William Browning Spencer
William Browning Spencer (born 1946) is an American novelist and short story writer living in Austin, Texas. His science fiction and horror stories are often darkly and surrealistically humorous. His novel Résumé With Monsters blends soul-destroying H. P. Lovecraftian horrors with soul-destroying jobs, a mix that won the International Horror Critics Guild Award for Best Novel in 1995. His first novel, "Maybe I'll Call Anna," was a National Endowment of the Arts New American Writing Award winner. His novels and short stories have been finalists for the Bram Stoker Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. His short stories have been anthologized numerous times, including twice in "The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror" and twice in "The Year's Best Science Fiction."
- William Browning Spencer Austin, Texas 1995
Bibliography
Novels
- Maybe I'll Call Anna (1990)
- Résumé With Monsters (1995)
- Zod Wallop (1995)
- Irrational Fears (1998)
Short fiction
Collections
- The Return of Count Electric & Other Stories (1993)
- The Ocean and All Its Devices (2006)
- The Unorthodox Dr. Draper And Other Stories (2017)
List of short stories
Title | Notes |
---|---|
The Wedding Photographer in Crisis | |
Haunted by the Horror King | |
The Entomologists at Obala | |
The Return of Count Electric | |
Graven Images | |
Pep Talk | In 2005, this story was adapted as a short film by writer Eric B. Anderson and director Scott Smith (Project Greenlight) and premiered at the Santa Fe Film Festival in December 2006. |
Looking Out for Eleanor | |
Snow | |
A Child's Christmas in Florida | Adapted as a short film entitled "A Child's Christmas in Texas" Screenwriters: Carolyn Banks and Jessica Gardner Producer: Carolyn Banks Director: Jessica Gardner Can be viewed on youtube. |
Best Man | |
Daughter Doom |
Title/First published | Notes |
---|---|
The Ocean and All Its Devices, 1994 | |
The Oddskeeper's Daughter, 1995 | |
The Death of the Novel, 1995 | Bram Stoker Award finalist in Best Short Story category |
Downloading Midnight, 1995 | |
Your Faithful Servant, 1993 | |
"The Foster Child", F&SF, 98 (6): 71–81, June 2000 | Locus Magazine Award finalist in Best Short Story category |
The Halfway House at the Heart of Darkness, 1998 | |
The Lights of Armageddon, 1994 | |
The Essayist in the Wilderness, 2002 | World Fantasy Award finalist in Best Short Story category |
Title/First published | Notes |
---|---|
How the Gods Bargain | |
Penguins of the Apocalypse, 2008 | Shirley Jackson Award finalist in Novelette category |
Come Lurk with Me and Be My Love | |
The Tenth Muse, 2007 | Bram Stoker Award finalist in Long Fiction category, Shirley Jackson Award finalist in Novelette category |
Stone and the Librarian, 2007 | |
The Indelible Dark, 2013 | |
The Dappled Thing | |
Usurped | |
The Unorthodox Dr. Draper and Other Stories | |
The Love Song of A. Alhazred Azathoth | Included in "2009 Rhysling Anthology: The Best SF, Fantasy & Horror Poetry of 2009" |
Anthologies containing stories by William Browning Spencer
- Just Open A Vein (edited by William Brohaugh) 1987
- Ghosttide (edited by Claudia O'Keefe) 1993
- Borderlands 4 (edited by Elizabeth E. Monteleone and Thomas F. Monteleone) 1994
- Christmas Magic (edited by David G. Hartwell) 1994
- The Year's Best Science Fiction Eleventh Annual Collection (edited by Gardner Dozois) 1994
- Wheel of Fortune (edited by Roger Zelazny) 1995
- The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Eighth Annual Collection (edited by Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling) 1995
- 100 Tiny Tales of Terror (selected by Robert Weinberg, Stefan R. Dziemianowicz & Martin H. Greenberg) 1996
- The Big Bigfoot Book (edited by Richard Klaw) 1996
- Year's Best SF (edited by David G. Hartwell) 1996
- Eternal Lovecraft: The Persistence of H P Lovecraft in Popular Culture (edited by Jim Turner) 1998
- Lord of the Fantastic: Stories in Honor of Roger Zelazny (edited by Martin H. Greenberg) 1998
- The Year's Best Science Fiction Sixteenth Annual Collection (edited by Gardner Dozois) 1999
- Subterranean Gallery (edited by Richard Chizmar and William Schafer) 1999
- Witpunk (edited by Claude Lalumière & Marty Halpern) 2003
- The Best of Borderlands (compiled by Elizabeth E. Monteleone) 2005
- Dangerous Games (edited by Jack Dann & Gardner Dozoios) 2007
- The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Twenty-First Annual Collection (edited by Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant) 2008
- Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 1 (edited by William Schafer) 2008
- Lovecraft Unbound (edited by Ellen Datlow) 2009
- The Best Horror of the Year Volume One (edited by Ellen Datlow) 2009
- Black Wings: Tales of Lovecraftian Horror (edited by S. T. Joshi) 2010
- Subterranean: Tales of Dark Fantasy 2 (edited by William Schafer) 2011
- New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird (edited by Paula Guran) 2011
- The Weird (edited by Ann & Jeff Vandermeer) 2011
- The Book of Cthulhu II (edited by Ross E. Lockhart) 2012
- The Madness of Cthulhu: Stories Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft (edited by S. T. Joshi) 2014
- Lovecraft's Monsters (edited by Ellen Datlow) 2014
- The Best of Subterranean (edited by William Schafer) 2017
External links
- Book group recount of an evening with William Browning Spencer
- Interview from 1999 at "Crescent Blues"
- Fantastic Fiction summary for William Browning Spencer
- Publishers Weekly review of Maybe I'll Call Anna
- Publishers Weekly review of The Return of Count Electric & Other Stories
- Washington Post review of Irrational Fears
- Publishers Weekly review of Irrational Fears
- Kirkus review of Zod Wallop
- New York Times Review of Zod Wallop
- SF Site review of The Ocean and All Its Devices
- Publishers Weekly review of The Ocean and All Its Devices
- Publishers Weekly review of The Unorthodox Dr. Draper and Other Stories
- Kirkus review of The Unorthodox Dr. Draper and Other Stories
- Locus Magazine review of The Unorthodox Dr. Draper and Other Stories
- William Browning Spencer Internet Speculative Fiction Database