Pulp magazines were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the cheap wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed due to their cheap nature. In contrast, magazines printed on higher-quality paper were called "glossies" or "slicks". The typical pulp magazine had 128 pages; it was 7 inches (18 cm) wide by 10 inches (25 cm) high, and 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) thick, with ragged, untrimmed edges. Pulps were the successors to the penny dreadfuls, dime novels, and short-fiction magazines of the 19th century.
Robert Albert Bloch was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He began his professional writing career immediately after graduation from high school, aged 17. Best known as the writer of Psycho (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while he started emulating Lovecraft and his brand of cosmic horror, he later specialized in crime and horror stories working with a more psychological approach.
John Dudley Ball Jr. was an American writer best known for mystery novels involving the African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs. Tibbs was introduced in the 1965 novel In the Heat of the Night, which won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel from the Mystery Writers of America and was made into an Oscar-winning film of the same name, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger.
Lewis Shiner is an American writer.
Richard Allen Lupoff was an American science-fiction and mystery author, who also wrote humor, satire, nonfiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He was an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice Burroughs, and had an equally strong interest in H. P. Lovecraft. He also co-edited the non-fiction anthology All in Color For a Dime, which has been described as "the very first published volume dedicated to comic book criticism"; as well as its sequel, The Comic-Book Book.
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.
Mark V. Ziesing is an American small press publisher and bookseller, founded by Mark Ziesing. Active as a bookseller, from 1972 to present; Ziesing was in publishing, from the mid-1980s into 1998. The Ziesing publishing imprint specialized in science fiction, horror, and other forms of speculative fiction. Originally based in Willimantic, Connecticut and in partnership with his brother Michael, he published two books by Gene Wolfe under the name Ziesing Brothers.
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.
Samuel Kimball Merwin Jr. was an American mystery fiction writer, editor and science fiction author. His pseudonyms included Elizabeth Deare Bennett, Matt Lee, Jacques Jean Ferrat and Carter Sprague.
By Bizarre Hands is the first collection of short stories by American writer Joe R. Lansdale, published in 1989. The collection was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award for best fiction collection, and contains two stories which won Stokers. It has an introduction by Lewis Shiner. This book was re-issued as By Bizarre Hands Rides Again in 2010. The re-issue contains a new introduction by Joe R. Lansdale and new artwork by Alex McVey. This book is limited to 300 copies and is signed by both writer and artist. It also contains two stories not in the original issue.
High Cotton is a collection of short fiction by Joe R. Lansdale, initially published in 2000. In his introduction, Lansdale cites it as the "Best of Lansdale", and has called this work a companion piece to the 2004 collection Bumper Crop. Initially issued as a hardcover, it has been reissued as a trade paperback.
Al Sarrantonio is an American horror and science fiction writer, editor and publisher who has authored more than 50 books and 90 short stories. He has also edited numerous anthologies and has been called "brilliant" and "a master anthologist" by Booklist.
Mojo Press was a small press which primarily published science fiction, horror, and western books and graphic novels between 1994 and 1999.
Richard Ira "Rick" Klaw, is an American editor, essayist, and bookseller.
Michael "Mike" Shayne is a fictional private detective character created during the late 1930s by writer Brett Halliday, a pseudonym of Davis Dresser. The character appeared in a series of seven films starring Lloyd Nolan for Twentieth Century Fox, five films from the low-budget Producers Releasing Corporation with Hugh Beaumont, a radio series under a variety of titles between 1944 and 1953, and later in 1960–1961 in a 32-episode NBC television series starring Richard Denning in the title role.
Charles E. Fritch was an American author and editor of fantasy, science fiction, horror and mystery fiction. He was the editor of Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine from 1979 until 1985. His short story, "Misfortune Cookie", was adapted for an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone.
By Bizarre Hands Rides Again is a collection of short stories and two novellas written by American author Joe R. Lansdale. It is a re-issue of his first short story collection with a new introduction, four additional stories, illustrations, and a different cover. It is limited to 300 numbered copies and 26 lettered editions with a custom leather slipcase.
The Lost Lansdale Series is a series of four books by Joe R. Lansdale. None of the books in the Lost Lansdale series will ever be re-issued in any form including paperback. All have long since sold out.
Old Mars is a "retro Mars science fiction"-themed anthology edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, published on October 8, 2013. According to the publisher Tor Books, the collection celebrates the "Golden Age of Science Fiction", an era before advanced astronomy and space exploration told us what we currently know about the Solar System, when "of all the planets orbiting that G-class star we call the Sun, none was so steeped in an aura of romantic decadence, thrilling mystery, and gung-ho adventure as Mars." Old Mars won a 2014 Locus Award.
Audrey Roos (1912–1982) was an American writer who, with her husband William Roos, co-authored many mystery novels, short stories, and plays. The wife-husband team, under the pseudonym Kelley Roos, often wrote romantic suspense novels featuring a married pair of sleuths, Jeff and Haila Troy, who lived in New York City. Some of their work appeared under their own names, Audrey and William Roos, rather than under the pseudonym. In 1956 they wrote Speaking of Murder, a play produced at the Royale Theatre in New York. Their television adaptation of The Burning Court by John Dickson Carr won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America in 1961.
