Laird Barron



Laird Samuel Barron (born 1970) is an American poet and story writer, much of whose work falls within the horror, noir, and dark fantasy genres.

Life
Barron spent his early years in Alaska, where he raced the Iditarod three times during the early 1990s and worked as fisherman on the Bering Sea. He has described the circumstances of his youth in various interviews as exceedingly harsh due to his family's dwelling in isolated regions and general poverty. Barron retired from racing and moved to Washington in 1994. He became active on the poetry scene, publishing with a number of online journals and eventually serving as the managing editor of the Melic Review. His professional writing debut occurred in 2001 when Gordon Van Gelder published Shiva, Open Your Eye in the September issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. Barron's debut collection, The Imago Sequence & Other Stories, was published in 2007 by ''Night Shade Books.

He has stated affection for pulp fiction, westerns, and noir, and his work typically combines one or more of these elements with a horrific or weird supernatural intrusion. Barron has frequently referred to the Bible as "the greatest horror story ever told."

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 best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards.

He has also been the Managing Editor of the online literary magazine Melic Review. He lives in Olympia, Washington.

Recognition
He was a 2007 and 2010 Shirley Jackson Award winner for his collections The Imago Sequence and Other Stories and Occultation and Other Stories and 2009 nominee for his novelette "Catch Hell" Other award nominations include the Crawford Award, Sturgeon Award, International Horror Guild Award, World Fantasy Award, Bram Stoker Award and the Locus Award.

Novels

 * The Light is the Darkness. Bloodletting Press, 2011.
 * The Croning. Night Shade Books 2012.

Short stories

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

Anthologized

 * Dark Faith 2 Apex Books 2012
 * A Season in Carcosa Miskatonic River Press 2012
 * The Book of Cthulhu 2 Night Shade Books 2012
 * Fungi Innsmouth Free Press 2012
 * The Best Horror of the Year Four Night Shade Books 2012
 * The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2011 ed Prime 2011
 * The Book of Cthulhu Night Shade Books 2011
 * Blood & Other Cravings Tor 2011
 * Ghosts by Gaslight HarperCollins 2011
 * Supernatural Noir Dark Horse 2011
 * The Best Horror of the Year 3 Night Shade Books 2011
 * New Cthulhu Prime Books 2011
 * Creatures Prime Books 2011
 * Wilde Stories 2011 Lethe 2011
 * Wilde Stories 2010 Lethe 2010
 * Haunted Legends Tor Books 2010
 * Cthulhu's Reign DAW Books 2010
 * The Best Horror of the Year 2 Night Shade Books 2010
 * Black Wings PS Publishing 2010
 * Lovecraft Unbound Dark Horse Comics 2009
 * The 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

 * "a strange form of life" Dark Faith 2 2012
 * "Frontier Death Song" Nightmare Magazine 2012
 * Hand of Glory The Book of Cthulhu 2 2012
 * "D T," A Season in Carcosa 2012
 * "Gamma," Fungi 2012
 * "The Men from Porlock," The Book of Cthulhu (Night Shade Books) 2011
 * "The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven" Supernatural Noir 2011
 * "The Siphon," Blood & Other Cravings 2011
 * "Blackwood's Baby," Ghosts by Gaslight 2011
 * The Broadsword, Black Wings'' 2010
 * "Six Six Six," Occultation 2010
 * Mysterium Tremendum, Occultation 2010
 * "--30--," Occultation 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 Lagerstätte," 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

 * "In the Shadows of the Pines." Afterword to The Collected Stories of Karl Edward Wagner by Centipede Press 2011
 * "Beyond Love, Sex, and the Heat Death of the Universe." Introduction to Engines of Desire, by Livia Llewellyn 2011
 * "Calling into the Darkness." Publishers Weekly essay 2010
 * "Heart of the North." Introduction to Ballad of the Northland by Jason Barron 2010
 * "Death's Head Blues." Introduction to Sin & ashes by Joseph S. Pulver Hippocampus 2010
 * "No Escape." Introduction to The Ones that Got Away by Stephen Graham Jones Prime Books 2010
 * "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, May 2007
 * "Quietly, Now." Essay for Erobos: The New Darkness #1, Summer 2007