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Richard Thomas (author)
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Richard Thomas in an American author. His focus is on neo-noir fiction, typically touching on the darker aspects of life, including elements of violence, mental instability, breaks in reality, and tragedies. His work is rich in setting and sensory details, and often has a sexual element to it.

Biography

Richard was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He grew up in Webster Groves, and went to Webster Groves High School. He pursued his undergraduate studies, and obtained a Bachelor of Science at Bradley University, in Peoria, Illinois. He is completing his MFA at Murray State University, where he is studying under Pulitzer nominated professor, Dale Ray Phillips. He currently lives in Chicago, Illinois.

Influences

Growing up he was heavily influenced by Stephen King
Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King is an American author of contemporary horror, suspense, science fiction and fantasy fiction. His books have sold more than 350 million copies and have been adapted into a number of feature films, television movies and comic books...

. He also read work by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury
Ray Douglas Bradbury is an American fantasy, horror, science fiction, and mystery writer. Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and for the science fiction stories gathered together as The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man , Bradbury is one of the most celebrated among 20th...

, Robert Heinlein, Peter Straub
Peter Straub
Peter Francis Straub is an American author and poet, most famous for his work in the horror genre. His horror fiction has received numerous literary honors such as the Bram Stoker Award, World Fantasy Award, and International Horror Guild Award, placing him among the most-honored horror authors in...

 and Dean Koontz
Dean Koontz
Dean Ray Koontz is a prolific American author best known for his novels which could be described broadly as suspense thrillers. He also frequently incorporates elements of horror, science fiction, mystery, and satire. A number of his books have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller List, with...

. Later in life, around the time that Fight Club the movie came out, he discovered Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...

, which led him to the Velvet trio of Will Christopher Baer
Will Christopher Baer
Will Christopher Baer is an American author of noir fiction, often delving into sex, violence, mystery and erotica. Currently published works include Kiss Me, Judas, Penny Dreadful and Hell's Half Acre, all of which have since been published in the single volume Phineas Poe...

, Craig Clevenger
Craig Clevenger
Craig Clevenger is an American author of contemporary fiction. Born 1964 in Dallas, Texas, he grew up in Southern California where he studied English at California State University, Long Beach. He is the author of two novels, The Contortionist's Handbook and Dermaphoria, both released by MacAdam/Cage...

 and Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones
Stephen Graham Jones is a Blackfeet Native American author of experimental fiction, horror fiction, crime fiction, and science fiction. He shares a fan base with fellow authors Will Christopher Baer and Craig Clevenger known as . November 16, 2010 Stephen will have a collection of short stories...

, all authors that deal with the transgressive, and many of whom have called their work "neo-noir". Other influences include Philip K. Dick
Philip K. Dick
Philip Kindred Dick was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist whose published work is almost entirely in the science fiction genre. Dick explored sociological, political and metaphysical themes in novels dominated by monopolistic corporations, authoritarian governments and altered...

, China Miéville
China Miéville
China Tom Miéville is an award-winning English fantasy fiction writer. He is fond of describing his work as "weird fiction" , and belongs to a loose group of writers sometimes called New Weird. He is also active in left-wing politics as a member of the Socialist Workers Party...

 and Clive Barker
Clive Barker
Clive Barker is an English author, film director and visual artist best known for his work in both fantasy and horror fiction. Barker came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories which established him as a leading young horror writer...

 as well as literary authors like Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill
Mary Gaitskill is an American author of essays, short stories and novels. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, Esquire, The Best American Short Stories , and The O. Henry Prize Stories .-Life:Gaitskill was born in Lexington, Kentucky...

, Denis Johnson
Denis Johnson
Denis Hale Johnson is an American author who is known for his short-story collection Jesus' Son and his novel Tree of Smoke , which won the National Book Award. He also writes plays, poetry and non-fiction.- Biography :...

, Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy
Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...

 and Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...

.

Published Short Stories

2011
  • "Kiss Off" in Emprise Review #21
  • "Buried" at Rotten Leaves
  • "Death Knell" at Thunderdome
  • "Twenty Reasons to Stay and One to Leave" at Metazen
  • "Love Letters" at Cannoli Pie
  • "Underground Wonder Bound" reprinted in the Noir at the Bar anthology, to benefit Subterranean Books
  • "Seeing Red" in Crime Factory #7
  • "Say Yes to Pleasure" in the Warmed and Bound anthology
  • "Descent" at We Are Vespertine
  • "Herniated Roots" in the eBook Speedloader, from Snubnose Press, an imprint of Spinetingler Magazine.
  • "Daybreak" at Stepaway Magazine
  • "After She Has Gone" at Shotgun Honey
  • "Gateway" at Dirty Noir
  • "Ten Steps" at ChiZine (The Chiaroscuro)
  • "Splintered" at PANK
  • "Stillness" in Shivers VI (Cemetery Dance)
  • "Victimized" in Murky Depths #15
  • "Victimized" (extended version) as an esingle at Amazon (self-published)
  • "Terrapin Station" in Pear Noir #5


2010
  • "Released" at Outsider Writers Collective
  • "Transmogrify" in Eternal Night: A Vampire Anthology (Living Dead Press)
  • "Condemned" at Cherry Bleeds


2009
  • "Honor" in Colored Chalk #10
  • "Interview" at Troubadour 21
  • "Your Enemies Will Devour You" in The Oddville Press Volume 1, Issue 4
  • "Paying Up" in Colored Chalk #8
  • "A Bird in the Hand" at 3:AM Magazine
  • "Three Mistakes" at Word Riot
  • "Twenty-Dollar Bill" in Colored Chalk #7
  • "Unzipped" at Dogmatika
  • "Underground Wonder Bound" in Vain Winter Issue
  • "Freedom" at Nefarious Muse
  • "Fate" in Cause & Effect #5


2008
  • "Amazement" in Colored Chalk #5
  • "Fringe" in Colored Chalk #4
  • "Fallible" in Colored Chalk #3
  • "Committed" in Colored Chalk #2
  • "Steel-Toed Boots" in Colored Chalk #1
  • "Redemption" in Gold Dust Magazine #15
  • "Animal Magnetism" at Opium Magazine

Editing

  • New Madrid - Contributing Editor, Summer 2010
  • Sideshow Fables #2 - Co-Edited and designed
  • Sideshow Fables #1 - Co-Edited and designed
  • Colored Chalk #9 - Edited and designed
  • Colored Chalk #6 - Edited and designed

Awards and Contests

  • Awarded a 2011 writing residency at Writers in the Heartland (Gilman, IL).
  • Nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize for "Terrapin Station," published in Pear Noir #5.
  • Winner of the 2010 Jotspeak short story contest (August) for his story "Maker of Flight."
  • Winner of the 2009 "Enter the World of Filaria" contest, at ChiZine for his story "Maker of Flight."

Interviews

  • 3:AM Magazine
  • The Cult
  • Word Riot
  • Jay Slayton-Joslin
  • Oxyfication

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
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