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About Michael A. Arnzen

Award winning author and writing professor Michael Arnzen was born in Amityville, NY — hometown of the infamous horror house.

After a brief stint in the US Army overseas, where he began writing horror stories to entertain his fellow soldiers, he moved to Colorado where he launched his career in publishing to much success. By the mid-nineties he received the coveted Bram Stoker Award — the highest accolade in the horror genre — for his first novel, Grave Markings. Shortly thereafter, he went on to earn a Master’s degree while working on his second novel, soon followed by his Ph.D. in English at the University of Oregon, where he studied horror and nostalgia in 20th century culture in a dissertation called The Popular Uncanny (soon to be published by Guide Dog Books).

Arnzen now lives near Pittsburgh with his wife and cats. He is a tenured Professor of English at Seton Hill University, where he teaches in an innovative Master’s degree program in Writing Popular Fiction. His latest works include Proverbs for Monsters (winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a Fiction Collection), Audiovile (a unique spoken word CD featuring original music), and Many Genres, One Craft (an instructional guide for novelists, co-edited with Heidi Ruby Miller).  The Gorelets Omnibus — a new compendium of twisted “gorelets” coming in 2012 from Raw Dog Screaming Press — will feature the best of his online work via this website and elsewhere over the past dozen years.

Gorelets.com now features a full bibliography and publication history, with free excerpts, links to reviews, and much more. Media photographs (perhaps less crazed than the nutty shot above) are available in the online gallery, and breaking news is always posted first to the Goreletter weblog.

Contact Michael Arnzen. You can also follow him on google+ or your favorite social network.

 

“In a little over a decade, Michael A. Arnzen has achieved what few writers manage in a lifetime. He has become the master of a brand of literature that is uniquely his own, and I do not doubt that his approach to horror will soon (if not already) be referred to as ‘Arnzenian.’ When you begin an Arnzen story, you embark on a journey where the old maps do not apply. Soon you find yourself deep in new territory, barreling through landscapes more fascinating and twisted than any previously encountered. Be assured: you will be amazed, startled, amused, and creeped out along the way, but whatever the road has in store, you will not be able to stop reading until the story ends. Horrifying, captivating, ironic — Arnzenian! — the works of Michael A. Arnzen are in a class all their own. Fasten your seat belts and enjoy the ride!” Lawrence C. Connolly, author of Veins

 

Major Awards and Career Highlights

 

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Professional Affiliations