Since 2009, PulpFest has annually featured readings by some of the best writers of today’s pulp fiction. Jim Beard, Christopher Paul Carey, Win Scott Eckert, Dick Eno, Ron Fortier, William Patrick Maynard, Will Murray, and many others have read excerpts from their work, showcasing a wide range of exciting new fiction. This year, given that PulpFest is celebrating H. P. Lovecraft and WEIRD TALES, we searched for creators who have written fiction inspired by the work of Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Mythos, WEIRD TALES and such writers as Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, and Seabury Quinn. We think we’ve found some great ones for the PulpFest 2015 New Fictioneers reading series.
PulpFest 2015 is pleased to welcome author and poet Scott H. Urban to its New Fictioneers reading series. Scott will be appearing on Saturday afternoon, August 15th, at 3:30 PM in our second-floor programming area at the Hyatt Regency. Scott’s fiction, poetry, and reviews have appeared in print and across the web. In 1984, he helped to found the Unnameable Press specialty book publisher. During the late 1990s, he edited the small press, horror poetry zine FRISSON: DISCONCERTING VERSE. In 1998, he co-edited THE CONSPIRACY FILES with Martin H. Greenberg. It was published by DAW Books. Some of Scott’s anthology appearances include FEAR ITSELF, SHOCK ROCK II, HOT BLOOD: SEEDS OF FEAR, THE BEAST WITHIN, and TERMINAL FRIGHTS. His early fiction is collected as BLOODY SHOW, available for Kindle through Amazon. His most recent poetry collection is GOD’S WILL. Published by Mad Rush Books, it is available through Lulu.
Scott Urban was in his early teens when he first came across Lovecraft in a paperback book. He immediately fell under the spell of “The Old Gent,” knowing that he had found something special. It was a universe both unfailingly grim and eerily fantastic. He wrote some juvenalia while under the spell of Lovecraft, including poems and stories. While his writing has moved away from direct pastiches, Lovecraft remains in the back of his mind. As Scott writes, “. . . probably will be until I die.”
With a love of old pulp and a tongue firmly affixed in cheek, Scott is proud to be reading as a New Fictioneer at this year’s PulpFest. He will read from BLOODY SHOW, a collection of “Dark Tales of Decay and Dissolution,” as well as other pieces, both old and new. He promises to leave the bubbling chaos at home; however, he cannot guarantee that there will not be writhing tentacles and the ensuing loss of sanity.
Mr. Urban has spent most of his professional career as a public school teacher and administrator on North Carolina’s Cape Fear Coast. In 2011, his family relocated to the mist-shrouded forests of southeastern Ohio, where he teaches at a local college and works with troubled youth. He is currently at work on a novel of erotic horror, slated for publication in 2016. He lives in a renovated Amish farmhouse that isn’t haunted . . . yet.
For information on how to register for PulpFest 2015, please click the red “register” button on our home page. To book a room for this year’s convention, please visit pulpcon.org/2015/06/16872/.
