Splatterpunk is a movement within horror fiction originating in the 1980s, distinguished by its graphic, often gory, depiction of violence, countercultural alignment and "hyperintensive horror with no limits." The term was coined in 1986 by David J. Schow at the Twelfth World Fantasy Convention in Providence, Rhode Island. Splatterpunk is regarded as a revolt against the "traditional, meekly suggestive horror story". Splatterpunk has been defined as a "literary genre characterised by graphically described scenes of an extremely gory nature."
Weird fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction originating in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Weird fiction either eschews or radically reinterprets traditional antagonists of supernatural horror fiction, such as ghosts, vampires, and werewolves. Writers on the subject of weird fiction, such as China Miéville, sometimes use "the tentacle" to represent this type of writing. The tentacle is a limb-type absent from most of the monsters of European folklore and gothic fiction, but often attached to the monstrous creatures created by weird fiction writers, such as William Hope Hodgson, M. R. James, Clark Ashton Smith, and H. P. Lovecraft.
Jeffrey Thomas is a prolific writer of science fiction and horror, best known for his stories set in the nightmarish future city called Punktown, such as the novel Deadstock and the collection Punktown, from which a story was reprinted in St. Martin's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #14. His fiction has also been reprinted in Daw's The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII, The Year's Best Fantastic Fiction and Quick Chills II: The Best Horror Fiction from the Specialty Press. He has been a 2003 finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Monstrocity, and a 2008 finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Deadstock.
The British Fantasy Society (BFS) was founded in 1971 as the British Weird Fantasy Society, an offshoot of the British Science Fiction Association. The society is dedicated to promoting the best in the fantasy, science fiction and horror genres.
Joe Richard Lansdale is an American writer and martial arts instructor. A prose writer in a variety of genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense, he has also written comic books and screenplays. Several of his novels have been adapted for film and television. He is the winner of the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award, the Edgar Award, and eleven Bram Stoker Awards.
Glenn Chadbourne is an American artist. He lives in Newcastle, Maine. He is best known for his work in the horror and fantasy genres, having created covers and illustrated books and magazines for publishers such as Cemetery Dance Publications, Subterranean Press, and Earthling Publications. Mr. Chadbourne is known for his sense of humour and down to earth manner, as well as the stark honesty of his work.
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.
Marge Baliff Simon is an American artist and a writer of speculative poetry and fiction.
A Cthulhu Mythos anthology is a type of short story collection that contains stories written in, or related to, the Cthulhu Mythos genre of horror fiction launched by H. P. Lovecraft. Such anthologies have helped to define and popularize the genre.
Wilum Hopfrog Pugmire, was a writer of weird fiction and horror fiction based in Seattle, Washington. His works typically were published as W. H. Pugmire and his fiction often paid homage to the lore of Lovecraftian horror. Lovecraft scholar and biographer S. T. Joshi described Pugmire as "the prose-poet of the horror/fantasy field; he may be the best prose-poet we have" and as one of the genre's leading Lovecraftian authors.
Rick Hautala was an American speculative fiction and horror writer. He graduated from the University of Maine in 1974, where he received a Master of Art in English Literature. Rick arrived on the horror scene in 1980 with many of his early novels published by Zebra books. He wrote and published over 90 novels and short stories since the early 1980s. Many of his books have been translated to other languages and sold internationally. Cold Whisper, published in October, 1991 by Zebra Books, Inc. was also published in Finnish as Haamu by Werner Söderström, Helsinki, Finland, in August, 1994. Toward the end of his life, many of his works were published with specialty press and small press publishers like Cemetery Dance Publications and Dark Harvest. His novel The Wildman (2008), was chosen to be Full Moon Press' debut limited edition title.
Jill Bauman is an American artist. She has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award five times and nominated for the Chesley Award several times. Her art has been exhibited at the Delaware Art Museum, the Moore College of Art, Art Students League of New York, the NY Illustrators Society & and the Science Fiction Museum of Seattle. Bauman has created hundreds of book covers for horror, mystery, fantasy, science fiction, and best selling books including 23 of the Cat Who... books by Lilian Jackson Braun during the 1980s and 1990s.
The Year’s Best Horror Stories was a series of annual anthologies published by DAW Books in the U.S. from 1972 to 1994 under the successive editorships of Richard Davis from 1972 to 1975, and of Gerald W. Page from 1976 to 1979, and Karl Edward Wagner from 1980 to 1994. The series was discontinued after Wagner's death. It was a companion to DAW’s The Annual World’s Best SF and The Year's Best Fantasy Stories, which performed a similar function for the science fiction and fantasy fields.
Cyber-Psychos AOD (CPAOD) is a book and magazine publishing venture based in Denver, Colorado, focusing on avant-garde and unusual art, culture, and writings. Founded in 1992 (magazine), and 1995 by Jasmine Sailing, it has released 10 books and 10 issues of the magazine. The magazine's unabbreviated title is Cyber-Psychos And Other Diversities, with a subtitle of "The Magazine of Mental Aberrations".
Joseph S. Pulver Sr. was an author and poet, much of whose work falls within the horror fiction, noir fiction / hardboiled, and dark fantasy genres. He lived in Germany, and died from COPD and other issues in a German hospital on April 24, 2020.
Darker Magazine is a Russian monthly horror webzine. It covers various sorts of horror media, including slasher, splatter, exploitation films, as well as horror literature, videogames, comic books and dark music. The magazine is in regular publication since April, 2011. It is part of Russian Horror Web. It publishes articles, interviews, reviews and short stories by Russian and foreign authors. The zine also helds an annual literary contest “The Devil's Dozen”, which is the largest among horror stories in Russian. Darker Magazine is a cult outlet in Russian Internet horror segment, and its mission is support of horror in Russia. It is published on the initiative and with the assistance of The Horror Authors Association and Horror Web media network. The zine is funded by its subscribers.
Peter Giglio is an American novelist, editor, and screenwriter.
Son Of Retro Pulp Tales is a collection of short fiction edited by Joe R. Lansdale and his son Keith Lansdale. Continuing in the same vein as the earlier book titled Retro Pulp Tales, these stories are more in the tradition of early pulp stories in cheap magazines and pre-1960s horror films. This book was published exclusively by Subterranean Press.
