Preston Fassel

Preston Fassel (born September 11, 1985) is an author and journalist primarily known for his work in the horror genre. His work has appeared in Fangoria, Rue Morgue, Screem magazine, and on Cinedump.com. He is the author of Remembering Vanessa, the first biography of actress Vanessa Howard, published in the Spring 2014 issue of Screem. In 2017, he became a staff writer for Fangoria; in 2018, the magazine published his debut novel, Our Lady of the Inferno, as the first entry in their "FANGORIA Presents" imprint. The book received an overwhelmingly positive critical response, and was named one of the ten best horror books of 2018 by Bloody Disgusting. Later that year, Fangoria's parent company, Cinestate, announced that they would be adapting the book into a film with Fassel collaborating on the screenplay and serving as executive producer. In 2019, Fangoria announced that they would publish Fassel's second novel, Beasts of 42nd Street, in 2020.

Preston Fassel
BornPreston Andrew Fassel
(1985-09-11) September 11, 1985
Houston, Texas, U.S.
Occupation
  • Author
  • Journalist
LanguageEnglish
NationalityAmerican
Alma materSam Houston State University
GenreHorror
Notable worksOur Lady of the Inferno
Notable awards

Early life

Fassel was born in Houston, Texas, but spent his childhood between St. Louis, Missouri and Broken Arrow, Oklahoma.[1][2] He was raised Catholic; his mother's family coming from a line of Poles and ethnic Jews who had converted.[3][4][5][3] His father worked for the phone company, and he grew up around telecommunications equipment, later comparing part of his childhood experience to the aesthetics of Videodrome.[1]

When he was seventeen, Fassel dropped out of high school and obtained his GED after budget cuts resulted in the elimination of most of his school's elective courses. After obtaining his GED, he interned for the Broken Arrow police department evidence room, where he received the President's Volunteer Service Award for his work.[6] He attended community college at Lone Star College in Conroe, Texas, where he began writing short stories set in 1970s Times Square that were published in the campus's literary journal.[4] He late transferred to Sam Houston State University, from which he graduated in 2011 with a degree in psychology.[2]

Fassel spent his teenage years renting grindhouse, horror, and exploitation films from local video rental stores in Oklahoma, initially out of a desire to desensitize himself to disturbing imagery and as an act of defiance against what he perceived of as the oppressively conservative culture of rural Oklahoma; he would later credit his love of horror cinema as contributing to his desire to become a horror writer.[1][5][4] He further credited his mother's purchasing him a copy of Stephen King's The Shining with inspiring him to become a horror writer,[7] and Bill Landis and Michelle Clifford's Sleazoid Express with interesting him in 42nd street culture.[5]

Career

Fassel initially began writing for an optometric trade publication while working as an optician, receiving a job offer after writing a letter to the editor. He later transitioned into writing for Rue Morgue after pitching a story to their editor-in-chief at a horror convention, beginning by writing reviews and later transitioning into writing feature stories.[1] During his time at the magazine, Fassel was nominated for the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for an interview he conducted with Herschell Gordon Lewis.[8] Concurrently to his time with Rue Morgue, Fassel also contributed to the pop culture websites Cinedump.com and HeardTell.com, being nominated for a further two Rondo awards for an interview with Kelli Maroney and in the best category article, respectively.[9] He spent 2013 researching the life of actress Vanessa Howard, culminating in the first published biography of her, "Remembering Vanessa," printed in the Spring 2014 issue of Screem magazine.[2][10]

Beginning in 2007, Fassel began working on a book he would later call "the theater story" that acted as an expansion of the short stories he had written in college; he worked on it for a period of about six years before shelving the project because "it was really terrible" and, despite being 250,000 words, "nothing had happened in it yet."[11] He would later recycle ideas from "the theater story" into his debut novel, Our Lady of the Inferno.[11] Fassel initially sold the book to an independent press called Fear Front based out of Georgia, shortly before the company went out of business.[1] Around the time of the book's publication, Fassel worked as an extra on the set of Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich, where he met producer Dallas Sonnier, who expressed interest in acquiring the film rights; Fassel later convinced Sonnier to purchase the republication rights as well.[1][7] Fassel additionally asked for a job with Sonnier's production company, Cinestate, as part of the deal, unaware that Sonnier had recently purchased Fangoria magazine; Sonnier subsequently hired Fassel to work for the publication.[1] He joined the staff as a writer in 2017; as of the magazine's 2018 relaunch, he was written a column called Corrupt Signals, focusing on obscure and foreign horror cinema.[1] For his work with Fangoria, Fassel was nominated (along with Tate Steinsiek) for a Rondo award for best article.[12]

Fangoria republished Our Lady of the Inferno in September 2018 to generally positive reviews. It was named one of Bloody Disgusting's ten best horror books of 2018,[13] and won gold in the horror category at the 2019 Independent Publisher Book Awards[14]

In 2018, it was announced that a film adaptation of the book was in development at Fangoria, with Fassel collaborating on the screenplay and serving as an executive producer alongside Sonnier and Phil Nobile Jr..[15]

In 2019, it was announced that Fangoria would publish Fassel's second novel, Beasts of 42nd Street, in 2020.[16]

Personal life

Fassel has referred to himself as Catholic in interviews. He identifies as ethnically, though not religiously, Jewish,[17] and has said that his Jewish cultural heritage has had a "tremendous impact" on him.[5][3]

Bibliography

Novels

Anthologies
  • 2019: My Favorite Horror Movie 3: Scream Warriors (essay "Videodrome")

Awards and nominations
Year Award Category Work Result
2017 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award Best Interview Hershell Gordon Lewis Interview, Rue Morgue Magazine Nominated
2018 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award Best Interview Kelli Maroney Interview, Cinedump.com Nominated
2018 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award Best Article "Less is More: On the Need for a Return to Generic Horror," HeardTell.com Nominated
2019 Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award Best Article "Master of Puppets/How to Slit your own Throat" (With Tate Steinsiek), Fangoria Nominated
2019 Independent Publisher's Book Award Horror Our Lady of the Inferno Won
gollark: Hmm, what if instead of actually broadcasting, we just make an apio[REDACTED]memetic agent which makes people THINK osmarks internet radio is broadcasting?
gollark: <@!160279332454006795> https://www.rtl-sdr.com/tag/direction-finding/
gollark: It cannot, however, transmit radio (excluding WiFi/Bluetooth, it has actual dedicated well-designed hardware for that) without horrible harmonics and at any reasonable power.
gollark: My nice SDR is receive-only (and SDRs don't have very good transmit power *anyway*), but technically my Raspberry Pi is able to transmit things due to some hardware quirks.
gollark: Yep!

References
  1. Tramel, Jimmy. "Horror writer conquered fears, found career by visiting Broken Arrow video stores." The Tulsa World. Pub. 19 October 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  2. Kendall, Gavin. "Author Preston Fassel Chats to Kendall Reviews. Pub. 30 July 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  3. Kuebler, Monica. Five for Frightening: Preston Fassel. Pub. 11 September 2018. Retrieved 20 November 2019
  4. Danielle, Tori. "Pop Horror's Q&A with Rue Morgue's Preston Fassel. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  5. Coming Soon - Interview with Preston Fassel. Published 12 October 2018. Retrieved 20 November 2019
  6. Staff Report. "Broken Arrow Native will be coming Soon to Bookshelves Near You." The Broken Arrow Ledger. 8 January 2017. Retrieved 20 November 2019
  7. Barkan, Jonathan. Fangoria Releasing OUR LADY OF THE INFERNO Under Fangoria Presents Label. Dread Central. Published 19 May 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  8. Colton, David. 16th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards Ballot. Published 26 Feb 2017. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  9. Results of 17th Annual Rondo Awards
  10. McGillvray, Maddi. "Fangoria Presents Our Lady of the Inferno, Coming this September." Rue Morgue Online. Published 23 May 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2019
  11. Frightmakers 101: Horror Writing with Preston Fassel
  12. Colton, David. Here is the official ballot for the (Gasp!!) 17th ANNUAL RONDO HATTON CLASSIC HORROR AWARDS. Published 19 February 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  13. Navarro, Meagan. 10 Best Books of 2018 for the Horror Fan. Published 17 December 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  14. Millican, Joshua. Fangoria and Cinestate Win Big at Independent Publisher Book Awards. Published 18 April 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  15. N'Duka, Amanda. Laura Moss & Brendan J. O’Brien To Pen Film Adaptation To Preston Fassel’s Book ‘Our Lady Of The Inferno’ For Fangoria. Published 3 December 2018. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  16. Monson, Leigh. FANGORIA Presents A New Novel From OUR LADY OF THE INFERNO Scribe Preston Fassel. Published 19 November 2019. Retrieved 19 November 2019
  17. Danielle, Tori. Fangoria's Our Lady of the Inferno Audio Adaptation Announcement. PopHorror.com. Retrieved 20 November 2019
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