Richard Bowes

When I was a small child my parents were actors. My earliest memory of my mother is when I'm maybe two and sitting in a dressing room when the door opens and she enters in Portia's court costume for Merchant of Venice. A couple of her uncles were writers. One was Liam O’Flaherty who wrote some classic Irish short stories and novels including THE INFORMER which was made into John Ford's 1930's classic film of that name. My bedtime stories were James Thurber New Yorker pieces.

After a couple of false starts in college I graduated from Hofstra in 1966, slipped past the draft and moved to Manhattan where I've mostly lived ever since. Over the years, among the things appropriate for mention in an author bio, I wrote fashion copy in the Garment District, designed board games, sold antique toys in the Sixth Avenue Flea Market and worked for many years at the NYU libraries. I was present at the Stonewall Riots in 1969 and watched the World Trade Center towers fall from the end of my block on 9/11.

My first professional sales were a trio of paperback original SF/Fantasy novels for Warner/Questar: Warchild (1986), Feral Cell (1987), and Goblin Market (1988). I began writing short fiction in 1989. My first story didn't sell but so far all the rest have.

Ten early stories, including the World Fantasy Award winning "Streetcar Dreams" became chapters in Minions of the Moon (Tor 1999) which won the Lambda Award for best gay speculative fiction novel. About doppelgangers, kid hustling, addiction and alcoholism it was a bit controversial. Today it would probably be marketed as YA.

My two early short fiction collections are Transfigured Night and Other Stories (iPublish 2001) and Streetcar Dreams and other Midnight Fancies (PS Publishing 2006).

Nine other stories, including two Nebula Finalists, "The Ferryman's Wife" and "The Mask of the Rex" became chapters in my Nebula nominated novel of time travel, ancient gods and twentieth/twenty first century U.S. politics, From the Files of the Time Rangers (Golden Gryphon 2005).

Three of my stories have been World Fantasy nominees, two ("Streetcar Dreams" and "If Angels Fight") have won; five stories have been Nebula nominees. My 9/11 story "There's a Hole in the City," a Nebula nominee won the International Horror Guild and Million Writers Awards.

It will be a chapter in my novel about a spec fiction writer living in Greenwich Village, Dust Devil on a Quiet Street, which will appear on Mayday 2013 from Lethe Press. Lethe will also republish Minions of the Moon. Additionally 2013 will see two short story collections: The Queen, the Cambion, and Seven Others from Aqueduct Press and If Angels Fight from Fairwood.

Recent and forthcoming short fiction appearances include: F&SF, Icarus, Lightspeed and the anthologies, After, Wilde Stories 2012, Bloody Fabulous, Ghosts: Recent Hauntings, Handsome Devil, Hauntings, Where They Dark Eye Glances, and Weird Detectives: Recent Investigations.