Stephen Mark Rainey

The writer is not the infamous Stephen King antihero Mort Rainey, but the far more nefarious author of the novels Dark Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (with Elizabeth Massie, HarperCollins), Balak (Wildside Books), The Lebo Coven (Thomson Gale/Five Star Books, Crossroad Press), The Nightmare Frontier (Sarob Press, Crossroad Press), Blue Devil Island (Thomson Gale/Five Star Books, Marietta), and The Monarchs (Crossroad Press); three short story collections; and over 100 published works of short fiction. Those with long memories may recall that I edited Deathrealm magazine, from 1987 to 1997. In its decade-long history, Deathrealm won a bunch of nice awards and featured hundreds of short stories, poems, and essays by authors ranging from the most established professionals to young, aspiring first-timers, many of whom proceeded to carve out names for themselves in the horror/dark fantasy field. In 2004, I edited a new anthology for Delirium Books, titled Deathrealms, which features a wide selection of short stories from the magazine. I've edited a couple of other anthologies as well. The Song of Cthulhu (Chaosium) features 20 stories of Lovecraftian horror, and I have co-edited (with James Robert Smith) an anthology for Arkham House titled Evermore, which features short stories about Edgar Allan Poe.