Rob Hood

Hood, Robert (Maxwell) (born 1951), Australian writer and editor recognised as one of Australia’s leading horror writers. Hood has worked as (inter alia) a high school teacher, journalist and radio comedy writer and is currently Design & Publication Coordinator for the Economics Faculty at Wollongong University. He won the 1975 Canberra Times National Short Story Competition with “Orientation” and has since been nominated for two Aurealis Awards and three Ditmars.

Between 1983 and 1990 Hood’s output included eight plays (two co-written with children’s writer Bill Condon). which were variously performed and published; several include supernatural elements (e.g. "On Getting to the Heart of the Monster, Or the Reviewers Revenge", first performed 1983). His first wife was poet Margaret J. Curtis with whom he worked in the Nexus Theatre Co. His second wife was poet Deb Westbury, mother of son Luke.

He has also written textbooks, an opera libretto, articles and poetry, and in 1988 won the Golden Dagger Award for Mystery Stories.

One of Hood’s most notorious horror tales is the tightly-written “Autopsy” ("Bloodsongs", Jan 1994) about a killer’s insane quest for the essence of life; it is reputed to have caused the magazine in which it appeared to be banned in Qld.

Rather like the title of his story “Blurred Lines" (in which an ex-serviceman’s sense of sight disappears while his sense of hearing becomes preternaturally acute), Hood’s stories (well upwards of eighty in magazines and anthologies both in Australia and overseas, many not yet collected) characteristically mix crime, horror and sometimes sf elements; blurring genre boundaries comes naturally to him. His work is marked by a deceptively straightforward style and by an intense sense of humanity (and, at times, humour) underlying his often-bizarre horror scenarios. Hood’s awareness of metaphysics (instanced in his MA (Hons) thesis on monster imagery in the works of William Blake) also contributes to his stories a sophisticated sense of the closeness of life and death.

Hood has written authoritative articles on the zombie theme in cinema, and on the Australian horror film, and is a publishing partner with writer/editor/graphic designer Cat Sparksin Wollongong’s Agog! Press. Forthcoming projects include a zombie novel, "Dead Matter"; Hood has numerous new stories slated for publication in magazines, anthologies and online.

Collections

*"Daydreaming on Company Time" (Five Islands Press, 1988)
*"Immaterial" (MirrorDanse, 2002)

Novels

*"Creepers series". Nine novels of which eight in collaboration with Bill Condon. (Condon wrote "Brain Sucker" on his own). (Hodder Headline, 1996-97)
*"Backstreets" (Hodder Headline, 1999)
*"Shades" series. (Hodder Headline, 2001)

Works Edited

*"Crosstown Traffic" (Five Islands Press, 1993)(with Stuart Coupe and Julie Ogden)
*"" (Mirrordanse, 1996)(with Bill Congreve)
*"" (Agog! Press, 2004)(with Robin Pen)
*"" (Agog! Press, 2007) (with Robin Pen)
*"" (Agog! Press, 2007) (with Robin Pen)

References

*Mike Ashley & William G. Contento. "The Supernatural Index: A Listing of Fantasy, Supernatural, Occult, Weird and Horror Anthologies". Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995, p. 303

*Leigh Blackmore. "Robert [Maxwell] Hood" in S.T. Joshi and Stefan Dziemianowicz (eds). "Supernatural Literature of the World: An Encyclopedia". Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2005, pp. 563-4.

*Paul Collins. "MUP Encyclopedia of Australian Fantasy & Science Fiction" (Melbourne Uni Press, 1998). pp. 91-92
*David Pringle(ed). "St James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers" (St James Press, 1998), pp. 281-83 (entry by Steven Paulsen and Sean McMullen)

*Bryce J. Stevens "Fear Codex: Australian Encyclopedia of Dark Fantasy & Horror" (Jacobyte Books CDROM, Sept 2000) Interviews include:
*Kyla Ward’s “An Interview” which appears in Hood’s "Immaterial". (Mirrordanse, 2002)

*Deborah Biancotti’s “Robert Hood” at [http://www.ideomancer.com/ft/Hood.]

External links

* [http://www.roberthood.net/ Rob Hood's website]