I was reared in Indianapolis, Indiana, a product of 1970s and 80s working class/lower middle class midwestern America. Unusual for someone of that background, I have ended up living in Glasgow, Scotland since 2002. I am married with five children. My wife is a fine art and fashion photographer. I wrote the lyrics and sang for a punk band in the 90s and a post-punk experimental band in the 2000s. I study philosophy and English literature at the University of Glasgow, specialising in ecocritical readings of 20th century American regional fiction, especially Cormac McCarthy and R. A. Lafferty. I am developing an independent theory of the 'ecomonstrous', which draws on monster theory, the 'dark ecology' of Timothy Morton, the 'weird realism' of Graham Harman, and neo-Thomist ecotheology. I am currently researching my PhD on these topics at U of G.
I think there are too many books and too many writers in the world and I can't give an excuse as to why I should add to this excess. It's simply something I do, so I might as well try to learn to do it well.
I've managed to get some stories into the following publications: Fungi, Cre, Margins (forthcoming), Feast of Laughter: An Appreciation of R. A. Lafferty, and Hybrid Moments: A Literary Tribute to the Misfits (forthcoming).
Some of my favourite authors are R. A. Lafferty, Cormac McCarthy, Flannery O'Connor, Gene Wolfe, Walker Percy, G. K. Chesterton, and George MacDonald. I am increasingly drawn also to Stephen Graham Jones, Toni Morrison, Colson Whitehead, Michael Bishop, Amos Tutuola, Jorge Luis Borges, William Faulkner, and George Mackay Brown. I have an abiding interest in the roughly Lovecraftian network of authors such as H. P. Lovecraft himself, William Hope Hodgson, Arthur Machen, and Lord Dunsany as well as 'New Weird' developments such as the work of Jeff VanderMeer.
I am also deeply inspired by lyricists such as Nick Cave and Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart), poets such as George Herbert and Gerard Manley Hopkins and Derek Walcott, the mystic visions of Black Elk, and the prophetic and apocalyptic literature of the Bible.
Hi Daniel, great to have you here.
Welcome, Daniel. Hope you find Fictionaut to your liking.
Hi Daniel, great to have you here.
Welcome, Daniel. Hope you find Fictionaut to your liking.