (http://www.davidjschow.com). He lives and works in his beloved Los Angeles. Google him, by all means.
CHRISTOPHER RICE - By the age of 30, Christopher Rice had published four New York Times bestselling thrillers, received a Lambda Literary Award and been declared one of People Magazine’s Sexiest Men Alive. Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, will publish THE HEAVENS RISE, his latest novel and his first supernatural thriller, in 2013. It’s the tale of a young woman who is exposed to a mysterious parasite in the Louisiana swamp that gives her the power to control minds and unleash living nightmares. Together with his best friend, bestselling novelist Eric Shaw Quinn, Christopher recently launched his own Internet radio show. The Dinner Party Show, a, outrageous and irreverent comedy variety program, streams 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at TheDinnerPartyShow.com, with new live episodes premiering every Sunday evening at 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific.
His first novel, A DENSITY OF SOULS, was published when he was just 22. The controversial bestseller was greeted with a landslide of media attention, much of it due the fact that Rice’s mother is a legendary vampire chronicler who shares his last name. He served as a contributing columnist to The Advocate for many years and his additional criticisms and witticisms have been featured in The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Salon.com and his own Facebook page, which currently hails over 100,000 subscribers. The members of the InsightOut Book Club selected his novel BLIND FALL as one of the best novels of 2008, and his noir thriller LIGHT BEFORE DAY was hailed as a “book of the year” by mega-best selling thriller novelist (and Jack Reacher creator), Lee Child. His short fiction has been featured in the anthologies Thriller and Los Angeles Noir. He recently served on the board of directors of the West Hollywood Library Fund, which was instrumental in securing private funds to build a brand new state-of-the-art library in the heart of the city he now calls home.
JOHN SHIRLEY is an author, television writer, screenwriter and songwriter. Author of more than 30 dark crime novels, horror, urban fantasy and science-fiction novels, he’s garnered praise from many directions, including the New York Times Book Review, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, William Gibson, The Washington Post, and Publisher’s Weekly. He won the Bram Stoker Award® for his story collection BLACK BUTTERFLIES: A Flock on the Dark Side. He was co-screenwriter of THE CROW, and has written for television shows such as Deep Space Nine and Poltergeist: The Legacy. His novels include the horror novel Demons (Del Rey/Random House), the noir/disaster novel Everything is Broken (Prime Books), A Song Called Youth trilogy (Prime Books), City Come A-Walkin' (Dell Books), The Brigade (Avon Books), and Bioshock: Rapture (Tor Books). His most recent story collection is In Extremis: The Most Extreme Stories of John Shirley (Underland Press). He has also fronted rock bands and written lyrics for numerous Blue Oyster Cult recordings. His own albums include John Shirley's Obsession on Celluloid Records and Red Star on Weathered Leather. A new 2 CD album selection of his recordings entitled John Shirley: Broken Mirror Glass: the Anthology is out from Black October Records (http://www.infrarot.de/john-shirley/broken-mirror-glass-the-anthology-1978-2012/9941024 )
The authorized John Shirley website is at John-Shirley.com - a few Shirley related quotes:
Shirley writes at the neon-lit frontier of sensory experience.-- Publisher's Weekly
Snapping, snarling, vigorously wrought drama -- Shirley writes splendid stuff. -- Kirkus Reviews
John Shirley is an adventurer, returning from dark and troubled regions with visionary tales to tell. Wetbones is a wild and giddy ride, confronting the reader with marvels and horror in equal measure. I heartily recommend a journey with John Shirley at your side.-- Clive Barker
A postmodern Edgar Allan Poe. -- Larry McCaffrey
John Shirley is the possessor of an imagination like a ticker tape machine from Gehenna. He seems able to write in any genre...Strongly recommended.-- American Book Review
In WETBONES John Shirley serves up the bloody heart of a sick and rotting society with the aplomb of an Aztec surgeon on dexadrine... --ALA Booklist
ELLEN DATLOW is a multi award-winning short story editor who has been editing magazines, webzines, and anthologies for over thirty years.
Her most recent anthologies are Hauntings, a reprint anthology of ghost stories, Telling Tales, a reprint anthology in tribute to the 30th anniversary of Clarion West, The Best Horror of the Year Volume Five, and an original anthology of gaslamp fantasy, Queen Victoria's Book of Spells (this last, with Terri Windling). Next up are Fearful Symmetries, a non-theme horror anthology, Lovecraft’s Monsters, a reprint anthology featuring many of the critters in H. P. Lovecraft’s mythos.
You can see Ellen's full bio and further information at www.datlow.com
(photo credit: by Greg Frost)
