Craig Clevenger | |
---|---|
Born | 1964 (age 58–59) Dallas, Texas, U.S. |
Occupation | Novelist |
Period | 2002–present |
Genre | Transgressional fiction, neo-noir |
Notable works | The Contortionist's Handbook , Dermaphoria |
Website | |
craigclevenger |
Craig Clevenger (born 1964) is an American author of contemporary fiction. Born 1964 in Dallas, Texas, he grew up in Southern California, where he studied English at California State University, Long Beach. [1] He is the author of two novels, The Contortionist's Handbook and Dermaphoria , both released by MacAdam/Cage. His work has been classified by some as neo-noir and has received praise from such authors as Chuck Palahniuk and Irvine Welsh.
Clevenger lists among his influences Jim Thompson, James M. Cain, Edgar Allan Poe, Richard Matheson, Italo Calvino, Kōbō Abe, Steve Erickson, Mark Danielewski, Will Christopher Baer, Seth Morgan, James Ellroy, Michael Hogan, John O'Brien, Michael Ventura and Rupert Thomson. [2]
Clevenger has completed work on a third novel, Mother Howl, based on his short story The Fade, which he has recently adapted into a short film with director Scott Krinsky. [3]
He shares a fan base with fellow authors Will Christopher Baer and Stephen Graham Jones. [4]
Clevenger's debut novel, The Contortionist's Handbook , was first published in 2002. It is the story of John Dolan Vincent, a prodigious forger who has been detained for a psychiatric interview following a near-fatal painkiller overdose. As the narrator bluffs his way through the interview in order to avoid being involuntarily institutionalized, he tells the reader his true story - the one he is not telling the psychiatrist - revealing both his past and the true nature of his circumstances. The Contortionist's Handbook has since been translated into five languages - German, Italian, Polish, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese - as well as published in the United Kingdom by HarperCollins. Several other translations are forthcoming, including Russian and Japanese. Film rights for The Contortionist's Handbook were optioned in 2007 by Greenestreet Films. Miguel Sapochnik has been linked as director and Channing Tatum as star. [5] [6]
In 2005, MacAdam/Cage released Clevenger's second novel, Dermaphoria , the diary of an amnesiac LSD chemist who becomes addicted to a drug which synthesizes the feeling of human touch. Documentary film maker Ross Clarke will be making his narrative directorial debut with a film adaptation of the book adaptation. It has toured film festivals under the new name "Desiree" and now has a website. It has toured film festivals, [7] and the director says news about its release will be released as soon as they are decided. [8] It was filmed in New Orleans and stars Joseph Morgan, Ron Perlman, Walton Goggins and Kate Walsh. [9] Musician Bill Brown composed the score for the film. [10] [11]
Clevenger published his third novel, Mother Howl, in June 2023, through Angry Robot.
"Smoke and Mirrors" (2015) available from Six Finger Films (2015) due to this Kickstarter
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American novelist who describes his work as transgressional fiction. He has published 19 novels, three nonfiction books, two graphic novels, and two adult coloring books, as well as several short stories. His first published novel was Fight Club, which was adapted into a film of the same title.
Choke is a 2001 novel by American author Chuck Palahniuk. The story focuses on Victor, a sex addict and con man. He also works at a colonial reenactment museum. The novel was later adapted for film by Clark Gregg.
Mark Z. Danielewski is an American fiction author. He is most widely known for his debut novel House of Leaves (2000), which won the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award. His second novel, Only Revolutions (2006), was nominated for the National Book Award.
Survivor is a satirical novel by Chuck Palahniuk, first published in February 1999. The book tells the story of Tender Branson, a member of the Creedish Church, a death cult. The chapters and pages are numbered backwards in the book, beginning with Chapter 47 on page 289 and ending with page 1 of Chapter 1.
"Howl", also known as "Howl for Carl Solomon", is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1954–1955 and published in his 1956 collection Howl and Other Poems. The poem is dedicated to Carl Solomon.
Jeremiah Terminator LeRoy, or simply JT LeRoy is a literary persona created in the 1990s by American writer Laura Albert. LeRoy was presented as the author of three books of fiction, which were purportedly semi-autobiographical accounts by a teenage boy of his experiences of poverty, drug use, and emotional and sexual abuse in his childhood and adolescence from rural West Virginia to California. Albert wrote these works, and communicated with people in the persona of LeRoy via phone and e-mail. Following the release of the first novel Sarah, Albert's sibling-in-law Savannah Knoop began to make public appearances as the supposed writer. The works attracted considerable literary and celebrity attention, and the authenticity of LeRoy has been a subject of debate, even as details of the creation came to light in the 2000s.
Robert Booker Baer is an American author and a former CIA case officer who was primarily assigned to the Middle East. He is Time's intelligence columnist and has contributed to Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. Baer speaks eight languages, won the CIA Career Intelligence Medal and is a frequent commentator and author about issues related to international relations, espionage, and U.S. foreign policy. He hosted the History reality television series Hunting Hitler. He is an Intelligence and Security Analyst for CNN. His book See No Evil was adapted by the director Stephen Gaghan and used as the basis for the film Syriana, with George Clooney playing Baer's character.
Mark Dunn is an American author and playwright. He studied film at Memphis State University followed by post-graduate work in screenwriting at the University of Texas at Austin moving to New York in 1987 where he worked in the New York Public Library whilst writing plays in his free time.
Craig Davidson is a Canadian author of short stories and novels, who has published work under both his own name and the pen names Patrick Lestewka and Nick Cutter. His style has been compared to that of Chuck Palahniuk.
Edward Cline is an American novelist, essayist and an air force veteran. He is best known for his Sparrowhawk series of novels, which are set in England and Virginia before the American Revolutionary War.
Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey is a novel by Chuck Palahniuk released on May 1, 2007. Palahniuk has indicated that Rant is the first in what will become a three-book series.
John Skipp is a splatterpunk horror and fantasy author and anthology editor, as well as a songwriter, screenwriter, film director, and film producer. He collaborated with Craig Spector on multiple novels, and has also collaborated with Marc Levinthal and Cody Goodfellow. He worked as editor-in-chief of both Fungasm Press and Ravenous Shadows.
Holy Wood is an unpublished novel by Marilyn Manson, written between 1999 and 2000. Initially envisioned as a companion piece to the album Holy Wood , it remained unreleased after a series of delays, alleged by Manson to have been caused by a "publishing war".
The Contortionist's Handbook is the debut novel by American novelist Craig Clevenger.
Dermaphoria (2005) is a novel written by American author Craig Clevenger.
MacAdam/Cage was a small publishing firm located in San Francisco, California. It was founded by publisher David Poindexter in 1998. In 2003, it published around 30 to 45 titles per year, primarily fiction, short story collections, history, biography, and essays, and had twelve employees. Most notably, it published The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger and The Contortionist's Handbook by Craig Clevenger, and Sunset Terrace by Rebecca Donner. Publishers Weekly describes MacAdam/Cage as "one of the West Coast's most literary" independent publishing firms.
Fight Club is a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist struggling with insomnia. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, the protagonist finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups. Then he meets a mysterious man named Tyler Durden and establishes an underground fighting club as radical psychotherapy.
Leather Maiden is a crime/mystery novel written by American author Joe R. Lansdale.
Lidia Yuknavitch is an American writer, teacher and editor based in Oregon. She is the author of the memoir The Chronology of Water, and the novels The Small Backs of Children,Dora: A Headcase, and The Book of Joan. She is also known for her TED talk "The Beauty of Being a Misfit", which has been viewed over 3.2 million times, and her follow-up book The Misfit's Manifesto.
Pat Walsh is an author, independent publishing consultant/book packager, and former editor-in-chief at MacAdam/Cage.
Official sites
Interviews
Audio