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American novelist From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
D. Harlan Wilson (born September 3, 1971) is an American novelist, short-story writer, critic, playwright and English professor.[1] His body of work bridges the aesthetics of literary theory with various genres of speculative fiction,[2] with Wilson also being recognized as one of the co-founders of bizarro fiction."[3] Among his books is the award-winning novel Dr. Identity, the two-volume short story collection Battle without Honor or Humanity, a monograph on John Carpenter’s They Live and a critical study of the life and work of J. G. Ballard.[1]
D. Harlan Wilson | |
---|---|
Born | Michigan, United States | September 3, 1971
Occupation | Novelist and professor |
Period | 1999–present |
Genre | Irrealism, Literary fiction, Science fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Interstitial fiction, Literary criticism, Literary nonsense, Biography, Theatre of the Absurd |
Years active | 1999–present |
Notable works | Dr. Identity, Peckinpah, The Kyoto Man, Battles without Honor or Humanity |
Spouse |
Christine Junker
(m. 2005; div. 2015) |
Children | 2 |
Signature | |
Website | |
www |
Wilson began writing fiction in his early twenties when he took a creative writing course with novelist Patricia Powell while enrolled in graduate school at the University of Massachusetts Boston.[4] He has since published more than 20 books of fiction and nonfiction.[1]
Wilson is perhaps best known for Dr. Identity,[5] described by Booklist as a "madcap, macabre black comedy,"[6] and the subsequent Peckinpah: An Ultraviolent Romance, both of which he has fancifully categorized as examples of "splattershtick," a literary, comic, ultraviolent form of metafiction. He is also known for helping create and shape the aesthetics of bizarro fiction,[7][8][9] which has been described as a "mélange of elements of absurdism, satire, and the grotesque."[7] Many of his books are published by Raw Dog Screaming Press, a small press specializing in bizarro fiction.[10][11]
Much of his writing satirizes the idiocy of pop culture and western society, illustrating how "the reel increasingly usurps the real."[2][12] Taken as a whole, his writing is difficult to quantify and he has been said to defy categorization; some critics have called him "a genre in himself."[13] Publishers Weekly has described his fiction as "testosterone-fueled and intentionally disorienting" which "invokes not a dialogue with the reader but a bare-knuckle fistfight."[14]
In addition to writing fiction, Wilson is a prolific reviewer and essayist being frequently published in places such as the Los Angeles Review of Books, the academic journal Extrapolation, and the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts.[15]
Wilson is editor-in-chief of Anti-Oedipus Press, reviews editor of Extrapolation and managing editor of Guide Dog Books. He is also emeritus editor-in-chief of The Dream People,[16] a journal focused on bizarro fiction where he previously served as editor-in-chief.[17]
Wilson is Professor of English at the Lake Campus of Wright State University, where he has been teaching since 2006 after receiving his Ph.D. in English from Michigan State University.[18]
Wilson is the author of Modern Masters of Science Fiction: J.G. Ballard from University of Illinois Press.[1] His other academic books include Cultographies: They Live from Columbia University Press,[1] which the San Francisco Book Review called a "scholarly examination of a cult classic still debated today,"[19] and Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction. He has also written a number of scholarly articles on genre fiction along with entries for books such as The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy.[20]
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