Richard Parks (author)

Last updated
Richard Parks
Born (1955-06-15) June 15, 1955 (age 68)
Newton, Mississippi, U.S.
Pen nameW. J. Everett
OccupationAuthor
Genre Fantasy, science fiction
Website
richard-parks.com

Billy Richard Parks (born June 15, 1955) is an American fantasy, science fiction and horror writer. He writes under the names Richard Parks and W. J. Everett, aside from a few early works written as by B. Richard Parks and Rick Parks. [1]

Contents

Biography

Parks is a native of Mississippi; he was born in Newton. [1] As an adult, prior to his literary career, he was "a chemist by trade, specializing in paint and polymer films." [2] More recently he resided in Ridgeland, Mississippi. [3] He now lives in central New York with his wife and cats. [4]

Works

Parks "started writing seriously about 1976," [3] [2] collecting thirty-five rejections before his first professional sale ("The Passing," published in Amazing/Fantastic , v. 28, no. 1, July, 1981). [2] His work since then has appeared in Asimov's Science Fiction , Beneath Ceaseless Skies , Fantasy Magazine , Realms of Fantasy , Tor.com , Weird Tales and other periodicals, as well as various anthologies. Early in his career "[h]is most popular recurring character [was] Eli Mothersbaugh, a high-tech ghost hunter based in the sleepy—and oft haunted—imaginary town of Canemill, Mississippi." [3] Many of his fantasies with contemporary settings also make use of Canemill, and its name has been adopted for Canemill Publishing, an imprint through which Parks has issued a number of his books. More recently he has found success with his historical fantasies featuring Yamada no Goji, a demon hunter of Heian period Japan.

Reception

Parke Godwin called Parks's first collection, The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales For Grownups (2002), "one of the best SF/fantasy collections I've read in years" and wrote of its author that "[l]ike any fine writer [he] doesn't label easily, which makes him hell for lazy-minded pigeonholers, but his themes are consistent and clear. He uses fantasy to underscore reality: the nature of our humanity and the inescapability of what we are, the choices we make and the price we pay for each, right or wrong. ... [H]e can step imperceptibly from deadpan funny to deeply affecting truth with an utterly transparent style that has the reader racing down the page [and] has the rare ability to say profound things simply." [5]

Charles de Lint of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction praised Parks' "remarkable storytelling" in a voice that is, "sometimes lyrical, sometimes hard-edged; sometimes in a voice that sounds as ancient as the first stories told around our early ancestors' campfires; sometimes in a voice so new that we have yet to hear it." [6]

Recognition

Parks's story "The Ogre's Wife" won the SF Age Reader's Poll for short story in 1995. [3] His writings have also received nominations for the World Fantasy Award and the Mythopoeic Award; [4] more specifically, his collection The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales For Grownups (2002), described by one reviewer as an "absolute treasure of a collection," [6] was nominated for the 2003 World Fantasy Award for Best Collection, [7] [8] and his novella The Heavenly Fox (2011) was nominated for the 2012 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. [9]

Bibliography

Notes

  1. 1 2 Richard Parks at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
  2. 1 2 3 Parks, Richard. "Rick Parks" (autobiographical piece), in Amazing/Fantastic v. 28, no. 1, July 1981, pages 94-75.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Hoover, K. Mark. "Interview: Richard Parks," in Strange Horizons #1, April 1, 2002.
  4. 1 2 "About". richard-parks.com. 9 September 2011. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  5. ↑ Godwin, Parke. "THE OGRE'S WIFE: Ghosts, Gods, a Dragon, Assorted Legends and Things That Go Bump in the Heart: An Introduction." In The Ogre's Wife: Fairy Tales For Grownups, Obscura Press, 2002.
  6. 1 2 deLint, Charles (August 2002). "The Ogre's Wife and Other Fairy Tales for Grown-Ups". Fantasy & Science Fiction. ProQuest   219675409.
  7. ↑ World Fantasy Convention - List of Nominees for the World Fantasy Award
  8. ↑ "World Fantasy Awards All Nominees". sfadb.com. Retrieved 10 January 2017.
  9. ↑ "Mythopoeic Awards All Nominees". sfadb.com. Retrieved 10 January 2017.

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References

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