Steve Rasnic Tem


Steve Rasnic Tem is an American author. He was born in Jonesville, Virginia.
Rasnic attended college at Virginia Tech, and also at Virginia Commonwealth University. He earned a B.A. in English education. In 1974, he moved to Colorado and studied creative writing at Colorado State University. He married Melanie Kubachko, and the couple took the joint surname "Tem". They had four children and lived in Colorado.
Rasnic Tem's short fiction has been compared to the work of Franz Kafka, Dino Buzzati, Ray Bradbury, and Raymond Carver, but to quote Joe R. Lansdale: "Steve Rasnic Tem is a school of writing unto himself." His 500 plus published pieces have garnered him a British Fantasy Award, a World Fantasy Award and four Bram Stoker Awards. In 2023, he won the Bram Stoker Lifetime Achievement Award.

Novels

Excavation
  • Daughters
  • The Book of Days
  • The Man on the Ceiling Among the Living
  • Deadfall Hotel
  • Blood Kin In the Lovecraft Museum
  • Ubo
  • ''The Mask Shop of Doctor Blaack''

Short fiction

Collections

  • Decoded Mirrors: Three Tales After Lovecraft
  • Fairytales
  • Absences: Charlie Goode's Ghosts
  • City Fishing Imagination Box
  • The Far Side of the Lake The Hydrocephalic Ward In Concert Ugly Behavior Twember Onion Songs Celestial Inventories Here with the Shadows Out of the Dark. A Storybook of Horrors A Primer to Steve Rasnic Tem Figures Unseen: Selected Stories Everything Is Fine Now The Harvest Child and Other Fantasies The Night Doctor and Other Tales Thanatrauma Everyday Horrors
  • ''Queneau's Alphabet. A Story Cycle''

Stories

Kiss Night Cry The Owl wth Human Eyes White Rose Early Warning Interlude in a Laboratory Again, the Hit-and-Miss A Fairytale Housewarming The Reincarnation On a Path of Marigolds Shadows on the Grass The Moths First Rights The Day it Rained Vaginas The End of the Yarn Spidertalk Piano Moon Katherine's Shadow Self-Possessed The Three Billy Goats Gruff In Control Presents of Mind Wake L is for Love Her New Parents The Lie The Double Motherson The Deep Blue Sea The Strangers Black Bodies and Heads Back Windows My Wife, with the Yellow Hair Playing Dead The Adoptions The Regulars Plainclothes Going North The Process Blue Alice Devourings Passing Through The Child Killer The Garden, in Autumn Release of Flesh Sampled Shades After the Night Blood Knot Close to You Elena Sharp Edges Andrew What Slips Away Each Day The Cough Heat Creeps This Thing Called Love Denegare Spasticus Espectare Necrosis Excerpt: First Entry in The Book of Days Yesterday Spirited Mysteries of the Colon The House by the Bulvarnoye Koltso Burning Snow Noppero-Bo Shadow The Stench Last Drink Bird Head Red Light Shaggy Dog Story Old Men on Porches The Passing S.D. Watkins, Painter of Portraits Living Arrangement Cattiwampus El Lagarto The Ex Pillows To Denver Scree Waiting at the Crossroads Motel The Old Man Beset by Demons Jack and Jill Miranda Jo's Girl Congregate The Sleeping Ute The Monster Makers Home Invasion Lookie-Loo Crawldaddies The Grave House In the Lovecraft Museum Deep Fracture The Common Sea I Saw Santa Love Letters A Space of One's Own Eidetic Night Vision Captain Zack & the Data Raiders Miguel Prays While His Mother Cries Bigger Than Life Z is for Zombie Conversations with the Departed E is For Eye Mummies Do You Remember? The Year of the Robot Suicides Eye of the Storm The Man in the Mirror N Is for Night The Sire Y Is for Yesterday Subsidence W Is for Whispers H Is for the Hunt F Is for the Farm P Is for Phantasies Higher Powers Tutti i Morti A Is for Alphabet Sundown in Duffield The Return Imago He Has Always Lived in This House Alone The Stroll Carcinogenesis Jolly Before and After Prime Purpose''

Anthologies

  • The Umbral Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry
  • ''High Fantastic: Colorado's Fantasy, Dark Fantasy and Science Fiction''

Poetry

My Daughter The Other State The Hydrocephalic Ward Lighting the Colony Alternate Worlds Ghazal The Landed Gentry The New Weather Dragon Lore Seeding the Last Freedom Changes On Defining & Not Defining Speculative Poetry The Swimmer Dinosaurs ESP Three Cinquains Time Paradox Cinquain Dirt Under His Nails Syrup Doubles Faery The Lovers After the Collapse First Contact The Dreaming Machine Dreams it Becomes Human The Dreaming Machine Eats an Apple The Dreaming Machine Has a Nightmare Ghost Signs Ancient Astronomies No Man Is Looking Back at Apollo Nocturne The Adolescence of NGC 4535 Head Belly Cells Ulcer Dark at the Door Shreve House The Dead Who Do Not Sleep Under Green Street Digits Genital Heart Limbs Lung Muscle The Little Match Girl Creatures Without Names What Must Not Happen What Happens at Night This is the Last Time I'm Telling the Truth The Window The Colors of Dark All Used Up Hair The Troll on 23rd Ave The Great Man's Apology How to Play Dead Pumpkin Eater 39 After We're Gone In Quietude Wraith The Night Arrives
  • ''Leaving Home''

Awards

WorkYear & AwardCategoryResultRef.
The Umbral Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry1982 Philip K. Dick Award
Firestorm1983 World Fantasy AwardShort Fiction
Excavation1987 Bram Stoker AwardFirst Novel
Leaks1988 British Fantasy AwardShort StoryWon
Bodies and Heads1989 Bram Stoker AwardShort Fiction
Back Windows1990 Bram Stoker AwardShort Fiction
Head1992 Asimov's Readers' PollPoem10th Place
High Fantastic1996 World Fantasy AwardAnthology
Halloween Street1999 International Horror Guild AwardShort Fiction
Halloween Street1999 Bram Stoker AwardShort Fiction
City Fishing2000 Bram Stoker AwardFiction Collection
City Fishing2000 International Horror Guild AwardCollectionWon
The Man on the Ceiling
'
2000 Bram Stoker AwardLong FictionWon
The Man on the Ceiling
'
2000 International Horror Guild AwardLong StoryWon
The Man on the Ceiling
'
2001 World Fantasy AwardNovellaWon
The Man on the Ceiling
'
2009 Shirley Jackson AwardNovel
In These Final Days of Sales2001 Bram Stoker AwardLong FictionWon
Imagination Box
'
2002 International Horror Guild AwardCollection
The Book of Days2003 International Horror Guild AwardNovel
The Breavement Photographer2003 International Horror Guild AwardShort Fiction
Invisible2005 Bram Stoker AwardShort Fiction
Invisible2005 International Horror Guild AwardShort Fiction
The Disease Artist2006 International Horror Guild AwardShort Fiction
In Concert
'
2008 Asimov's Readers' PollNovelette3rd Place
A Letter from the Emperor2011 Locus AwardShort Story
A Letter from the Emperor2011 Theodore Sturgeon AwardShort Science Fiction
Blood Kin2014 Bram Stoker AwardNovelWon
In the Lovecraft Museum2016 Shirley Jackson AwardNovella
Ubo2017 Bram Stoker AwardNovel
Ubo2018 Locus AwardHorror Novel
2023 Bram Stoker AwardLifetime AchievementWon