Christopher Barzak

Category: Literature

  • The Gone Away Place

    The Gone Away Place

    It’s been forever and a few days since I last posted anything on my website, but I wanted to make sure to note that today my new novel, The Gone Away Place, releases from Knopf Books for Young Readers. I’m excited as always to have a new book go out into the world, where it will…

  • Before and Afterlives and The Shirley Jackson Award

    Before and Afterlives and The Shirley Jackson Award

    In all the hustle and bustle that lead up to the release of “Jamie Marks is Dead” I failed to report a fantastic bit of news that occurred in mid-July. As I’d mentioned in an earlier post back in May, my short story collection Before and Afterlives had been nominated for the 2013 Shirley Jackson Award…

  • Jamie Marks is Dead released!

    Jamie Marks is Dead released!

    Last night I had the pleasure of watching Jamie Marks is Dead, the movie based on my first novel, One for Sorrow, in Cleveland, Ohio, with a bunch of friends and family. It was so good to finally have others who I’m close to, people from my community, see it as well. Before it had…

  • Jackson and Nebula Award nominations

    It’s been a few months since I last updated here. Since “Jamie Marks is Dead” debuted at in the Sundance Film Festival competition in January, a lot of other really wonderful things have occurred. First, I was nominated for a Nebula Award in the category of Best Novelette for my story, “Paranormal Romance”! This is…

  • Where Thy Dark Eye Glances

    This month brings out an interesting anthology from Lethe Press, edited by Steve Berman. Entitled Where Thy Dark Eye Glances, the anthology collects stories from writers who are engaging with the work of Edgar Allan Poe in a queer manner. The anthology is divided into sections that categorize the type of interplay you’ll see from…

  • Kirkus reviews Before and Afterlives

    A late but  better than never review from Kirkus Reviews came for Before and Afterlives at the tail end of last week. It’s a goodie. I’m happy. I can only post a couple of lines from the review without infringing on copyright stuff, lalala, so I’ll post two of my favorite lines here, and then link…

  • Sneak Peeks of Before and Afterlives (The Ghost Hunter’s Beautiful Daughter)

    Today’s preview from Before and Afterlives is the opening of my story, “The Ghost Hunter’s Beautiful Daughter,” which originally appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction. It’s a story about a young girl named Sylvie, who has a talent for manifesting ghosts around her, making them visible to others. And it’s about how her father, an out-of-work laborer, recently widowed,…

  • Sneak Peeks of Before and Afterlives (The Drowned Mermaid)

    There’s been a break in the sneak peeks of Before and Afterlives, but I’m back with the next one, the opening scene to my story, “The Drowned Mermaid”, which originally appeared in the magazine, Realms of Fantasy. This story is one of my few that take place in southern California, where I lived for a short…

  • Sneak Peeks of Before and Afterlives (Born on the Edge)

    Today’s preview from Before and Afterlives is the opening of my story,”Born on the Edge of an Adjective”. It’s a story about two lovers who can’t get it together, one of whom moves across the country to find himself, and is instead found by a different sort of love, an alien love. I mean that, too. An…

  • Sneak Peeks of Before and Afterlives (Vanishing Point)

    Today’s preview from Before and Afterlives is the opening of my story, “Vanishing Point”, which first appeared in the Canadian literary journal, Descant. It’s a story about a mother whose son has been afflicted with a mysterious disease that is plaguing her community. People begin to vanish slowly, to become invisible and to lose their solidity…