Darrell Schweitzer

Darrell Schweitzer
Darrell Schweitzer in 2006
Born	August 27, 1952 (1952-08-27) (age 59) Woodbury, New Jersey
Occupation	Writer, editor, and essayist
Nationality	American
Genres	Speculative fiction

Darrell Charles Schweitzer (born August 27, 1952) is an American writer, editor, and essayist in the field of speculative fiction. Much of his focus has been on dark fantasy and horror, although he does also work in science fiction and fantasy. Schweitzer is also a prolific writer of literary criticism and editor of collections of essays on various writers within his preferred genres.

Life and career

Schweitzer was born in Woodbury, New Jersey,^[1][2] son of Francis Edward and Mary Alice Schweitzer.^[2] He attended Villanova University from 1970-1976, from which he received a B.S. in geography (1974) and an M.A. in English (1976).^[1][2] He started his literary career as a reviewer and columnist.^[2] He worked as an editorial assistant for Isaac Asimov's SF Magazine from 1977-1982 and Amazing Stories from 1982-1986, was co-editor with George H. Scithers and John Gregory Betancourt of Weird Tales from 1987-1990 and sole editor of the same magazine from 1991-1994 and its successor, Worlds of Fantasy & Horror, from 1994-1996. From 1998-2007 he was again co-editor of Weird Tales, first with Scithers and then with Scithers and Betancourt. He has also been a part-time literary agent for the Owlswick Agency in Philadelphia.^[1] and a World Fantasy Award judge.^[2] He is a member of Science Fiction Writers of America and Horror Writers of America.^[2] He lives and works in the Philadelphia area.

Works

Schweitzer's "best and best-known work" is a sequence of epic fantasies set in a far future Earth that culminates in his novel The Shattered Goddess (1982). Also highly-regarded are his tales of the child-sorcerer Sekenre, most notably the first, "To Become a Sorcerer" (1991), which was nominated for the World Fantasy Award and later expanded into the novel The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995). Other works include his first novel, The White Isle, written in 1976 but unpublished until 1989, and the stories of the lapsed knight Julian, most of them collected in We Are All Legends (1981).^[1]

Awards

Together with his editorial colleagues Schweitzer won the 1992 World Fantasy Award special award in the professional category for Weird Tales.^[1] His poem Remembering the Future won the 2006 Asimov's Science Fiction's Readers' Award for best poem.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Shattered Goddess (1982)
• The White Isle (1989)
• The Mask of the Sorcerer (1995)

Short Story Collections

• We Are All Legends (1981)
• Tom O'Bedlam's Night Out, and Other Strange Excursions (1985)
• The Meaning of Life and Other Awesome Cosmic Revelations (1988)
• Transients and Other Disquieting Stories (1993)
• Refugees from an Imaginary Country (1999)
• Necromancies and Netherworlds (1999) with Jason Van Hollander
• Nightscapes: Tales of the Ominous and Magical (2000)
• The Great World and the Small: More Tales of the Ominous and Magical (2001) with Jason Van Hollander
• Sekenre: The Book of the Sorcerer (2004)
• Living with the Dead (2008)

Poetry Collections

• Non Compost Mentis: An Affrontery of Limericks and Other Eldritch Metrical Terrors (1995)
• Poetica Dementia: Being a Further Accumulation of Metrical Offenses (1997)
• "Stop Me Before I Do It Again!" (1999)
• They Never Found His Head: Poems of Sentiment & Reflection (2001)
• The Innsmouth Tabernacle Choir Hymnal (2004)
• Groping Towards the Light (2005)
• Ghosts of Past and Future (2008)

Nonfiction

• Lovecraft in the Cinema (1975)
• The Dream Quest of H. P. Lovecraft (1978)
• Conan's World and Robert E. Howard (1979)
• On Writing Science Fiction: The Editors Strike Back! (1981) with John M. Ford and George H. Scithers
• Pathways to Elfland: The Writings of Lord Dunsany (1989)
• Lord Dunsany: A Bibliography (1993) with S. T. Joshi
• Windows of the Imagination: Essays on Fantastic Literature (1998) [includes essays on H.P. Lovecraft, M.R. James, Richard Middleton, Lord Dunsany, Dracula, Edgar Allan Poe and many reviews.

Editor

Anthologies

• Tales from the Spaceport Bar (1986) with George H. Scithers
• Another Round at the Spaceport Bar (1989) with George H. Scithers
• Secret History of Vampires (2007)
• Full Moon City (2010) with Martin H. Greenberg
• Cthulhu's Reign (2010)

Nonfiction

• Essays Lovecraftian (1976)
• SF Voices (1976)
• Science Fiction Voices #1: Interviews with Science Fiction Writers (1979)
• The Ghosts of the Heaviside Layer and Other Fantasms, by Lord Dunsany (1980)
• Science Fiction Voices #5: Interviews with American Science Fiction Writers of the Golden Age (1981)
• Discovering Modern Horror Fiction I (1985)
• Discovering Stephen King (1985)
• Exploring Fantasy Worlds: Essays on Fantastic Literature (1985)
• Discovering H. P. Lovecraft (1987) (revised and expanded edition of Essays Lovecraftian)
• Discovering Modern Horror Fiction II (1988)
• Discovering Classic Horror Fiction I (1992)
• Speaking of Horror: Interviews with Writers of the Supernatural (1994)
• Discovering Classic Fantasy Fiction (1997)
• Speaking of the Fantastic (2002)
• The Thomas Ligotti Reader (2003)
• Speaking of the Fantastic II (2004)
• The Neil Gaiman Reader (2006)
• The Robert E. Howard Reader (2010)

External links

• Dreamer on the wildside An Interview with Darrell Schweizter from Cold Print magazine 2004.
• Spotlight on Darrell Schweitzer An Interview with Darrell Schweizter from Portal Press Books 2007.
• Darrell Schweitzer at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} St. James Guide to Fantasy Writers, edited by David Pringle. New York: St. James Press, 1996
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Contemporary Authors Online, Detroit: Gale, 2007.

• ISFDB entry on Darrel Schweitzer
• The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction entry on Darrel Schweitzer

Persondata
Name	Schweitzer, Darrell
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Short description
Date of birth	August 27, 1952
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Date of death
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