Michael Arnzen

Michael Arnzen is a zine contributor, horror writer and English professor, currently teaching in the graduate program at Seton Hill University, near Pittsburgh, PA.

Arnzen was born in Amityville, NY -- the location of the infamous "horror house" -- in 1967. He first started writing in the Army, and subsequently began publishing horror poetry, short stories, reviews and articles in the small press and horror zines during his undergraduate years at the University of Southern Colorado (now CSU-Pueblo). He was an active member of SPWAO -- the Small Press Writer's and Artist's Organization (subsequently renamed the Genre Writers Association) and the Horror Writer's Association -- throughout the 1990s. Arnzen and artist (later, wife) Renate Muller launched Mastication Publications in 1991 -- a small press imprint for horror fiction and poetry, responsible for two chapbooks in the early '90s: Chew and Other Ruminations (Arnzen's first poetry collection) and Psychos: An Anthology of Psychological Horror in Verse, an influential collection of horror poems that included writers like  Andrew Darlington (Ludd's Mill), Denise Dumars, Steve Eng, John Grey, Kathleen Jurgens (Thin Ice), Lisa Lepovetsky, Marge B. Simon (Star*Line), Steve Rasnic Tem (Umbral), Don Webb, and many more.

Arnzen has since published dozens of books and has won numerous awards, including Bram Stoker Awards for Fiction Collection, Poetry Collection, First Novel and Alternative Forms. He also was recipient of the International Horror Critics Guild Award for First Novel, the Best Fiction Writer award from the Genre Writers Association and Best New Writer award from the Small Press Writers and Artists Organization.

Arnzen continues to write professionally and contributes often to independent zines and presses. His latest book is The Gorelets Omnibus, published by Raw Dog Screaming Press in 2012.

Chapbooks

 * 100 Jolts: Shockingly Short Stories (2004, Raw Dog Screaming)
 * The Bitchfight (2008, Bad Moon)
 * Chew and Other Ruminations (1991, Mastication Publications)
 * Dying (2003, Tachyon)
 * Fluid Mosaic (2000, Wildside)
 * Freakcidents (2005, Shocklines)
 * Grave Markings (1994, Dell)
 * Licker (2006, Novello)
 * Gorelets: Unpleasant Poems (2003, Fairwood)
 * Needles and Sins (1993, Dark Regions)
 * Paratabloids (2000, Ozark Triangle)
 * Play Dead (2005, Raw Dog Screaming)
 * Proverbs for Monsters (2007, Dark Regions)
 * Rigormarole (2005, Naked Snake)
 * Skull Fragments (2009, Les Perseides)
 * Sportuary (2003, Cyberpulp; 2009, ebook, Mastication Publications)
 * Writhing in Darkness (2 volumes, 1997, Dark Regions)
 * Psychos: An Anthology of Horror in Verse (editor) (1992, Mastication Publications)

Contributor

 * 42opus
 * Alien Skin
 * Argonaut
 * Bare Bone
 * Black Lotus
 * The Blood Review
 * Champagne Shivers
 * Crossroads
 * Dark Animus
 * Dark Regions
 * Dead of Night
 * Deathrealm
 * Decompositions
 * Detective Story Magazine
 * Doorways
 * Doppelganger
 * The Dream People
 * Dreams and Nightmares
 * EOTU
 * The Eternal Night
 * Figment
 * Flash Fantastic
 * Flash Me
 * flashquake
 * FlashShot
 * Flesh & Blood
 * Frisson
 * Fugue
 * Gauntlet
 * Genretrier
 * Glimpses
 * Grue
 * Heliocentric Net
 * The Iguana Informer
 * Insolent Rudder
 * Literary Potpourri
 * Lunatic Chameleon
 * Macabre
 * The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction
 * microcosms
 * Midnight Zoo
 * Mind Rot
 * minima
 * Morbid Curiosity
 * The Murder Hole
 * Mystic Fiction
 * Mythic Delirium
 * Night Songs
 * The Nightmare Express
 * Not One Of Us
 * The Obligatory Sin
 * Octavo
 * Palace Corbie
 * petroglyph
 * The Poetic Knight
 * Prisoners of the Night
 * Raven Electrick
 * Read Me
 * Rictus
 * Scavenger's Newsletter
 * ShadowKeep
 * Sidereality
 * Spidereyes
 * SPWAO Newsletter
 * Star*Line
 * The Sterling Web
 * Stillwaters Journal
 * Talebones
 * Tense Moments
 * Thin Ice
 * Twisted
 * 2AM Magazine
 * Unreality
 * The Urbanite
 * Vestal Review
 * Xenophilia
 * Yellow Bat Review
 * Wicked Hollow
 * Wicked Mystic
 * Worlds of Surrealism
 * Zoiks!