Laird Barron

Laird Barron
Born	1970 Palmer, Alaska
Occupation	writer, Sled Dog Racer
Nationality	United States
Genres	Speculative fiction, Fantasy, Horror fiction, Science fiction, Poetry
Influences H.P. Lovecraft; Martin Cruz Smith; Cormac McCarthy; Roger Zelazny; Michael Shea; T.E.D. Klein
Official website

Laird Samuel Barron (born 1970) is an award winning author and poet, much of whose critically acclaimed work falls within the horror, noir, and dark fantasy genres. He has also been the Managing Editor of the online literary magazine Melic Review. He lives in Washington.

Bestselling author Stewart O'Nan said of his work:“If you think there aren't any new Richard Mathesons or Harlan Ellisons out there, you need to read Laird Barron.” Nick Gevers, reviewing for Locus Magazine, has called Barron, "...a miraculous synthesis of Lovecraft and Lucius Shepard." LOCUS October 2005, Issue 537 vol. 55 no. 4

Biography

Mr. Barron spent his early years in Alaska, where he raced the Iditarod three times during the early 1990s. He migrated to Washington State in 1994 where he became a certified strength trainer and earned a third degree brown belt in Professor Bradley J. Steiner's Jen Do Tao system, a fighting art based on WWII close quarters combat techniques developed by W.E. Fairbairn and Colonel Rex Applegate. His professional writing debut occurred 2001 when Gordon Van Gelder published Shiva, Open Your Eye in the September issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction.

In addition to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Barron's work has been featured in SCI FICTION, Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, Lovecraft Unbound!, Black Wings: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror, and The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. It has also been reprinted in numerous year's anthologies and nominated for multiple awards including the World Fantasy Award, International Horror Guild Award, Sturgeon Award, Crawford Award, and The Shirley Jackson Award. Mr. Barron's debut collection, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories, was published in 2007 by Night Shade Books. He and his wife currently reside in Olympia,Washington.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Croning, Night Shade Books 2011

Collections

• Occultation, Night Shade Books 2010
• The Imago Sequence & Other Stories, Night Shade Books 2007; Trade paperback 2009

Anthologies

• Wilde Stories 2010 Lethe 2010
• Haunted Legends Tor Books 2010
• Cthulhu's Reign DAW Books 2010
• Nostradamus' Fate Dark Regions 2010
• Black Wings PS Publishing 2010
• Lovecraft Unbound Dark Horse Comics 2009
• Best Horror of the Year 1 Night Shade Books 2009
• Poe Solaris 2009
• The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 21 2008
• Clockwork Phoenix Norilana Press 2008
• Year's Best Fantasy 8 Tachyon 2008
• The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction & Fantasy Del Rey 2008
• Jack Haringa Must Die! 2008
• Inferno Tor 2007
• Year's Best Fantasy 7 Tachyon 2007
• Trochu divné kusy 2 2006
• Fantastyka Number 4 2006
• The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 19 St. Martin's 2006
• Horror: Best of 2005 Prime 2006
• Fantasy: Best of 2005 Prime 2006
• Year's Best Fantasy 6 Tachyon 2006
• The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 18 St Martin's 2005
• The Three-Lobed Burning Eye Annual Volume No. 2 Legion Press 2005
• The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 17 St Martin's 2004

Stories

• The Broadsword, Black Wings 2010
• Mysterium Tremendum, Occultation 2010
• "--30--," Occultation 2010
• "Blackwood's Baby," 2010
• "Blood & Stardust," 2010
• "Vastation," Cthulhu's Reign 2010
• "The Redfield Girls," Haunted Legends 2010
• "Gula de Saturnus," Nostradamus' Fate 2010
• "Catch Hell," Lovecraft Unbound 2009
• "Strappado," Poe 2009
• "The Lonely Death of Agent Haringa," Kill Jack Haringa 2008
• "Occultation," Clockwork Phoenix 2008
• "The Lagerstatte," Del Rey Book of Science Fiction & Fantasy 2008
• "The Forest," Inferno 2007
• Procession of the Black Sloth, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories 2007
• "The Royal Zoo is Closed," Phantom # Zero 2006
• Hallucigenia, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2006
• "Parallax," SCI FICTION 2005
• The Imago Sequence, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2005
• "Proboscis," The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2005
• "Bulldozer," SCI FICTION 2004
• "Old Virginia," The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2003
• "Shiva, Open Your Eye," The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 2001
• "Hour of the Cyclops," Three-Lobed Burning Eye 2000

Other Writing

• "Stalking Through the Jungles of Night." Afterword to limited edition of Peter Straub's Koko Centipede Press 2010
• "Vistas of Evil Splendor." Introduction to The Darkly Splendid Realm by Richard Gavin Dark Regions Press 2009
• "Dark Star: The Michael Shea Experience." An introduction to The Autopsy & Other Tales, Centipede Press, 2008
• "Twenty-First Century Ghosts." Essay for LOCUS Magazine, May 2007
• "Quietly, Now." Essay for Erobos: The New Darkness #1, Summer 2007

References

• Biography from the author's website
• Biographical notes at Melic Review, Eclectica magazine, and Sci Fiction

External resources

• Laird Barron at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Laird Barron's online fiction at Free Speculative Fiction Online
• Melic Review
• Official site