Dennis Etchison

While he has achieved some acclaim as a novelist, it is Etchison's work in the short story format that is especially well-regarded by critics and genre fans, as with his debut collection The Dark Country (1982), selected as one of the 100 best horror books. He was President of the Horror Writers Association from 1992 to 1994. He was a multi-award winner, having won the British Fantasy Award three times for fiction, and the World Fantasy Award, once for short fiction and twice for anthologies he edited.

• Name — Dennis Etchison • Born — 30 March 1943 • Birthplace — Stockton, California • Died — 29 May 2019 • Occupation — Writer • Genre — * Fantasy • Horror • Awards — * British Fantasy Award (1982, 1987, 1994), • World Fantasy Award (1982, 1993, 2002) Dennis William Etchison (March 30, 1943 – May 29, 2019) was an American writer and editor of fantasy and horror fiction. Etchison referred to his own work as "rather dark, depressing, almost pathologically inward fiction about the individual in relation to the world". Stephen King has called Dennis Etchison "one hell of a fiction writer" and he has been called "the most original living horror writer in America" (The Penguin Encyclopedia of Horror and the Supernatural). While he has achieved some acclaim as a novelist, it is Etchison's work in the short story format that is especially well-regarded by critics and genre fans, as with his debut collection The Dark Country (1982), selected as one of the 100 best horror books. He was President of the Horror Writers Association from 1992 to 1994. He was a multi-award winner, having won the British Fantasy Award three times for fiction, and the World Fantasy Award, once for short fiction and twice for anthologies he edited.

Etchison was born in Stockton, California. An only child, the earliest years of his life were spent growing up in a household devoid of men (World War II was still raging across the globe). Etchison has remarked that he was greatly spoiled during his early years and largely isolated from other children. This sense of isolation and need to interact with society would later form the themes to many of his works. In his early years, Etchison also became an avid wrestling fan. Fascinated by the interplay between good and evil, he would regularly attend shows at the Olympic Auditorium with his father. His passion for the sport continued to the end of his life, and he often wrote under the pen name "The Pro" for the wrestling publication Rampage. In junior high and high school, Etchison wrote for the school paper and won numerous essay contests. He discovered Ray Bradbury during this time and emulated him before developing his own style. On the last day of his junior year in high school, Etchison began writing his first short story. Entitled "Odd Boy Out," it involved a group of teenagers in the woods. He began submitting it to numerous science-fiction magazines but received rejection slips each time. He then remembered Ray Bradbury once suggesting that a writer should start by submitting their work to the least likely market. So he submitted his short story to a gentlemen's magazine called Escapade, and, a few weeks later, he received their acceptance and a check for $125.

Etchison's fiction has appeared regularly since 1961 in a wide range of publications including Cavalier, The Oneota Review, Rogue, Seventeen, Statement, Fantastic Stories, Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Mystery Monthly, Escapade, Adelina, Comet (Germany), Fiction (France), Universe (France), Fantasy Tales, Weirdbook, Whispers, Fantasy Book and in such anthologies as Orbit, New Writings in SF, Rod Serling's Other Worlds, Prize Stories from Seventeen, The Pseudo-People, and The Future is Now. His stories can also be found in many of the major horror and dark fantasy anthologies including Frights, Dark Forces, Terrors, New Terrors, Horrors, Fears, Nightmares, Shadows, Whispers, Night Chills, Death, World Fantasy Awards, Mad Scientists, Year's Best Horror Stories, The Dodd, Mead Gallery of Horror, Midnight and others. His first short story collection, The Dark Country, was published in 1982. Its title story received the World Fantasy Award (tied with Stephen King), as well as the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection of that year – the first time one writer received both major awards for a single work. Etchison nearly had his first short story collection appear eleven years earlier. In 1971 he sold Powell Books, a low-budget Los Angeles based publisher who published Karl Edward Wagner's Darkness Weaves, a collection of his science fiction and fantasy under the title The Night of the Eye. The book went into galley proofs and beyond – Etchison received a cover proof, and was assigned. On the eve of its publication, Powell Publications went bankrupt. Etchison would wait over a decade before his actual first collection The Dark Country would appear, to critical acclaim. Several more collections have been published since, including a career retrospective, Talking in the Dark (2001), which consists of stories personally selected by the author. He was nominated for the British Fantasy Award for "The Late Shift" (1981), and as well as winning the ward in 1982 for "The Dark Country", has won it since for Best Short Story, for "The Olympic Runner" (1986) and "The Dog Park" (1994). Etchison's first novel (discounting two pseudonymous erotic novels), The Shudder, was slated for publication in 1980; he finally withdrew it when the editor demanded what he felt were unreasonable changes in the manuscript. A portion of the novel appeared as one selection in A Fantasy Reader, the book of the Seventh World Fantasy Convention in 1981; the full novel remains unpublished. Writing under the pseudonym of "Jack Martin", he published popular novelizations of the films Halloween II (1981), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), and Videodrome (1983). Under his own name, Etchison's novels include Darkside (1986), Shadowman (1993), and California Gothic (1995), as well as the novelization of John Carpenter's The Fog (1980). Etchison periodically taught classes in creative writing at UCLA.

As editor, Etchison has received two World Fantasy Awards for Best Anthology, for MetaHorror (1993) and The Museum of Horrors (2002). His other anthologies include the critically acclaimed Cutting Edge (1986), Gathering The Bones (2003) (edited with Ramsey Campbell and Jack Dann), and the Masters of Darkness series (three volumes).

In 2002, Etchison adapted nearly 100 episodes of the original The Twilight Zone TV series for a CBS radio series hosted by Stacy Keach. The programmes were commercially released on audio CDs. Etchison was one of the writers on the audio series Fangoria's Dreadtime Stories, hosted by Malcolm McDowell. These horrific stories are available on CD and via digital download at iTunes, Audible and through other outlets.

• The Book of Lists: Horror – 2008 (contributor) • Etchison contributed a foreword to George Clayton Johnson's All of Us Are Dying and Other Stories (Subterranean Press, 1999).

A message posted to Etchison's Facebook page reported that the author had died on May 28, 2019; no cause of death was given. Locus magazine published Etchison's obituary on May 29, 2019. He was survived by his wife Kristina.

• Stud Row (LA: Oasis Books, 1969) (written as "H.L. Mensch" by Etchison & Eric Cohen) • Loves & Intrigues of Damon (LA: Oasis Books, 1969) (written as "Ben Dover") (based in part upon an idea by Charles Beaumont) • The Shudder (Coward, McCann, Geoghegan, 1980). Despite Etchison receiving an advance, and the book being assigned an ISBN, the novel was not published; it was withdrawn by the author (see details above). • The Fog (1980) • Halloween II (1981) (written as "Jack Martin") • Halloween III (1982) (written as "Jack Martin") • Videodrome (1983) (written as "Jack Martin") • Darkside (1986) • Shadowman (1993) • California Gothic (1995) • Double Edge (1997)

• Cutting Edge (1986) • Masters of Darkness (1986) • Masters of Darkness II (1988) • Lord John Ten (1988) • Masters of Darkness III (1991) • The Complete Masters of Darkness (1991) • MetaHorror (1992). This anthology won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, 1993. • The Museum of Horrors (Leisure Books, 2001). This anthology won the World Fantasy Award for Best Anthology, 2002. • Gathering The Bones (2003) (edited with Ramsey Campbell and Jack Dann)

• The Walk: A Tor.Com Original (2014)

• The Dark Country (1982) • Red Dreams (1984) • The Blood Kiss (1987) • The Death Artist (2000)

• Talking in the Dark (2001) (plus one new story, "Red Dog Down"). This volume marked the 40th anniversary of Etchison's first professional first short story sale. • Fine Cuts (e-collection, Scorpius Digital, 2006) (Hollywood-themed volume plus one previously uncollected story, "Got To Kill Them All") • Got To Kill Them All and Other stories (CD Publications, 2008) (plus three previously uncollected stories, "One of Us", "In a Silent Way" and "My Present Wife", together with "Red Dog Down" and "Got To Kill Them All", previously included in prior retrospectives)