Leigh Blackmore
Leigh 'Blackmore' is an Australian horror writer, critic, editor, occultist, musician and proponent of post-left anarchy. He was the Australian representative for the Horror Writers of America and served as the second President of the Australian Horror Writers Association. His work has been nominated six times for the Ditmar Award, twice for fiction and four times for the William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism. He has been a Finalist in both the Poetry and Criticism categories of the Australian Shadows Awards. He has contributed entries to such encyclopedias as S. T. Joshi and Stefan J. Dziemianowicz Supernatural Literature of the World and June Pulliam and Tony Fonseca, Ghosts in Popular Culture and Legend.
According to The Melbourne University Press Encyclopedia of Australian Science Fiction and Fantasy, "His name is now synonymous with Australian horror," and a Hodder & Stoughton press release stated that, "Leigh Blackmore is to horror what Glenn A. Baker is to rock and roll." He has also been recognised as "one of the leading weird poets of our era", and has been nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Rhysling Award. His fiction has appeared in Australia, the US, the UK, France, Denmark and Sweden. Translations of his poetry have appeared in French, Italian and Spanish.
Early life (1959–1976)
Leigh Blackmore was born in Sydney, New South Wales, the son of Rod and Beth Blackmore.Education
He was educated at North Sydney Boys High School and Newcastle Boys' High School. In high school, after reading the science fiction anthology series "Out of This World", he graduated to devouring the works of Ray Bradbury, Peter Saxon, H. Rider Haggard, Isaac Asimov, Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Leslie Charteris, and became a keen enthusiast of sword and sorcery fiction as represented by Lin Carter's Flashing Swords anthologies and Thongor series novels, Edgar Rice Burroughs's Martian tales, Michael Moorcock's Elric sequence and others, and horror fiction, discovering their work via anthologies edited by August Derleth, Peter Haining, Karl Edward Wagner, and via publications of Arkham House which he special-ordered via Space Age Books, then Australia's only specialist supplier of science fiction and fantasy books.The Arcane Sciences Society; The Horror-Fantasy Society; Azathoth Productions
While at high school, Blackmore co-founded the Arcane Sciences Society and the Horror-Fantasy Society; the journal of the societies, Cathuria, was banned after three issues by Blackmore's high school principal for quoting in a review four-letter words used by the unleashed monster in Flesh Gordon. With high school friends Lindsay Walker and Michael Blaxland, Blackmore formed a small independent movie house called Azathoth Productions. The only film made was an uncompleted version of Clark Ashton Smith's story The Double Shadow, though Blackmore also penned a screenplay for Lovecraft's story The Music of Erich Zann. The screenplay appears in his 2025 collection Nightmare Logic. Blackmore and Walker collaborated on a Lovecraftian story called "The Horror in the Manuscript" for submission to Ramsey Campbell for his anthology New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos,, which did not appear until 1980. The tale was not accepted but Campbell praised the effort and encouraged Blackmore to keep on writing..Early writing, fandom and occultism
Having corresponded with writers and enthusiasts in the field such as Brian Lumley, Ramsey Campbell, Glenn Lord, W.H. Pugmire and Gregory Nicoll, he began to write fiction and speculative poetry in the vein of Lovecraft and C.A. Smith. Fictional juvenilia included "The Last Town", "The Sacrifice", and an uncompleted sword-and-sorcery novel, Starbreaker. Several of these juvenile tales were first printed in Charles Danny Lovecraft's fanzine Avatar in the 1990s.Blackmore was a devotee of horror movies principally from the Hammer horror and Amicus Productions era. Samuel Beckett and William S. Burroughs became lasting literary influences at this time, the latter after his high-school English teacher lent him a copy of The Wild Boys (novel).
Early career and writing (1977–1990)
Blackmore showed early interest in unconventional art practice and anti-art after reading volumes on op art, pop art, and Sol LeWitt, whose work he homaged via a Mail Art network restricted to Australia. His earliest in-print appearances, discounting some juvenilia published in his high school journal The Novocastrian, included a Lovecraftian sonnet "Dream Landscape" and an attendance report on the Syncon 77 convention, published in Telmar 1, No 4, a zine issue also including fiction and art by Blackmore's later partner Margaret Curtis.Beginning a 25-year career as a bookseller in 1978, he then worked in his spare time as an editorial assistant on The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine in the early 1980s; Blackmore went on to publish and co-edit its successor, Terror Australis magazine from 1987 to 1992.
In 1983, Blackmore met writer and poet Charles Lovecraft through the letter column of Crypt of Cthulhu; Lovecraft would later found P'rea Press which published Blackmore's first poetry collection. He attended Syncon '83, a science fiction convention at which the Guests of Honour were Harlan Ellison and Van Ikin, and where he first met writer Terry Dowling. Blackmore learned the art of first edition book collecting through his association with fan, DUFF-winner and collector Keith Curtis. While attending Sydney University,, Blackmore came in contact with Don Boyd, then editor of Futuristic Tales. Blackmore joined R. Alain Everts' 'Necronomicon' amateur press association, contributing several issues of his zines Red Viscous Madness, and Forbidden Dimensions, Nameless Dreams.
In 1984, Blackmore published bibliographies on Brian Lumley and H.P. Lovecraft. He lent researcher Mike Ashley assistance with information for Frank H. Parnell's and Ashley's Monthly Terrors.
His first published story was "The Infestation", adapted for graphic form by Gavin O'Keefe and published in the fourth issue of Phantastique, an Australian horror comic which attracted notoriety for being government-funded via an Arts Council grant while containing visceral images and story content.
His first publications outside of Australia included six Lovecraftian sonnets in R. Alain Everts' magazine The Arkham Sampler 3, No 4 and another in Everts' Weird Tales tribute magazineEtchings and Odysseys No 10. Blackmore came to be a well-regarded Lovecraft scholar, carrying on correspondence with other Lovecraft fans in countries including USA, the UK, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Russia. He was a member of the early Esoteric Order of Dagon under Mollie Werba.
He worked as a bookseller in Sydney for 25 years, primarily managing specialist science fiction & fantasy departments within larger bookstores such as Dymocks. Authors hosted by Blackmore for events and signings at Dymocks George St include Storm Constantine, Harlan Ellison, Richard Harland, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Bill Congreve, Simon Brown, Kyla Ward, Robert Hood, Cat Sparks, and Bryce J. Stevens.
Music
Blackmore had classical piano training, but his formative musical influences were The Beatles, Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Roxy Music, The Stooges, Genesis, Queen, Rick Wakeman, King Crimson, Television, XTC and such experimental bands as Henry Cow, Can and The Residents, along with Australian bands such as The Church, The Reels, The Models, Midnight Oil, MEO 245, Allniters, Outline and Voight 465. He had jammed with garage bands in his high school years in Newcastle, New South Wales including sessions at Newcastle Cathedral underground studio with Lindsay Walker, Paul Beal and Ashley Morris.On moving back to Sydney in 1977, Blackmore played synthesisers and drums with Sydney New Wave band Worm Technology and other bands. From a mixture of influences including prog and experimental rock, pop and punk, Worm Technology evolved their unique sound while living together in an old schoolhouse in Rozelle in Sydney. Walker was a primary school friend of Blackmore's; meanwhile Walker had befriended guitarist and synth player at high school.
Tiploid Grundy & the Rabid Slime Moulds
One of their earliest recordings includes a reggae version of "Kookaburra", played strictly for laughs. A cassette-only album of punk-style acoustic and vocal originals, "If You Don't Care for Your Scalp You Get Rabies", performed by Blackmore, Walker and Smith, was released under the band name Tiploid Grundy and the Rabid Slime Moulds. "Boils" was a parody of then-fashionable punk music by Blackmore, with a riff possibly cribbed from Paul McCartney's song "Smile Away". Simultaneously, with Smith, Blackmore initially concentrated on composing electronic music using sequencers, including the Robert Fripp and Brian Eno-influenced "Music for Bookshops", and a concept-cycle, recorded on reel-to-reel tape, called "The Guardian", based on a collaborative fantasy story written by the duo. When John Gardner joined, the band also released some cassette-only recordings including The Loungeroom Tapes and ''The Christmas Tapes.''Worm Technology
The band stabilised as a four-piece rock band with live drums as Worm Technology, though synth-based instrumentals such as "Africa" often featured in their sets. Blackmore initially played electric organ, string machine and synthesiser, with Smith as drummer and synth programmer, but Blackmore often drummed when Smith was playing guitar or bass.Worm Technology initially played covers by 1960s-1970s acts including Kevin Ayers, Lou Reed, The Troggs, Them, The Human Beinz, Modern Lovers, Ramones, Elvis Costello, The Jam and The Buzzcocks, and punkified medleys of old TV cartoon theme tunes such as Astroboy, Marine Boy and Gigantor. Worm Technology continued performing quirky originals.
Blackmore wrote many of the band's song lyrics, some in collaboration with vocalist Ian Walker, and guitarist Greg Smith wrote much of the music, though Blackmore wrote both lyrics and music for some songs including the Buzzcocks-inspired "Apathy".
Worm Technology played gigs at various inner-city venues such as the Vulcan Hotel, Taverners Hill Hotel, The Rehearsal Room and the Sussex Hotel. They participated in a number of annual Strawberry Hills Hotel band competitions, along with such contemporary bands as The Hard-Ons. WT also undertook tours including the 'We Are Not the New Dylan Tour' in which they played obscure NSW country towns such as Fish River (Oberon) and The Lagoon; and the "Moo Cow Tour", in which they played in several Sydney milk-bars. The band also issued several numbers of their official fanzine, Prince the Wonder Dog which were given away at gigs.
Worm Technology released several cassette-only albums including In Your Loungeroom .
Koga Ninja
Worm Technology had several offshoot bands including Koga Ninja, in which the band members dressed up as ninjas in costumes made by Smith. The band used synths and drum machines extensively. Koga Ninja released several cassette only live albums.Astropop, Post-Mortem and White Stains
Blackmore largely abandoned music when Worm Technology broke up, to concentrate on his writing, although Astropop, a short-lived synthpop duo featuring Blackmore and Smith had some success playing electronica including Kraftwerk covers but never recorded. Blackmore drummed for Post-Mortem, a band which featured Ian Walker from Worm Technology, bassist Brian Pember from Sydney Christian new wave band Crossroad/Surprise, and a guitarist only remembered as Colin. There are no extant recordings of Astropop or Post-Mortem. In the mid-1990s Blackmore recorded with the short-lived experimental group White Stains, with illustrator and viola-player Gavin O'Keefe. White Stains released a cassette single "Acid Bath" backed with "The Finger", a musical interpretation of William Burrough's story about a man who cuts off his own finger.The Third Road
Blackmore resumed playing music semi-professionally in 2009 with the formation of the Illawarra-based 'popstalgia' trio The Third Road in which he plays five- and six-string bass and shares vocal duties with guitarist Margi Curtis and keyboards player Graham Wykes. The Third Road developed from the band Fedora, a trio featuring Curtis, Wykes and Bruce Greenfeld. Blackmore joined on bass when Greenfeld left. The Third Road has played live in Wollongong at various events including the Thriving Illawarra Festival, Summer on the Mall, the annual National Disabilities Day gig organised by Essential Personnel, and at the annual Christmas party of the NSW Greens. They have also frequently performed Xmas gigs at Sydney's Royal Automobile Club of Australia.Later career
H.P. Lovecraft Centennial Conference
In 1990 Blackmore travelled via New York to Providence for the H.P. Lovecraft Centennial Conference. As one of the Friends of Lovecraft group organised by S.T. Joshi, Jon Cooke and Will Murray, Blackmore contributed financially to erecting the memorial plaque in honour of Lovecraft which was erected outside the John Hay Library. In Providence, Blackmore met such figures as author Les Daniels, cartoonist and author Gahan Wilson, Marc A. Michaud, critic Will Murray, editor David E. Schultz, Philip J. Rahman, Italian scholar Giuseppe Lippi, critic Steven J. Mariconda, French scholar Jean-Luc Buard, Necronomicon Press illustrators Jason C. Eckhardt and Robert H. Knox, editor Robert M. Price, critic Paul Buhle, and German scholar Kalju Kirde. He attended the world premiere of Re-Animator. Blackmore also spent time with writers Dennis Etchison and William F. Nolan while in Los Angeles.Terror Australis, the Gargoyle Club and the Sydney Futurian Society
With Christopher Sequeira and Bryce J. Stevens, Blackmore co-edited Terror Australis: The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine and co-founded the Gargoyle Club: The Sydney Horror Writers and Artists Society, which included Sydney horror writers and artists including Gavin O'Keefe, underground graphic novelists Steve 'Carnage' Carter and Antoinette Rydyr; Rod Marsden, Don Boyd and others. The Gargoyle Club operated in Leichhardt, New South Wales and Petersham until 1992, after which it moved to venues in inner city Sydney and was subsequently joined by writers such as David Carroll and Kyla Ward. The club published two issues of their horror fiction magazine Cold Cuts co-edited by Antoinette Rydyr, Ron Clarke and Don Boyd, Art Director was Steve Carter.Terror Australis the magazine was followed by the anthology Terror Australis: Best Australian Horror, the first mass-market Australian horror anthology. Leanne Frahm's story "Catalyst" from the anthology won the Ditmar Award for best Australian Short Fiction. Blackmore was an invited judge on the Aurealis Award in 1995 and on the George Turner (writer) Award in 1999.
In 1994–95, Blackmore was the Australian representative for the Horror Writers of America under the Presidency of Dennis Etchison. Blackmore featured as the character 'Sydney Deadlocke' in Christopher Sequeira's photostory "Deadlocke and Doc Martin: Occult Investigators". 'Doc Martin' was played by Bryce Stevens.
Blackmore often hosted gatherings of the Futurian Society of Sydney at his Leichardt home. Regular attendees included Kevin Dillon and David Ritchie. Blackmore also acquired the majority of his holdings of Weird Tales magazine via Stone over a period of around a decade.
Anarchism, Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth, Thoughtcrimes, the O.T.O. and Sydney Zeroist Alliance
In the early 1990s, owing to instinctive rejection of methods of social control, Blackmore became involved with the anarchist scene around Jura Books and the squatters collective Jellyhedz in Sydney, though his primary political interests lay in the Situationist International ; and the ontological anarchism of Hakim Bey. The works of Colin Wilson became increasingly important to him as did self-actualization and Timothy Leary's Eight Circuit Model of Consciousness as promulgated in Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson. Blackmore has an ongoing participatory involvement with psychogeography and the dérive. After discovering AK Press and Vague magazine, Blackmore co-founded Thoughtcrimes, an independent distributor of radical books and tapes which also operated culture-jamming and subvertising campaigns. Thoughtcrimes existed at roughly the same time as the American CrimethInc. began, with both drawing their names from the work of George Orwell. In this period Blackmore issued copyleft fanzines such as Antics: a Journal ov Anti-Control and The Possibility of Finding Such a Dog. Thoughtcrimes was succeeded by Blackmore's Sydney Zeroist Alliance project of the early 2000s, which was inspired by both the Situationists, by original Neoism and by post-situ Stewart Home's projects such as the Art Strike, Praxis and the Neoist Alliance, as well as by the occult/mathematical significance of zero.Also in the early 1990s, following a renewed interest in ceremonial magic along with influence from the performance art, music and Mail Art of Genesis P. Orridge, Blackmore joined Thee Temple ov Psychick Youth via their Australian station, TOPY Chaos. Reading deeply in Aleister Crowley and other esoteric material, he accepted The Book of the Law, took the magical name Fr. LVX/NOX and was initiated into several degrees in Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis. via their Sydney body, Oceania Oasis. He was ordained as a Deacon in the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica and performed in several contemporary series of the Rites of Eleusis and in Crowley's mystery play The Ship. He has taken the role of Priest in Liber XV, The Gnostic Mass in the Illawarra and presented numerous workshops based on Crowley's magick.
Marriage, honours degree and aftermath
Blackmore married fellow bookseller and Neopagan Glayne Louise Vowles, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1994, in 1999 in a Hermetic ceremony which included readings from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, Liber AL and The Black Book of Carmarthen. Certain items at the wedding were inscribed with the motto "In girum imus nocte et consumimur igni", from the title of the 1978 film by Guy Debord. However, the couple divorced in 2001. Blackmore then moved from Parramatta to Earlwood, with friends including Peter Wilson, vocalist/trumpeter for Sydney-based ska band Backy Skank. Vowles died in June 2009 aged 36. The Futurian Society of Sydney, to which she had belonged, observed a minute's silence at their meeting of 17 July 2009 for her, and for Locus editor Charles N. Brown, who had also recently died.In 2001, Blackmore's comic-book story "The Gargoyle Club Gambit" was published in Bold Action, a one-shot special.
Writing, editing, convention appearances
Blackmore has been a guest lecturer on science fiction, fantasy and horror for the University of Wollongong's Faculty of Creative Arts. He has guested as an expert on horror literature and film on TV programs in Australia including Ray Martin's Midday (television show), cable TV program The Graveyard Shift and Jennifer Byrne Presents and has been interviewed on Sydney's 2SER radio in the same capacity.He became the second President of the Australian Horror Writers Association, serving from September 2010 until September 2011.
Blackmore is Official Editor of the Sword and Sorcery and Weird Fiction Terminus amateur press association which has members in Australia, the US, the UK, Sweden and Finland. SSWFT reached its 50th mailing in August 2013.. Blackmore also contributes a regular zine to S.T. Joshi's "Esoteric Order of Dagon" Amateur Press Association..
He is a frequent panellist at science fiction conventions such as the Magic Casements Festival. the annual Conflux convention in Canberra, and has been a panellist at Constantinople Science Fiction Convention, Freecon, Aussiecon 4 and Conflux 19: Brave New Worlds.
Blackmore was heavily involved as a speaker and promoter in the June 2019 Australian speaking tour by Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi and lectured on Lovecraft alongside Joshi, Larry Sitsky and others at the ANU School of Music, Canberra and at the NSW Masonic Club in Sydney.
In 2020, Blackmore served as convenor and judge on the Poetry category of the Australian Shadows Awards.
Work
Collections
- Covert art by Gavin O'Keefe
- . Illustrated by Steve Lines.
- . Cover art by Steve Lines. Illustrated by Philip Cornell.
- . Cover art by Luke Spooner.
- . Cover art by Luke Spooner.
Books
- Brian Lumley: A New Bibliography. Penrith NSW: Dark Press, 1984. San Bernardino, CA: Borgo Press, 1985.
- Terry Dowling: Virtuoso of the Fantastic..
As editor
- Terror Australis: The Australian Horror & Fantasy Magazine : Nos. 1, 2, 3.
- Terror Australis: The Best of Australian Horror. Hodder & Stoughton, 1993.
- Antics: A Personal Journal ov Anti-Control.
- Mythopoeia: The Newsletter of Dymocks Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Studies in Australian Weird Fiction Issues 1–3 published by Equilibrium Books, W.A. Issue 4 published by Borgo Press.
- And Then I Woke Up: A Zine About Dreams . Illustrated by Leigh Blackmore.
- Midnight Echo, No. 5. Australian Horror Writers Association Tarot of the Time Being by Steve Kilbey and K. P. Buk. Co-edited by Blackmore with Sigrid Lium and Steven J. Kilbey, for trade edition. Co-edited by Blackmore with Mark E. Merrill and Steven J. Kilbey, for Special Limited Edition.
Selected critical writings and bibliographies
- Reprint in The Fossil 105:3 No, 340,.
- Revised reprint in The Passenger's Log: Journal of the Sydney Passengers, Vol 19, Nos 3 &4. Reprinted in The Pontine Dossier No 6.
- Blackmore, Leigh. "Time and Memory: An Interview with Jack Dann.
- Reprint in Science Fiction: A Review of Speculative Literature, Volume 20, Numbers 1-2, Whole Numbers 51-52 Special Double Issue: the Early Work of Terry Dowling.
- Reprinted in Australian Studies in Weird Fiction, No. 4.
- Nominated for the William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism.
- | Reprint in Gafford, Sam and S.T. Joshi William Hope Hodgson: Voices from the Borderland: Seven Decades of Criticism on the Master of Cosmic Horror NY: Hippocampus Press, 2014. Nominated for the William Atheling Jr. Award for Criticism.
- . Unexpurgated version at:
- Reprint in Lovecraft Annual, No 15.
Fiction
- . Reprint in Too Much Red Cordial zine . Reprint in Bold Action comic number'1.
- . A Deadlocke and Doc Marten story.
- . Science fiction story.
- Reprint in Aurealis number 38/39
Poetry
Blackmore's weird verse has appeared variously in And Then I Woke Up!, Arkham Sampler, Avallaunius: The Journal of the Arthur Machen Society, Beastly, Cyaegha, Chris Masters' EOD, The Eldritch Dark,, Etchings & Odysseys, Melaleuca, Midnight Echo, New Lovecraft Collector,, Penumbra, ''Shoggoth, The Small Tapestry, Spectral Realms, Strange Sorcery, Telmar, and Weird Fiction Review.Much of Blackmore's weird poetry to 2008 is collected in Spores from Sharnoth & Other Madnesses, with a foreword by S.T. Joshi. The US journal Dead Reckonings declared that the collection "at once establishes Blackmore as one of the leading weird poets of our time." A variant edition of this title, omitting the introduction and P'rea Press editors' foreword, and with some poems excluded and others added, under the title Sharnoth's Spores & Other Seeds, was published by Rainfall Books in 2010.
General poetry has appeared in Melaleuca, Tertangala, and at Australian Reader and Pool online. Blackmore has read his poetry live at various venues in NSW including Live Poets at Don Bank, Yours and Owls Café, Jane's and Philanthropy Tribe Book Cafe. Blackmore has also recorded readings of many of the poems of Clark Ashton Smith, e.g. "Chant to Sirius".
Recent poetry has appeared in anthologies and magazines including:
- Charles Lovecraft
In Oct 2021, three of Blackmore's weird poems were featured as part of a series of Hallowe'en recorded poetry readings hosted on Facebook by fellow weird poet Scott Couturier.
Reviews, radio and other works
Blackmore regularly reviewed horror fiction for over a decade for US critical journal Dead Reckonings. When this journal ceased in 2025, Blackmore began reviewing horror for Penumbra journal. He also reviews horror for Bruce Gillespie's SF Commentary.His past review work of horror and fantasy fiction includes contributions to AsIF.com, Galaxy Newsletter, Lovecraft Annual, ''OzHorrorscope, Prohibited Matter, Science Fiction, Shoggoth, Skinned Alive, Spectral Realms, and the Sydney Morning Herald.
Blackmore's story "The Infestation" was read live to air by Steven Paulsen on Rick Kennett's 3CR and 3MDR Community radio guest shows "Pilots of the Unknown".
His story "Cemetery Rose" was read by the author and dramatized with sound effects for the Writing Show's Six Days of Hallowe'en podcast in 2006. An interview with Blackmore conducted by Writing Show host Paula Berenstein was broadcast concurrently.
His radio play Calling Water was broadcast in late 2008 on ABC Radio National Airplay''.
His collage artwork, which is influenced by the Situationist technique of detournement, has been exhibited at the First Australasian Thelemic Conference and published in various issues of Tertangala magazine.