(But will refrain: most of them are still around, still working, and would bludgeon me for describing them as minor SF writers from the 1960s.) It’s not hard to remember well-known SF writers from the thirties, even the twenties.īrian got hit hard in the horror bust of the early eighties. I could name a dozen without really trying. I can think of a couple, very quickly: Sarban and Robert Bloch.Ĭompare this with, say, SF: how many minor SF writers can you recall who were writing in 1965? There were writers writing the stuff, there were readers reading the stuff we don’t reside here in a context that bursts already in full bloom from the brow of Stephen King. Let me assure you: there was commercial horror fiction in distribution in 1965. The horror business ebbs and flows regularly, and radically the low tide goes so low that it drives most all horror writers out of business-and out of memory, too.Ī thought experiment, for knowledgeable readers: off the cuff, how many major horror writers can you recall who were writing in 1965? This doesn’t reflect on Brian so much as it reflects on the nature of the market for horror fiction. Only the old timers-folks who’d been writing and reading horror since before the last big bust-had even heard of him. The person who kept the gate posted a note that he was letting Brian in, and Rick Hautala wrote, “Son of a bitch! It’s Brian McNaughton!” I know Rick pretty well, and as he typed that I could just imagine his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open, and I wondered who the heck this Brian McNaughton was. This happened in one of those computer network-places where the horror writers congregate.
The first I ever heard or saw of Brian McNaughton was when Rick Hautala addressed him as though he were a ghost come back to type among the living. All rights reserved.īrian McNaughton and the Stories that Compelled Him Wildside edition copyright © 2000 Brian McNaughton. Originally published in 1997 by Terminal Firght Publications The Throne of Bones won the World Fantasy and the International Horror Guild awards in 1998 for best collection. He worked for ten years as a reporter for the Newark Evening News and has since held all sorts of other jobs while publishing some 200 stories in a variety of magazines and books. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.īrian McNaughton was born in Red Bank, New Jersey, and attended Harvard. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser.
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