D. Harlan Wilson

Last updated
D. Harlan Wilson
Backlistbooksdhw.jpg
D. Harlan Wilson reading at Kafe Kerouac in Columbus, Ohio
Born (1971-09-03) September 3, 1971 (age 52)
Michigan, United States
Occupation Novelist and professor
Period1999–present
Genre Irrealism, Literary fiction, Science fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Interstitial fiction, Literary criticism, Literary nonsense, Biography, Theatre of the Absurd
Years active1999–present
Notable works Dr. Identity , Peckinpah , The Kyoto Man, Battles without Honor or Humanity
Spouse
Christine Junker
(m. 2005;div. 2015)
Children2
Signature
D. Harlan Wilson (signature).jpg
Website
www.dharlanwilson.com

D. Harlan Wilson (born September 3, 1971) is an American novelist, short-story writer, critic, playwright and English professor. [1] His body of work bridges the aesthetics of literary theory with various genres of speculative fiction, [2] with Wilson also being recognized as one of the co-founders of bizarro fiction." [3] Among his books is the award-winning novel Dr. Identity , the two-volume short story collection Battle without Honor or Humanity, a monograph on John Carpenter’s They Live and a critical study of the life and work of J. G. Ballard. [1]

Contents

Writing

Wilson began writing fiction in his early twenties when he took a creative writing course with novelist Patricia Powell while enrolled in graduate school at the University of Massachusetts Boston. [4] He has since published more than 20 books of fiction and nonfiction. [1]

Wilson is perhaps best known for Dr. Identity, [5] described by Booklist as a "madcap, macabre black comedy," [6] and the subsequent Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance , both of which he has fancifully categorized as examples of "splattershtick," a literary, comic, ultraviolent form of metafiction. He is also known for helping create and shape the aesthetics of bizarro fiction, [7] [8] [9] which has been described as a "mélange of elements of absurdism, satire, and the grotesque." [7] Many of his books are published by Raw Dog Screaming Press, a small press specializing in bizarro fiction. [10] [11]

Much of his writing satirizes the idiocy of pop culture and western society, illustrating how "the reel increasingly usurps the real." [2] [12] Taken as a whole, his writing is difficult to quantify and he has been said to defy categorization; some critics have called him "a genre in himself." [13] Publishers Weekly has described his fiction as "testosterone-fueled and intentionally disorienting" which "invokes not a dialogue with the reader but a bare-knuckle fistfight." [14]

In addition to writing fiction, Wilson is a prolific reviewer and essayist being frequently published in places such as the Los Angeles Review of Books , the academic journal Extrapolation , and the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts. [15]

Wilson is editor-in-chief of Anti-Oedipus Press, reviews editor of Extrapolation and managing editor of Guide Dog Books. He is also emeritus editor-in-chief of The Dream People, [16] a journal focused on bizarro fiction where he previously served as editor-in-chief. [17]

Academic Work

Wilson is Professor of English at the Lake Campus of Wright State University, where he has been teaching since 2006 after receiving his Ph.D. in English from Michigan State University. [18]

Wilson is the author of Modern Masters of Science Fiction: J.G. Ballard from University of Illinois Press. [1] His other academic books include Cultographies: They Live from Columbia University Press, [1] which the San Francisco Book Review called a "scholarly examination of a cult classic still debated today," [19] and Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction. He has also written a number of scholarly articles on genre fiction along with entries for books such as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. [20]

Bibliography

Auto/Biographies

Plays

Stand-Alone Novels

The Scikungfi Trilogy

Fiction Collections

Fiction Theory

Literary & Film Criticism

Films

Trivia

Related Research Articles

E-Prime denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb to be.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Harlan Ellison</span> American writer (1934–2018)

Harlan Jay Ellison was an American writer, known for his prolific and influential work in New Wave speculative fiction and for his outspoken, combative personality. His published works include more than 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, comic book scripts, teleplays, essays, and a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media. Some of his best-known works include the 1967 Star Trek episode "The City on the Edge of Forever", considered by some to be the single greatest episode of the Star Trek franchise, his A Boy and His Dog cycle, and his short stories "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" and "'Repent, Harlequin!' Said the Ticktockman". He was also editor and anthologist for Dangerous Visions (1967) and Again, Dangerous Visions (1972). Ellison won numerous awards, including multiple Hugos, Nebulas, and Edgars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. G. Ballard</span> English writer (1930–2009)

James Graham Ballard was an English novelist and short-story writer, satirist and essayist known for psychologically provocative works of fiction that explore the relations between human psychology, technology, sex and mass media. Ballard first became associated with New Wave science fiction for post-apocalyptic novels such as The Drowned World (1962). He later courted controversy with the short-story collection The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which includes the story "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan" (1968), and the novel Crash (1973), a story about car-crash fetishists.

The New Wave was a science fiction style of the 1960s and 1970s, characterized by a great degree of experimentation with the form and content of stories, greater imitation of the styles of non-science fiction literature, and an emphasis on the psychological and social sciences as opposed to the physical sciences. New Wave authors often considered themselves as part of the modernist tradition of fiction, and the New Wave was conceived as a deliberate change from the traditions of the science fiction characteristic of pulp magazines, which many of the writers involved considered irrelevant or unambitious.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Bradley (author)</span> American novelist, essayist, and writer

Thomas Iver Bradley is an American novelist, essayist and writer of short stories. He is the author of The Sam Edwine Pentateuch, a five-book series, of which various volumes have been nominated for the Editor's Book Award, the New York University Bobst Prize, and the AWP Award Series in the Novel. Tom Bradley's nonfiction is regularly featured by Arts & Letters Daily, and has also appeared in Salon.com, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, and Ambit Magazine. He has been characterized as an "outsider" by the LA Times book blog.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kij Johnson</span> American writer

Kij Johnson is an American writer of fantasy. She is a faculty member at the University of Kansas.

<i>Nemonymous</i>

Nemonymous was an experimental short fiction publication that labeled itself a "megazanthus". It was published and edited in the United Kingdom from 2001–2010 by D.F. Lewis.

Steve Aylett is an English author of satirical science fiction, fantasy, and slipstream. According to the critic Bill Ectric, "much of Aylett’s work combines the bawdy, action-oriented style of Voltaire with the sedentary, faux cultivated style of Peacock." Stylistically, Aylett is often seen as a difficult writer. As the critic Robert Kiely suggests, his books tend to be "baroque in their density, speed, and finely crafted detail; they are overcrowded, they dazzle and distort and wait for us to catch up with their narrative world."

Eckhard Gerdes is an American novelist and editor.

Bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre which often uses elements of absurdism, satire, and the grotesque, along with pop-surrealism and genre fiction staples, in order to create subversive, weird, and entertaining works. The term was adopted in 2005 by the independent publishing companies Eraserhead Press, Raw Dog Screaming Press, and Afterbirth Books. Much of its community revolves around Eraserhead Press, which is based in Portland, Oregon, and has hosted the annual BizarroCon since 2008. The introduction to the first Bizarro Starter Kit describes Bizarro as "literature's equivalent to the cult section at the video store" and a genre that "strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read." According to Rose O'Keefe of Eraserhead Press: "Basically, if an audience enjoys a book or film primarily because of its weirdness, then it is Bizarro. Weirdness might not be the work's only appealing quality, but it is the major one."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Dowling</span> Australian writer and journalist

Terence William (Terry) Dowling, is an Australian writer and journalist. He writes primarily speculative fiction though he considers himself an "imagier" – one who imagines, a term which liberates his writing from the constraints of specific genres. He has been called "among the best-loved local writers and most-awarded in and out of Australia, a writer who stubbornly hews his own path ."

<i>The Kafka Effekt</i>

The Kafka Effekt (2001) is the debut book of American author D. Harlan Wilson. It contains forty-four irreal short stories and flash fiction and has been said to combine the milieus of Franz Kafka and William S. Burroughs. Along with Carlton Mellick III's Satan Burger, Vincent Sakowski's Some Things Are Better Left Unplugged, Hertzan Chimera's Szmonhfu, Kevin L. Donihe's Shall We Gather at the Garden? and M.F. Korn's Skimming the Gumbo Nuclear, The Kafka Effekt was among the first books jointly released by Bizarro fiction publisher Eraserhead Press.

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.

Bradley Sands is an American author and editor. He is involved in the Bizarro movement in underground literature with Steve Aylett, Chris Genoa, Carlton Mellick III and D. Harlan Wilson.

<i>Technologized Desire</i>

Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction (2009) is a book of literary and cultural criticism by American author D. Harlan Wilson. The book analyzes the evolution of technology, the self, subjectivity, culture, commodity fetishism and capitalism as it has been represented by postmodern science fiction novels and films. Ultimately Wilson points to a postcapitalist subjectivity that is an extension of technocapitalism.

Jason Colavito is an American author and independent scholar specializing in the study of fringe theories particularly around ancient history and extraterrestrials. Colavito has written a number of books, including The Cult of Alien Gods (2005), The Mound Builder Myth (2020), and Legends of the Pyramids (2021).

Stephen Robert Prince was an American film critic, historian and theorist. He was a Professor of Communication Studies and was a Professor of Cinema at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. His books include The Warrior's Camera: The Cinema of Akira Kurosawa (1991) and Savage Cinema: Sam Peckinpah and the Rise of Ultraviolent Movies (1998). Prince was frequently cited as an expert in East Asian cinema by Criterion and can often be heard in commentary tracks in their collections.

The New Press is an independent non-profit public-interest book publisher established in 1992 by André Schiffrin and Diane Wachtell, publishing many books with a left-wing political viewpoint.

<i>Nebula Award Stories 1965</i> 1966 anthology edited by Damon Knight

Nebula Award Stories 1965 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by Damon Knight. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1966, with a Science Fiction Book Club edition following in October of the same year. The first British edition was published by Gollancz in 1967. Paperback editions followed from Pocket Books in the U.S. in November 1967, and New English Library in the U.K. in April 1969. The U.K. and paperback editions bore the variant title Nebula Award Stories 1. The book was more recently reissued by Stealth Press in hardcover in February 2001. It has also been published in German.

Richard Paul Teleky is a Canadian writer and academic, currently a professor in the Humanities Department at York University in Toronto, Ontario. His primary research areas include Central European literature, ethnic studies/immigrant literature, early modernist writing, and film and contemporary culture, as well as the creative process.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "D. Harlan Wilson biography" on the Los Angeles Review of Books, accessed March 1, 2017.
  2. 1 2 3 "Interviews". Dharlanwilson.com. Archived from the original on 2014-09-22. Retrieved 2014-06-09.
  3. "Against Literature as System: D. Harlan Wilson’s Splatterschticks" by David Vichnar, 3AM Magazine, accessed March 1, 2017.
  4. "An Interview With D. Harlan Wilson Archived 2017-06-21 at the Wayback Machine " by David F. Hoenigman, Word Riot, Dec. 15, 2009.
  5. "Tying Notes to Bricks: A Conversation with D. Harlan Wilson" by John Boden, Shock Totem: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted, #3, Shock Totem Publications, page 29.
  6. "Review of Dr. Identity; or, Farewell to Plaquedemia by D. Harlan Wilson," Booklist, March 1, 2007.
  7. 1 2 "Against Literature as System: D. Harlan Wilson’s Splatterschticks" by David Vichnar, 3:AM Magazine, accessed March 1, 2017.
  8. "A Beginner’s Guide to Bizarro Fiction" by Mike Kleine, Flavorwire, August 24, 2012.
  9. "Tales From the Metalnomicon: D. Harlan Wilson Archived 2017-03-03 at the Wayback Machine " in Decibel Magazine, August 02, 2013.
  10. "Author Page for D. Harlan Wilson," Raw Dog Screaming Press, accessed March 2, 2017.
  11. "Raw Dog Screaming Founder Jennifer Barnes' tips on thriving as a Small Press" by Shawn Macomber, Fangoria, August 2, 2013.
  12. Gurnow, Michael (2007). "Review of Dr. Identity". The Horror Review. Archived from the original on October 8, 2014. Retrieved February 17, 2015.
  13. "Going LIVE Interview". Archived from the original on 2021-12-19.
  14. "Review of Battle Without Honor or Humanity, Vol. 1," Publishers Weekly, Sept. 14, 2015, accessed March 1, 2017.
  15. "Book Review Index," Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, accessed March 2, 2017.
  16. "TheDreamPeople.org". dreampeople.org. Retrieved 2014-06-09.
  17. "D. Harlan Wilson interviewed" by Kristina Marie Darling, Pif Magazine, Issue No. 128, January, 2008.
  18. "WSU Directory" . Retrieved 2017-02-28.
  19. "Review of They Live (Cultographies)" by Glenn Dallas, San Francisco Book Review, Feb. 17, 2015.
  20. Entry on Absurdity by D. Harlan Wilson, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders, Volume 1 edited by Gary Westfahl, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005, pages 1 - 3.
  21. "e x p i r i n g s u n". e x p i r i n g s u n. Archived from the original on 2014-04-16. Retrieved 2014-06-09.