T. M. Wright


Terrance "Terry" Michael Wright was an American author best known as a writer of horror fiction, speculative fiction, and poetry.

Life

Terrance Michael Wright was born September 9, 1947 in Syracuse, New York. His father was a traveling salesman and his mother a secretary and later a teacher. He was one of six children. His twin brother, T. Lucien Wright, was also an author in the dark fantasy genre.
T.M. Wright's first publication was a poem in the Newark Courier-Gazette in 1961. His first book was a 1968 non-fiction study on unidentified flying objects, entitled The Intelligent Man's Guide to Flying Saucers. It was published by AS Barnes's imprint in New Jersey.
In one of his later interviews, Wright defined his own style as "existential horror, existential dark fantasy." He also claimed he'd rather "be remembered as a poet than a novelist." An accomplished artist, Wright made the art for some editions of his own books, such as that in his anthology Bone Soup.

Work

Wright started his fiction career with the novel Strange Seed, published in hardcover in 1978 and in paperback in 1980. The editor was William G. Thompson at Everest House; Thompson had been one of Stephen King's first editors while working at Doubleday, which contributed to the book gaining an enthusiastic blurb from King. The story involves a couple from New York City responding to a mysterious inner force that compels him to seek solace and identity in the ancestral forests of his youth, where he and his wife are soon terrified by the darkly beautiful children dwelling in the woods. Strange Seed was nominated for a World Fantasy Award and would go on to beget four sequels.
A Manhattan Ghost Story, a horror novella imagining a "a city choked with ghosts, some of whom work in bordellos" was published in 1984 by Tor Books. It stars Abner Cray, "one of those shadow-land folks cursed with the ability to see, feel, and interact with the dead", who in turn discovers that his "true love" is not one of the living.. A Manhattan Ghost Story was optioned for a film adaptation in 1991, with several actors and directors attached throughout the years, though the film has never come to fruition. The story would beget two sequels, in 1986 and 2006.
For his Ryerson Biergaten detective series, Wright wrote the first two entries under the pseudonym F.W. Armstrong: The Changing and The Devouring. Sequels under his own name are Goodlow’s Ghosts and The Ascending, plus the connected novel Sleepeasy.
Among his standalone novels, Cold House was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award. His short stories appeared in magazines such as Twilight Zone Magazine, Postscripts, Cemetery Dance, Flesh and Blood Magazine, and Brutarian.

Death

Wright spent his last years in a nursing home in Corning, New York, living with Parkinson's disease. He died on October 31, 2015.

Selected bibliography

''Strange Seed'' series

  • Strange Seed
  • Nursery Tale
  • Children of the Island
  • The People of the Dark
  • ''Erthmun''

    ''A Manhattan Ghost Story'' series

  • A Manhattan Ghost Story
  • The Waiting Room
  • ''A Spider on My Tongue''

    Ryerson Biergarten series

  • The Changing
  • The Devouring
  • Goodlow's Ghosts
  • The Ascending
  • ''Sleepeasy''

    Standalone novels

  • The Woman Next Door
  • The Playground
  • Carlisle Street
  • The Island
  • The Place
  • The School
  • Boundaries
  • The Last Vampire
  • Little Boy Lost
  • Cold House
  • The House on Orchid Street
  • The Eyes of the Carp
  • I Am the Bird
  • Blue Canoe
  • ''Sally Pinup''

    Short stories

  • "His Mother’s Eyes": in Twilight Zone Magazine, June 1988; and The Sterling Web, winter 1991.
  • "The House Under the Street" AKA "A World Without Toys": in Upstate October 26, 1986; Shadows #10, 1987; The Year's Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection, 1988; Demons and Dreams, 1989.
  • "Circularity": in Cemetery Dance #37, 2002.
  • "The Marybell Women": in Cemetery Dance #47, 2003.
  • "The Screamers at the Window," in Shivers IV, Cemetery Dance, 2006.
  • "Murder Victim": in Midnight Premiere, Cemetery Dance, 2007.
  • "Rainy Day People": in Postscripts #10, 2007.
  • "Fog Boy": in Darkness on the Edge: Tales Inspired by the Songs of Bruce Springsteen, PS Publishing, 2010.
  • "A Moment at the House": in Postscripts #24–25

    Anthologies

  • ''Bone Soup''