Bentley Little

Last updated
Bentley Little
Born1960 (age 6364)
Mesa, Arizona, U.S.
Pen namePhillip Emmons
OccupationNovelist
Education California State University, Fullerton (BA, MA)
Genre Horror

Bentley Little (born 1960 in Mesa, Arizona) [1] is an American author of horror fiction. Publishing an average of a novel a year since 1990, Little avoids publicity and rarely does promotional work or interviews for his writing.

Contents

Early life

Little is an Arizona native who, according to his professional biography, was born one month after his mother saw the world premiere of Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho . [2] He studied at California State University Fullerton, from which he earned a BA in Communications and an MA in Comparative Literature. His thesis for the latter was his first novel, The Revelation, which was later published and won a Bram Stoker Award. [3]

Style and recognition

Little's novels tend to have brief titles (many use the construction "The [noun]", like The Mailman and The House) and fall squarely into the horror genre. He dislikes his work being categorized as "suspense" or "supernatural thriller", preferring the more straightforward genre label. His work has been championed by Stephen King and Dean Koontz, leading to increased recognition. [4]

Adaptations

In 2007 Little's short story "The Washingtonians" was adapted for the TV show Masters of Horror , becoming the twelfth episode of its second season. Directed by Peter Medak, it significantly lightened the tone of the author's original work, aiming for camp over the short story's dark humour. It was negatively received by critics.

That same year The Hollywood Reporter announced that a film adaptation of the novel The Store was in development at Strike Entertainment, with a script by Jenna McGrath, production duties handled by Marc Abraham and Eric Newman, and executive production by Vince Gerardis, Eli Kirschner, and Tom Bliss. [5] As of 2020 the project has not yet come to fruition.

On November 18, 2021, it was revealed that a TV series based on Little's novel The Consultant has been ordered by Amazon Prime Video. [6]

Bibliography

Novels

Collections

Short stories

Awards

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Browning Spencer</span> American novelist

William Browning Spencer is an American novelist and short story writer living in Austin, Texas. His science fiction and horror stories are often darkly and surrealistically humorous.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Datlow</span> American editor and anthologist (born 1949)

Ellen Datlow is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror editor and anthologist. She is a winner of the World Fantasy Award and the Bram Stoker Award.

<i>The Revelation</i> (Little novel) Novel by Bentley Little

The Revelation is horror author Bentley Little's first published novel. It was awarded the Bram Stoker Award for best novel by a new author in 1990.

Nancy Holder is an American writer and the author of several novels, including numerous tie-in books based on the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She has also written fiction related to several other science fiction and fantasy shows, including Angel and Smallville.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Chizmar</span> American screenwriter (born 1965)

Richard Thomas Chizmar is an American writer, the publisher and editor of Cemetery Dance magazine, and the owner of Cemetery Dance Publications. He also edits anthologies, produces films, writes screenplays, and teaches writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cemetery Dance Publications</span> American specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense

Cemetery Dance Publications is an American specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense. Cemetery Dance was founded by Richard Chizmar, a horror author, while he was in college. It is associated with Cemetery Dance magazine, which was founded in 1988. They began to publish books in 1992. They later expanded to encompass a magazine and website featuring news, interviews, and reviews related to horror literature.

Douglas Clegg is an American horror and dark fantasy author, and a pioneer in the field of e-publishing. He maintains a strong Internet presence through his website.

Norman Partridge is an American writer of horror and mystery fiction. He has written two detective novels about retired boxer Jack Baddalach, Saguaro Riptide and The Ten Ounce Siesta. He is also the author of a Crow novel, The Crow: Wicked Prayer, which was adapted in 2005 into the fourth Crow movie, bearing the same name.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Ketchum</span> American novelist

Dallas William Mayr, better known by his pen name Jack Ketchum, was an American horror fiction author. He was the recipient of four Bram Stoker Awards and three further nominations. His novels included Off Season, Offspring, and Red, the latter two of which were adapted to film. In 2011, Ketchum received the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award for outstanding contribution to the horror genre.

Thomas Francis Monteleone is an American science fiction author and horror fiction author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Maberry</span> American author (born 1958)

Jonathan Maberry is an American suspense author, anthology editor, comic book writer, magazine feature writer, playwright, content creator and writing teacher/lecturer. He was named one of the Today's Top Ten Horror Writers.

Douglas E. Winter is an American writer, critic and lawyer.

Thomas Piccirilli was an American novelist, short story writer, editor, and poet, known for his writing in the crime, mystery, and horror genres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stephen Jones (author)</span> English editor and author

Stephen Jones is an English editor of horror anthologies, and the author of several book-length studies of horror and fantasy films as well as an account of H. P. Lovecraft's early British publications.

Lisa Morton is an American horror author and screenwriter.

Rocky Wood was a New Zealand-born Australian writer and researcher best known for his books about horror author Stephen King. He was the first author from outside North America or Europe to hold the position of president of the Horror Writers Association. Wood was born in Wellington, New Zealand and lived in Melbourne, Australia with his family. He had been a freelance writer for over 35 years. His writing career began at university, where he wrote a national newspaper column in New Zealand on extra-terrestrial life and UFO-related phenomena and published other articles about the phenomenon worldwide, in the course of which research he met such figures as Erich von Däniken and J. Allen Hynek; and had articles on the security industry published in the US, Canada, the UK, New Zealand and South Africa. In October 2010, Wood was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. He died of complications on 1 December 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul G. Tremblay</span> American author and editor

Paul Gaetan Tremblay is an American author and editor of horror, dark fantasy, and science fiction. His most widely known novels include A Head Full of Ghosts, The Cabin at the End of the World, and Survivor Song. He has won multiple Bram Stoker Awards and is a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Thomas (author)</span> American author (born 1967)

Richard Thomas is an American author. His focus is on neo-noir, new weird, and speculative fiction, typically including elements of violence, mental instability, breaks in reality, unreliable narrators, and tragedies. His work is rich in setting and sensory details—often called maximalism. His writing has also been called transgressive and grotesque. In recent years, his dark fiction has added more hope, leaning into hopepunk. He was Editor-in-Chief at both Dark House Press (2012-2016) and Gamut Magazine (2017-2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Langan</span> American horror writer

John Langan is an American author and writer of contemporary horror. Langan has been a finalist for International Horror Guild Award. In 2008, he was a Bram Stoker Award nominee for Best Collection, and in 2016, a Bram Stoker Award winner for his novel The Fisherman. He is on the board of directors for the Shirley Jackson Awards.

Dale Frederick Bailey is an American author of speculative fiction, including science fiction, fantasy and horror, active in the field since 1993. He writes as Dale Bailey.

References

  1. "Little, Bentley 1960- (Phillip Emmons)". Encyclopedia.com .
  2. "Bentley Little". cemeterydance.com .
  3. "Past Bram Stoker Award Nominees and Winners". Horror Writers Association . Retrieved July 3, 2022.
  4. "Stephen King's summer book awards". Entertainment Weekly .
  5. Carolyn Giardina (July 30, 2007). "McGrath in 'Store' pen aisle". The Hollywood Reporter . Retrieved 2012-01-30.
  6. White, Peter (November 18, 2021). "Christoph Waltz To Star In Workplace Dark Comedy Series The Consultant For Amazon From Tony Basgallop, Matt Shakman & MGM". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved October 3, 2022.
  7. "Cemetery Dance Magazine, Issue #1, December 1988. Table of Contents". cemeterydance.com.
  8. "Cemetery Dance Magazine, Issue #2, June 1989. Table of Contents". cemeterydance.com.