Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories (34 page)

Christopher Coake
is the author of the novel
You Came Back
(2012) and the story collection
We’re in Trouble
(2005), which won the PEN/Robert Bingham Fellowship for a first work of fiction. In 2007 he was named one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. His short fiction has been anthologized in
Best American Mystery Stories 2004
and
The Best American Noir of the Century
, and published in journals such as
Granta
,
The Southern Review
,
The Gettysburg Review
,
Five Points
, and
The Journal
. A native of Indiana, Coake received an MA from Miami University of Ohio and an MFA from Ohio State University. He is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he directs the new MFA program in creative writing.

Mercedes M. Yardley
is a dark fantasist who wears red lipstick and poisonous flowers in her hair. She writes short stories, nonfiction, novellas, and novels. She is the author of
Beautiful Sorrows
,
Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A Tale of Atomic Love
,
Nameless
,
Little Dead Red
, and her latest release,
Pretty Little Dead Girls: A Novel of Murder and Whimsy
. Mercedes lives and works in Sin City, and you can reach her at www.abrokenlaptop.com.

Paul Tremblay
is the author of the novels
A Head Full of Ghosts
,
The Little Sleep
,
No Sleep Till Wonderland
, and coming in June 2016,
Disappearance at Devil’s Rock
. He is a member of the board of directors of the Shirley Jackson Awards, and his essays and short fiction have appeared in the
Los Angeles Times
and numerous “year’s best” anthologies. He is tall, hates pickles, and has no uvula. www.paultremblay.net.

Damien Angelica Walters
is the author of
Paper Tigers
(Dark House Press, 2016) and
Sing Me Your Scars
(Apex Publications, 2015). Her short fiction has been nominated twice for a Bram Stoker Award, reprinted in
The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror
and
The Year’s Best Weird Fiction
, and published in various anthologies and magazines, including
Nightscript, Cemetery Dance Online, Nightmare Magazine
, and
Black Static
. She lives in Maryland with her husband and two rescued pit bulls. Find her on Twitter @DamienAWalters or on the web at http://damienangelicawalters.com.

Richard Thomas
is the award-winning author of seven books—
Disintegration
and
The Breaker
(Random House Alibi),
Transubstantiate
,
Herniated Roots
,
Staring Into the Abyss
,
Tribulations
and
The Soul Standard
(Dzanc Books). His over 100 stories in print include
Cemetery Dance
,
PANK
,
storySouth
,
Gargoyle
,
Weird Fiction Review
,
Midwestern Gothic
,
Arcadia
,
Qualia Nous
,
Chiral Mad 2 & 3
, and
Shivers VI
. Visit www.whatdoesnotkillme.com for more information.

A visionary, fantasist, poet and painter,
Clive Barker
has expanded the reaches of human imagination as a novelist, director, screenwriter and dramatist. An inveterate seeker who traverses between myriad styles with ease, Barker has left his indelible artistic mark on a range of projects that reflect his creative grasp of contemporary media—from familiar literary terrain to the progressive vision of his Seraphim production company. His 1998 “Gods and Monsters”, which he executive produced, garnered three Academy Award nominations and an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay. The following year, Barker joined the ranks of such illustrious authors as Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Annie Dillard and Aldous Huxley when his collection of literary works was inducted into the Perennial line at HarperCollins, who then published
The Essential Clive Barker
, a 700-page anthology with an introduction by Armistead Maupin.

Barker began his odyssey in the London theatre, scripting original plays for his group The Dog Company, including “The History of the Devil,” “Frankenstein in Love” and “Crazyface.” Soon, Barker began publishing his
The Books of Blood
short fiction collections; but it was his debut novel,
The Damnation Game
that widened his already growing international audience.

Barker shifted gears in 1987 when he directed
Hellraiser
, based on his novella
The Hellbound Heart
, which became a veritable cult classic spawning a slew of sequels, several lines of comic books, and an array of merchandising. In 1990, he adapted and directed
Nightbreed
from his short story “Cabal.” Two years later, Barker executive produced the housing-project story
Candyman
, as well as the 1995 sequel,
Candyman 2: Farewell to the Flesh
. Also that year, he directed Scott Bakula and Famke Janssen in the noir-esque detective tale,
Lord of Illusions
.

Barker’s literary works include such best-selling fantasies as
Weaveworld
,
Imajica
, and
Everville
, the children’s novel
The Thief of Always
,
Sacrament
,
Galilee
and
Coldheart Canyon
. The first of his quintet of children’s books,
Abarat
, was published in October 2002 to resounding critical acclaim, followed by
Abarat II: Days of Magic, Nights of War
and
Arabat III: Absolute Midnight
; Barker is currently completing the fourth in the series.

As an artist, Barker frequently turns to the canvas to fuel his imagination with hugely successful exhibitions across America. His neo-expressionist paintings have been showcased in two large format books,
Clive Barker, Illustrator, volumes I & II
.

In 2012 Barker was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Horror Writer’s Association, for his outstanding contribution to the genre.

John F.D. Taff
is a Bram Stoker Award-nominated author with nearly 30 years experience in all sorts of writing . . . public relations, marketing, sales, journalism and creative. He’s a published author with more than 75 short stories and soon to be six novels in print. His writing tends to be categorized as “horror,” though most of it has a weird, pulpy
Twilight Zone
vibe to it. He also writes fantasy, suspense and some science fiction. Over the years, six of his short stories have been awarded honorable mentions in Datlow & Windling’s
Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror.

John is a fascinating human being (yes, he’s writing this), with diverse interests in history (ancient Egypt and the Civil War, particularly), spiritualism, the paranormal, cooking, movies, music and reading. He resides in a lovely house down by a river that likes to, every so often, overflow its banks and spread alarmingly over the countryside, sweeping aside mobile homes, swine and meth labs. He shares the house with his three wonderfully cute pugs, Sadie, Tovah & Muriel. He shares his life with his wonderful wife, Deborah, who puts up with a great deal from him.

Amanda Gowin
lives in the foothills of Appalachia with her husband and son. Her work has appeared in a variety of print and online publications, including everything from
Warmed and Bound
and the
Burnt Tongues
anthology to
NAILED
magazine. She co-edited the
Cipher Sisters
anthology, and her first collection,
Radium Girls
(Thunderdome Press), is now available. More can be found at her blog: www.lookatmissohio.wordpress.com. She has always written and always will.

Kevin Lucia
is the reviews editor for
Cemetery Dance
magazine and he writes the quarterly column, “Horror 101,” for
Lamplight Magazine
. His short fiction has appeared in several anthologies. He is the author of
Hiram Grange & The Chosen One
,
Things Slip Through
,
Devourer of Souls
,
Through A Mirror Darkly
and
A Night at Old Webb
. He’s currently working on his first novel.

Maria Alexander’s
debut novel,
Mr. Wicker
, won the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a First Novel. Her short stories and nonfiction have appeared since 1999 in critically acclaimed anthologies and publications such as
Chiaroscuro Magazine
,
Nightmare Magazine
,
Paradox: The Magazine of Historical and Speculative Fiction
and many others. Champlain College uses her nonfiction to teach about female warriors in popular culture. Since 2010, she’s been studying samurai swordsmanship. Don’t ask her which is mightier. You’ll probably regret it. Instead, visit www.mariaalexander.net.

Josh Malerman
is the author of the novel
Bird Box
and forthcoming novella
A House at the Bottom of a Lake
. He lives in Ferndale, Michigan with his fiancée Allison Laakko and their two cats, Dewey and Frankenstein.

The Oxford Companion to English Literature describes
Ramsey Campbell
as “Britain’s most respected living horror writer”. He has been given more awards than any other writer in the field, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild and the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015 he was made an Honorary Fellow of Liverpool John Moores University for outstanding services to literature. Among his novels are
The Face That Must Die
,
Incarnate
,
Midnight Sun
,
The Count of Eleven
,
Silent Children
,
The Darkest Part of the Woods
,
The Overnight
,
Secret Story
,
The Grin of the Dark
,
Thieving Fear
,
Creatures of the Pool
,
The Seven Days of Cain
,
Ghosts Know
, T
he Kind Folk
,
Think Yourself Lucky
and
Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach
. He is presently working on a trilogy,
The Three Births of Daoloth
.
Needing Ghosts
,
The Last Revelation of Gla’aki
,
The Pretence
and
The Booking
are novellas. His collections include
Waking Nightmares
,
Alone with the Horrors
,
Ghosts and Grisly Things
, T
old by the Dead
,
Just Behind You
and
Holes for Faces
, and his non-fiction is collected as
Ramsey Campbell, Probably
. His novels
The Nameless
and
Pact of the Fathers
have been filmed in Spain. His regular columns appear in
Dead Reckonings
and
Video Watchdog
. He is the President of the Society of Fantastic Films.

Ramsey Campbell lives on Merseyside with his wife Jenny. His pleasures include classical music, good food and wine, and whatever’s in that pipe. His website is at www.ramseycampbell.com.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Cover Art

Caitlin Hackett’s
passion for the natural world has inspired her art since she first put pencil to paper as a child. She grew up on the northern coast of California, between the cold Pacific Ocean and the redwood forests. It was there that her love for nature and wilderness flourished. As she has grown, she has combined her love for animals with her interest in both wildlife biology and mythology to create artwork that speaks to the current biological mythos that constructs the barrier between what is considered Human, and what is considered Animal.

Mirroring ancient myths of transformation in often grotesque ways, we find in contemporary times that animals are being transformed biologically due to interactions with human pollutants; there are frogs with triplicate legs and blind eyes, cows with shriveled sets of legs growing out of their backs, two-faced piglets being born on factory farms and radioactive fish rotting from the inside in poisoned seas, the list goes on. She is interested in the power of these mutations both for their mythological allusions as well as their dire environmental implications. She hopes to remind those who view her artwork that we, too, are animals, embedded in this fragile world even as we poison it.

Her work alludes to the boundaries that separate humans from animals both physically and metaphysically, and the way in which these boundaries are warped by science, mythology, and religion alike.

Like the gods of so many myths, Humanity has warped the world into our own image, and it is this often frightening image she hopes to reflect in her work.

Learn more at
https://caitlinhackett.carbonmade.com
.

Interior Art

Luke Spooner
currently lives and works in the South of England. Having graduated from the University of Portsmouth with a first-class degree, he is now a full-time illustrator working under two aliases;
Carrion House
for his darker work and
Hoodwink House
for his work aimed at a younger audience. He believes that the job of putting someone else’s words into a visual form, to accompany and support their text, is a massive responsibility as well as being something he truly treasures.

Learn more at
www.carrionhouse.com
.

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