Author Profile

(Illustration by Erik Wilson, © 2015.)

UPDATED: February 13, 2019

BOOKS: Richard is the author of seven books—three novels, including Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications, 2010), Disintegration (Random House Alibi, 2015) and Breaker (Random House Alibi, 2016); three short story collections, Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press, 2012), Staring Into the Abyss (Kraken Press, 2013), and Tribulations (Cemetery Dance/Crystal Lake, 2016); and a novel-in-novellas, The Soul Standard (Dzanc Books, 2015), where he wrote one of four novellas.

AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS: Most recently, his novelette, “Golden Sun,” written with Kristi DeMeester, Damien Angelica Walters, and Michael Wehunt, was included in The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 11. Breaker was a finalist for the Thriller Award (Best E-Book Original Novel). Disintegration made several lists, in 2015: Best Fiction Books of 2015 (Entropy Magazine), Top Ten Books of 2015 (Cultured Vultures), Favorite Reads of 2015 (Shotgun Logic), Best Fiction Reads of 2015 (Quiet Fury Books), and Top Ten Novels of 2015 (The Horror Bookshelf). Richard was the winner of the ChiZine Publications “Enter the World of Filaria” contest. His short story “Maker of Flight” was chosen by Filaria author Brent Hayward and Bram Stoker Award-Winning editor Brett Alexander Savory. He was also the winner of the 2011 Cafe Doom / One Buck Horror contest, for his short story “Wicker Park Pause.” His story, “From Within” was a Notable Story at the Million Writers Awards. He has been nominated for five Pushcart prizes, been long-listed for the Best Horror of the Year anthology six times, and was awarded a writing residency at Writers in the Heartland in 2011, and participation in the Flying House co-op, resulting in a grant from Poets & Writers magazine, in 2012. For editing and anthology nominations and awards, see below (Short Stories, Dark House Press, and Other Editing).

SHORT STORIES: His work has been accepted in over 150 publications.

ANTHOLOGIES: Gorgon: Stories of Emergence (Pantheon), Seven Deadliest (Cutting Block Press, novelette, Ring of Fire), Lost Highways: Dark Fictions from the Road (Crystal Lake Publishing), Chiral Mad 4 (Written Backwards), BEHOLD! Oddities, Curiosities and Undefinable Wonders (Crystal Lake Publishing, and Bram Stoker winner), PRISMS (PS Publishing), Chiral Mad 3 (Written Backwards, and Bram Stoker nominee) Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories (Crystal Lake Publishing, and Bram Stoker nominee) with Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Peter Tremblay and an introduction by Chuck Palahniuk, Shivers VI  (Cemetery Dance) with Stephen King and Peter Straub,  Letters from the Grave: A Collection of Epistolary Horror, When the Clock Strikes 13, Grease Paint and .45s, Warmed and Bound (Velvet Press), Noir at the Bar, Speedloader (Snubnose Press), In Search of a City: Los Angeles in 1,000 Words and Cipher Sisters (Thunderdome), Slices of Flesh (Dark Moon Books), Fear the Reaper (Crystal Lake Publishing), Reloaded: Both Barrels, Volume 2 (Shotgun Honey), Chiral Mad 2 and Qualia Nous (Written Backwards), Slave Stories: Scenes From the Slave State (Omnium Gatherum),  Into the Darkness (Necro Publishing), The Booked Anthology, Terror Scribes (Dog Horn Publishing), Daddy Cool (Artistically Declined Press), Nova Parade (Solarcide),  XIII (Resurrection House), Shadows Over Main Street (Hazardous Press), Truth or Dare? (Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing), Dead Harvest (Scarlet Galleon Publications), Gaia: Shadow and Breath, Volume 2 (Pantheon) and Trouble in the Heartland (Gutter Books).

MAGAZINES/WEBSITES: Cemetery Dance (twice), Litro Magazine, Penumbra, Menacing Hedge, Pantheon Magazine (four times), Arcadia, storySouth, Midwestern Gothic, ChiZine, Gargoyle, Murky Depths, PANK, Pear Noir!, Deciduous Tales, Hypnos, 3:AM Magazine, Word Riot, Dogmatika, Norwegian American, Opium, Vain, Weird Fiction Review, Crime Factory, Beat to a Pulp, Metazen, Cease Cows, The Writing Disorder (twice), Circa Review, Beat the Dust, Blue Monday Review (twice), Mayday Magazine, Emprise Review, Flywheel Magazine, Punchnel’s, Cannoli Pie, Surreal Grotesque, Conjectural Figments, Dirty Noir, Stepaway, Shotgun Honey, Cherry Bleeds, Zouch Magazine, Rotten Leaves, We Are Vespertine, Blink-Ink, Leodegraunce, Outsider Writers Collective, The Oddville Press, Colored Chalk, Cause and Effect, Gold Dust, Nefarious Muse, and Troubadour 21.

DARK HOUSE PRESS: Richard was also the Editor-in-Chief of Dark House Press (a Curbside Splendor imprint) from 2012-2016 (the press is now closed). Titles published: The New Black, a collection of the “best of neo-noir” from the past 5-10 years; Echo Lake by Letitia Trent, a Southern Gothic horror thriller; the first book in the Joshua City science fiction trilogy, The Doors Your Mark Are Your Own by Okla Elliott and Raul Clement; and the fifth dark fiction short story collection by Stephen Graham Jones, After the People Lights Have Gone Off (winner for Best Short Story Collection at This is Horror, as well as a Bram Stoker Award finalist, and a Shirley Jackson Award nominee); Exigencies, a collection of the next wave of neo-noir short stories (all new), which was a nominee for the Shirley Jackson Award; Vile Men (stories) by Rebecca Jones-Howe; Paper Tigers (novel) by Damien Angelica Walters, a contemporary haunted house tale; and Scratch by Steve Himmer, a rural legend story.

OTHER EDITING: For Black Lawrence Press, The Lineup: 20 Provocative Women Writers, with work by such luminaries as Monica Drake, Holly Goddard Jones, Paula Bomer, Karen Brown, and many others. He was a workshop moderator at The Cult writer’s workshop where they have put together an anthology of transgressive short stories, Burnt Tongues (Medallion Press), which he co-edited with Chuck Palahniuk and Dennis Widmyer (where it has gone on to win Best Anthology at This is Horror, and become a Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award finalist). He has been an Editor for Colored Chalk (Issue #6 – Waking Up Strange and Issue #9 – Heaven and Hell) where he published work by Joe Meno, Karen Brown and Joey Goebel, and was Co-Editor and Designer at Sideshow Fables where they published work by Stephen Graham Jones and Steve Almond.

OTHER WRITING: He also wrote book reviews and interviews for The Nervous Breakdown (from 2010-2013) and as of this date, still pens a column, “Storyville” over at Lit Reactor (currently at about 110 written). His non-fiction has appeared in various places, including his essay, “Techniques of Horror,” in Where Nightmares Come From: The Art of Storytelling in the Horror Genre (Crystal Lake Publishing) which was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award, and “The Many Faces of Horror: Craft Techniques” in It’s Alive: Bringing Your Nightmares to Life.

SCHOOL: He did his undergraduate studies at Bradley University (Peoria, IL), where he majored in Advertising and Communications, and minored in Psychology and received his MFA at Murray State University (Murray, KY) in 2012, where he studied under the Pulitzer-nominated author, Dale Ray Phillips.

TEACHING: He teaches online at LitReactor.com; in person and online at Story Studio Chicago; online at Gamut magazine; online for his own classes—Novel in a Year, Contemporary Dark Fiction and an Advanced Creative Writing Workshop; as well as at the Iowa Summer Writing Festival in Iowa City. He also traveled to Transylvania in 2015 to teach a workshop on horror writing in the shadow of Bram Stoker’s castle (which he talks about HERE and HERE).

MISC: Richard is a member of the Horror Writers Association, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and the International Thriller Writers. He was the Fiction and Poetry Curator for Around the Coyote, a Wicker Part art festival. He was a keynote speaker at the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation in May of 2015. He has also attended conferences as a lecturer, panelist and teacher in San Antonio, Texas, as well as Oshkosh and West Bend, Wisconsin. Most recently he was a guest author at the University of California-Riverside, speaking to their MFA program, and interacting with students there.

CONTACT: Richard lives in Chicago in the north suburbs. He can be reached at richardgthomasiii@gmail.com. His agent, Paula Munier, can be reached at pmunier@talcottnotch.net.