Stephen Graham Jones

Last updated

Stephen Graham Jones
SGJ office 2019.jpg
Stephen Graham Jones, late 2019
Born (1972-01-22) January 22, 1972 (age 52)
Midland, Texas, U.S.
OccupationWriter, Ineva Baldwin Professor of English at University of Colorado
Education
Genre Horror fiction

Stephen Graham Jones (born January 22, 1972) [1] is a Blackfeet Native American author of experimental fiction, horror fiction, [2] crime fiction, and science fiction. [3] [4] [5] His works include the horror novels The Only Good Indians , My Heart is a Chainsaw , and Night of the Mannequins.

Contents

Jones is the Ineva Baldwin Professor of English at the University of Colorado, where he has been a faculty member since 2008. [6] [7]

Background

Stephen Graham Jones was born in Midland, Texas, on January 22, 1972, to Dennis Jones and Rebecca Graham. [1] He is an enrolled member of the Blackfeet Tribe of the Blackfeet Indian Reservation of Montana. [8]

Jones received his Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Philosophy from Texas Tech University in 1994, a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of North Texas in 1996, and his Ph.D. in 1998 from Florida State University. [9]

Writing career

Jones at a 2014 book signing Stephen Graham Jones.JPG
Jones at a 2014 book signing

While he was attending Florida State University, Jones's dissertation director introduced him to Houghton-Mifflin editor Jane Silver at the Writers' Harvest conference. Jones pitched her a novel which he had not yet written, and Silver liked the idea. Jones then wrote the book, The Fast Red Road , as his dissertation. It was published as his debut novel in 2000. [10] It was followed by All the Beautiful Sinners in 2003.

In 2002, Jones won a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in fiction. [11] In 2006, he won the Jesse Jones Award for Fiction from the Texas Institute of Letters for his 2005 short story collection Bleed Into Me . [12] He won the Bram Stoker Award for Long Fiction for Mapping the Interior in 2017. [13]

The Only Good Indians , a horror novel, was published on July 14, 2020, through Saga Press and Titan Books. [14] It won the Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction in 2020. [15] Jones won two 2020 Bram Stoker Awards for Night of the Mannequins and The Only Good Indians. [16]

Jones contributed an X-Men story to Marvel Comics' Marvel's Voices: Indigenous Voices #1 anthology, release in November 2020. Joining him was artist David Cutler. [17]

Themes and style

Jones has acknowledged a debt to Native American Renaissance writers, especially Gerald Vizenor. [18] Scholar Cathy Covell Waegner describes Jones's work as containing elements of "dark playfulness, narrative inventiveness, and genre mixture." [18]

Joseph Gaudet cited Jones' writing as "post-ironic" or representative of David Foster Wallace's "New Sincerity," a literary approach "emerging in response to the cynicism, detachment, and alienation that many saw as defining the postmodern canon," seeking instead "to more patently embrace morality, sincerity, and an 'ethos of belief.' [19] His eighth novel, Ledfeather, which Jones stated was the most widely taught of his books, [20] is used as Gaudet's primary example.

Personal life

Jones and his wife Nancy married on May 20, 1995. They have one child together. [1]

Awards

Awards for Jones's writing [21]
YearTitleAwardResultRef.
2007"Raphael" International Horror Guild Award for Short FictionNominee
2009 The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti Shirley Jackson Award for NovellaNominee
2010"Lonegan's Luck" Shirley Jackson Award for NoveletteNominee
2011The Ones That Got Away Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection Finalist [22]
Shirley Jackson Award for CollectionNominee
2015After the People Lights Have Gone Off Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection Nominee [23]
Shirley Jackson Award for CollectionNominee
2016Mongrels Bram Stoker Award for Novel Finalist [24]
2017Mapping the Interior Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction Winner [25] [26]
Mongrels Locus Award for Best Horror Novel 9th
Shirley Jackson Award for NovelNominee
"The Night Cyclist" Shirley Jackson Award for NoveletteNominee
2018Mapping the Interior Shirley Jackson Award for NovelNominee
World Fantasy Award—Novella Nominee
2020 Night of the Mannequins Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction Winner [27] [28]
Shirley Jackson Award for NovellaWinner [29] [30]
The Only Good Indians Bram Stoker Award for Novel Winner [31] [32]
Shirley Jackson Award for NovelWinner [29] [30]
2021 My Heart is a Chainsaw Bram Stoker Award for Novel Winner [33] [34]
Night of the Mannequins Shirley Jackson Award, Novella Winner
The Only Good Indians British Fantasy Award for Horror NovelNominee
Dragon Award for Horror NovelNominee
Ignyte Award for Adult NovelNominee
World Fantasy Award—Novel Finalist
Locus Award for Best Horror Novel 2nd
"Wait for Night" Locus Award for Best Short Story 10th
2022 My Heart Is a Chainsaw British Fantasy Award for Horror NovelNominee
Dragon Award for Horror NovelNominee
Locus Award for Best Horror Novel Winner
Shirley Jackson Award for NovelWinner [35] [36]

Selected works

Books

  • The Fast Red Road: A Plainsong. Fiction Collective 2. 2000. ISBN   978-1573660884.
  • All the Beautiful Sinners. Rugged Land. 2003. ISBN   978-1590710081.
  • The Bird is Gone: A Manifesto. Fiction Collective 2. 2003. ISBN   978-1573661096.
  • Seven Spanish Angels. Dzanc. 2005. ASIN   B005D7V6NA.
  • Bleed into Me: A Book of Stories. Native Storiers: A series of American Narratives. University of Nebraska Press. 2005. ISBN   978-0803226050.
  • Demon Theory. MacAdam/Cage. 2006. ISBN   978-1596921641.
  • The Long Trial of Nolan Dugatti. Chiasmus Press. 2008. ISBN   978-0981502748.
  • Ledfeather. Fiction Collective 2. 2008. ISBN   978-1573661461.
  • It Came From Del Rio. Trapdoor Books. 2010. ISBN   978-1936500017.
  • The Ones that Got Away. Prime Books. 2011. ISBN   978-1607013211.
  • The Last Final Girl. Lazy Fascist Press. 2012. ISBN   978-1621050513.
  • Growing Up Dead in Texas. MP Publishing Ltd. 2012. ISBN   978-1849821544.
  • Zombie Bake-Off. Lazy Fascist. 2012. ISBN   978-1621050193.
  • Zombie Sharks with Metal Teeth. Lazy Fascist. 2013. ISBN   978-1621050995.
  • Three Miles Past. Nightscape. 2013. ISBN   978-1938644078.
  • The Least of My Scars. Broken River Books. 2013. ISBN   978-1940885001.
  • States of Grace. SpringGun Press. 2014. ISBN   978-0983221883.
  • Flushboy. Dzanc Books. 2013. ISBN   978-1938604171.
  • Not for Nothing. Dzanc Books. 2014. ISBN   978-1938604539.
  • After the People Lights Have Gone Off. Dark House Press. 2014. ISBN   978-1940430256.
  • The Gospel of Z. Samhain. 2014. ISBN   978-1619218116.
  • My Hero. Hex Publishers. 2016. ISBN   978-0998666709.
  • Mongrels. HarperCollins Publishers. 2016. ISBN   978-0062412690.
  • Mapping the Interior. Tor Books. 2017. ISBN   978-0765395108.
  • Night of the Mannequins . Tor.com. 2020. ISBN   9781250752079. [37]
  • The Only Good Indians. Saga, Simon & Schuster. 2020. ISBN   9781982136451.
  • My Heart is a Chainsaw . Saga Press, Simon & Schuster. 2021. ISBN   9781982137632.
  • Don't Fear the Reaper . Saga, Simon & Schuster. 2023. ISBN   978-1982186593.
  • The Angel of Indian Lake. Saga, Simon & Schuster. 2024. ISBN   978-1668011669.

Under the pseudonym P. T. Jones

Short stories

Comics

Related Research Articles

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The Bram Stoker Award for First Novel is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for an author's first horror novel.

The Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) for "superior achievement" in horror writing for long fiction.

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References

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Further reading