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Transubstantiate

by Richard Thomas (Goodreads Author)

4.06 of 5 stars 4.06 · rating details · 112 ratings · 34 reviews

“They say Jimmy made it out. But the postcards we get, well, they don’t seem…real.”

When an experiment with population control works too well, and the planet is decimated, seven broken people are united by a supernatural bond in a modern day Eden. Most on the island are fully aware of this prison disguised as an oasis. Unfortunately, Jimmy is on the mainland, desperate to g...more

Paperback, 227 pages

Published June 18th 2010 by Otherworld Publications

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Sep 16, 2010 Paul Eckert rated it 5 of 5 stars

There's a lot to love about this book.

Mysterious experiment on a strange island? Check.

Multiple characters with distinctive, equally engaging stories? Check.

One non-human character that speaks in computer language that still manages to creep me out? Oh yeah.

The characters in Transubstantiate all want the same thing. They want out. What they want to escape from differs from character to character, from the mischevious nympho protecting her son to the man whose struggle seems be his own supern...more

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Aug 01, 2010 Caleb Ross rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: the-velvet-podcast-books

Part mystery, part thriller, part apocalyptic exploration, Transubstantiate offers questions at every page. It’s been a while since I’ve read the book (I read an early, pre-publication draft), but the fact that it stays with me is quite telling.

4 likes · like · see review

Apr 16, 2010 Nicholas Karpuk rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have a great deal of respect for fiction where the author essentially plants a foot on your ass and shoves you out the door without explanation. Things will happen, exciting things by in large, and you must adapt and figure it out as you go. It's takes a certain kind of guts to even try this, let alone pull it off successfully.

Transubstantiate is chocked full of risk. It's told from multiple, very different perspectives, one of them not even human. It sits at an odd intersection between multip...more

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Sep 01, 2010 Greg McCarthy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Richard Thomas knocks it out of the park with his debut neo-noir thriller. Seven characters roam a post-apocalyptic island in this one-of-a-kind ride, searching for absolution, redemption, or just plain survival.

Part Bradbury, part Cormac McCarthy, part Lost, TRANSUBSTANTIATE takes the reader on a careening, zig-zagging trek to a dizzying conclusion, and Thomas takes us inside the head of each character with unique first-person narratives from the viewpoint of all seven. Vivid imagery, violence,...more

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Sep 07, 2012 Catherine Fitzsimmons rated it 1 of 5 stars

When I got the layout of Author's Avenue at Gen Con for 2010 and looked up my table neighbours online, this book by the publisher that occupied the table across from mine immediately caught my eye. I don't really know what it was, but something about the blurb grabbed me so much that when I saw it on sale at Gen Con, I picked it up without even knowing what the book was about. It's hard to know how to summarize this book in one sentence without giving away more than the author intended, but suff...more

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Aug 11, 2010 Jason Kane rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Casual brutality, sex, and disorder: the heroes of noir have never been terribly endearing to the heart, but the seven nihilistic souls of Richard Thomas’s Transubstantiate seem like they were born ruined, and are likely to die that way. The story draws heavily on all the beloved accouterments of the neo-noir tradition— fractured narratives; cynicism; disorientation; ruthless beatings— but the story branches out into other areas, exploring themes of mysticism and the unknowable, even broaching t...more Casual brutality, sex, and disorder: the heroes of noir have never been terribly endearing to the heart, but the seven nihilistic souls of Richard Thomas’s Transubstantiate seem like they were born ruined, and are likely to die that way. The story draws heavily on all the beloved accouterments of the neo-noir tradition— fractured narratives; cynicism; disorientation; ruthless beatings— but the story branches out into other areas, exploring themes of mysticism and the unknowable, even broaching the peripheral terrors of Lovecraftian horror.

We follow our seven characters over the course of events in both real time and in flashbacks as they struggle for survival in the throes of exponentially-worsening disasters. If it’s bad, it likely gets worse. Most of these people started off as convicted murderers; those were the good old days. There’s the man who poisoned his cheating wife (Jacob); the woman whose sexuality seems to lead to someone’s death just as often as gratification (Marcy); the ex-cop who carries out murders he considers “just” (Gordon). It all catches up to them, and soon our incarcerated antiheroes are thrown together and given what appears to be a second chance when they are chosen for a rehabilitation program on a remote island—except, it’s not a rehabilitation program. It’s a shadowy experiment. And how often do those turn out well?

Soon, a virus has swept over the planet, killing off most of humanity. That’s not quite the bad news. With the world now in ruins, no one is at the wheel and society has run amok: bloodthirsty tribes and mad dogs roam the cities, and those not wishing to be killed (or worse) are forced to seek out safety underground. Meanwhile, back on the island, the situation is no less hopeless. Our characters, who have been forced at gunpoint by their captors to run a mock society and play pretend for the benefit of island newcomers, have but two options. Neither is terribly appealing: A) Escape to the mainland, the barbaric state of which they do not fully comprehend, or B) Remain on the island– a paradise, except that it is essentially an elaborate prison camp (hey, at least you can steal a view of the beach— though do so at your own risk), and that the experiment in which they are trapped seems to have become a headless nightmare.

What is happening? The virus, the experiment, the charade on the island; is someone watching it all transpire, pulling the strings? That may be the character known as Assigned. The chief antagonist, Assigned’s narrative thread is largely represented by nothing but a chilling readout of computer language and script logs; an abandoned program grown sentient, or something worse. Assigned is watching every move that’s made on island, but who (or what) is it? A program gone haywire, or the tangible shard of some alien consciousness? Was mankind in collusion with dark forces? The character known as X seems to have an idea. In fact, he may even have been one such force; a manipulative mystic, spiritually (but not morally) enlightened, possibly inhuman, and acting as something of a psychic warden at the behest of those running the experiment. Willingly, of course. X is furthering his own agenda; this makes him somewhat detached from the plight of mankind, despite that he’s probably the best shot it now has for survival. His powers are shamanistic in nature— mental projection, healing, divination. His true motives are unclear. Is X an agent for humanity’s evolution, or the harbinger of its collapse?

Though the plot is a veritable straitjacket of mysteries, the telling is lean, even spare: this book is brisk, wicked, and blood-soaked. In fact, the story reads much like a 200-page climax– Thomas’s writing is always on the move, always frantic, surging forward essentially without pause, all while maintaining an intricate weave of narrative threads with deceptive ease. Our heroes may play to a familiar type– they are selfish avengers, benumbed by blood and tragedy into a final, jagged archetype of skewed morality that goes unchallenged by even the most earthshaking developments– but the backdrop of sci-fi pulp keeps everything fresh and unpredictable: otherworldly shock troops materialize out of thin air. Teleportation devices lie hidden in caves. Microchip implants. Ancient relics. Anthropomorphic animals. There is, in fact, a sense that the plot machinery of Transubstantiate runs deep, and has likely ground up many lost souls before these. In a way, this validates its corrosive noir cynicism. The story’s true depth and scope are likely known only to X, and he’s not exactly the sharing type. And so the cause of it all lies largely outside the reach of the unenlightened.

Still, the theme of biological evolution appears more than once during the course of the story. It’s suggested that human potential has not been reached, and it’s implied that the powerful X may be using the island and its inhabitants to engineer his own Eden– a vision of the future of humanity, of what it could become. If that’s the case– if these survivors are destined to evolve– let’s hope they learn to control their ids a bit. As it stands, it seems like one X per planet may be enough.
(less)

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Jul 04, 2010 Craig Wallwork rated it 5 of 5 stars

For me, and a few other writers who know Richard, Transubstantiate seems like the novel been around almost as long as we’ve known Richard. That’s not to say it was written a long time ago, quite the contrary. No, it’s through his enthusiasm and passion, energy and love for this novel, that Richard has ingrained Transubstantiate into my psyche forever.

By far one of the most uncompromising and determined writers around, Richard is gifted at prose as he is sincerely gracious. It’s sickening, if th...more

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May 25, 2010 Brandon Tietz rated it 5 of 5 stars

I also read a pre-publication draft of this book. The bottom line is that Richard Thomas has got the goods.

For a debut, he goes balls out on this one: sizeable cast, jumpy timeline, complex story, but Thomas pulls this off seamlessly without it ever feeling disjointed or convoluted. He doesn’t spoon-feed the reader. TRANSUBSTANTIATE will make you think, question, and come up with your own theories about what’s happening/going to happen, and I loved that aspect of it.

Regarding the actual writing,...more

5 likes · like · see review

Mar 20, 2011 Andrew rated it 3 of 5 stars

Tran-sub-stan-ti-ate

tr.v. tran-sub-stan-ti-at-ed, tran-sub-stan-ti-at-ing, tran-sub-stan-ti-ates

1. To change (one substance) into another; transmute.

2. Christianity To change the substance of (the Eucharistic bread and wine) into the body and blood of Jesus.

***

Richard Thomas’ seven-voice neo noir thriller borrows heavily from obvious sources (Lost, the Matrix films, Ghost in the Shell, and any number of psychological thriller/horror/sci-fi tropes, but the end result it entirely its own thing. As...more Tran-sub-stan-ti-ate

tr.v. tran-sub-stan-ti-at-ed, tran-sub-stan-ti-at-ing, tran-sub-stan-ti-ates

1. To change (one substance) into another; transmute.

2. Christianity To change the substance of (the Eucharistic bread and wine) into the body and blood of Jesus.

***

Richard Thomas’ seven-voice neo noir thriller borrows heavily from obvious sources (Lost, the Matrix films, Ghost in the Shell, and any number of psychological thriller/horror/sci-fi tropes, but the end result it entirely its own thing. As an examination of seven broken, lost, murderous, Machiavellian, and generally fucked up souls, the mosaic painted at the end is both a rich, detailed thriller that moves with a definite sense of urgency, and a social deconstruction of what it means—and what it takes—to create a utopia.

Using the premise of an experiment in population control spawning a global virus that leaves only a fraction of a percentile still breathing, Thomas uses his seven avatars—the shopkeeper, the nymphomaniac, the exile, the guardian, the vengeance seeker, the mind behind the curtain, and the disgruntled youth—to construct a non-linear narrative that is as much a mystery of what their island utopia/prison represents as it is the whys and wherefores of the seemingly disparate threads that connect the many narrators.

The ghost-in-the-machine/mind-behind-the-curtain concept is nothing new to noir or science fiction, and neither is the last-happy-spot-on-the-ravaged-world setting that may or may not occasionally travel back to the desolate mainland, complete with its semi-mutated, likely drug-addled wanton-rape-and-pillage gangs. Thomas makes these ideas feel fresh, however, by the division of the seven narrators. Through such a tactic, we never get a total sense of omniscience. In essence, we see what we need to see in order to understand why several random individuals might find themselves as mice in a cage for the purposes of an ongoing investigation into social control mechanisms, but not much more than that. The reader is similar to a bird flying over a city, snagging only the bits of story that appear when people walk between buildings, but losing the greater sense of what goes on inside before moving onto the next voice. That’s not to the book’s detriment—if anything, its slightly-obstructed set of perspectives are what keep it from feeling as if it is something seen and experienced before.

Taken as one, the seven voices of the tale pull together a set of strands that transforms what could have been a very predictable Big Brother-esque plot into a more painterly abstraction of the desire to live in a safe haven, and the ramifications of a single perverted mind that seeks to deconstruct the utopia it has infiltrated. An interesting ride, and a very worthwhile experiment in storytelling if one can get past some rather glaring editorial shortcomings.(less)

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May 27, 2010 Giovanni Gelati rated it 4 of 5 stars

I decided to start our new Sci-Fi/Paranormal postings a week early. I had gotten a hold of Richard Thomas’s Transubstantiate and had to give it a go. I thought I was on an awesome roll; let’s keep the momentum going. Disappointment was not to be had and Thomas kept the ball rolling right along for me. The definition of the title Transubstantiate is to change from one substance to another. With a word that big I was expecting something longer, but hey, what do I know?

The novel is to be released J...more

1 like · like · see review

Mar 19, 2012 Daniel rated it 1 of 5 stars

TRANSUBSTANTIATE is a debut novel, and it is painfully obvious on every page. I was recommended this novel because I enjoyed the novels of Clevenger, Baer, and Palahniuk. All three of these novelists are mentioned both in the narration itself, as well as in the absurdly long acknowledgments at the end of the book. It is clear that Thomas was inspired by these visceral and noir-ish writers. So where's the gap?

THE PREMISE:
A viral epidemic has decimated all but 1% of the world's population. Some of...more

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Jul 18, 2011 Shanna rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Everybody who wants a creepy, thrilling, mystery

Shelves: favorites, dystopian

I'm not going to lie, this book creeped me out from page one.

There are serveral characters, which we follow through the entire story. They all have different story lines that are all interesting on their own, but seemingly very differet. They all lead to the greater plot in the story and come together in one huge, amazing, and surprising climax that you will never see comming.

Did I mention that the non-human character was the creepiest of them all...who thought a computer could be scarey?

I've ne...more

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Aug 20, 2010 Roger Sarao rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Six people find themselves in a lone struggle against an alien (computer-generated?) entity known only as "Assigned" who has masterminded the almost complete elimination of human life in order to run God-like experiments on the survivors. Combining elements of neo-noir, science fiction, thrillers and social commentary, TRANSUBSTANTIATE confounds the reader's expectations through a story that is impossible to put down. I took extended lunches and stayed up way too late because of this book. If yo...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Clark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, reviewed

I always thought that first books are supposed to be just average, that writers get better with experience. Transubstantiate is a well-crafted novel that seems like it should be from someone near the end of their writing career, not at the beginning.

To be honest, I read the entire book in one day. I just had to know what was going on in this "mind-trip" of a book. I am still thinking about this book, trying to grasp all of the book's creative subtleties.

This book demands a "re-read." Not many...more

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Jul 16, 2011 David Donaghe rated it 5 of 5 stars

From Otherworld Publications website: "When an experiment with population control works too well, and the planet is decimated, seven broken people are united by a supernatural bond in a modern day Eden. Most on the island are fully aware of this prison disguised as an oasis. Unfortunately, Jimmy is on the mainland, desperate to get back, in a post-apocalyptic stand-off, fighting for his survival and that of his unborn child. Back on the island, Jacob stares at the ocean through his telescope and...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 14, 2011 Fred Venturini rated it 5 of 5 stars

Weeks have passed since reading this book, and I still can't shake it. Bold and aggressive, the narrative that jumps among seven voices doesn't nurse the reader along with a standard, unroll-the-plot-in-clear-order delivery. Instead, the soul of his book is dusted off line by line, character by character, chapter by chapter, like the dusting off of an artifact that was there all along.

What does all this meandering from me tell you about the book? Read it. Anything that can remind you of "Lost"...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 08, 2010 Anthony rated it 5 of 5 stars

Transubstantiate is not an entry-level neo-noir thriller. For a good part of the novel, the real story develops as more of a monstrous, unrelenting backdrop, the great unknown slowly revealing itself as it lurks just behind the text you're presented with, the first person accounts of a handful of individual characters whose lives will become intertwined.

If you like Twilight, then you may as well move on. Or better yet, put that third-grade-writing-level garbage down, pick this one up and try to...more Transubstantiate is not an entry-level neo-noir thriller. For a good part of the novel, the real story develops as more of a monstrous, unrelenting backdrop, the great unknown slowly revealing itself as it lurks just behind the text you're presented with, the first person accounts of a handful of individual characters whose lives will become intertwined.

If you like Twilight, then you may as well move on. Or better yet, put that third-grade-writing-level garbage down, pick this one up and try to wrap your brain around something with a pulse.

Simply put, it's a big story. With big themes. And similar to a David Lynch film, you may feel like reading it again to really get it. Thomas has taken a fairly non-traditional format here, utilizing seven first-person accounts to weave the majority of the narrative. And some of them aren't even human. It's like something you might expect from Faulkner, only readable. (Don't judge me, alright, I just hate Faulkner.)

You've got equal parts 2001: A Space Odyssey, Lord of the Flies and A Brave New World with a generous twist of neo-noir served on the rocks, with a post-apocalyptic-wasteland chaser. And I'd recommend slamming it all as fast as possible. The narrative is so taut you may as well turn off the phone and the laptop and dive in, or else come back to it when you can. Few books have this effect on me, fewer still that flirt with the fringes of genre fiction, and so many genres at that.

And don't expect Thomas to give you all the answers here. You're doing the math, as it were, throughout a lot of the novel. Thomas provides just enough pieces to make sense of the world, but with such a well-balanced frugality that you honestly feel like another character, just as vulnerable to what happens next as anyone in the narrative. This is what makes the book so engaging. You're so up close and personal with each character you can't help but be in the story yourself.

Now sometimes this level of parsimony can be rewarding, if not a little daunting (as in Craig Clevenger's The Contortionist's Handbook or Dermaphoria), other times it can be downright irritating (as in Dennis Johnson's Nobody Move (again, don't judge me)); But with Transubstantiate, what seems ostensibly like a meager trail of breadcrumbs, at least at first glance, quickly becomes not only fully engaging, it turns addictive. And page after page Thomas delivers, constantly drawing you deeper and deeper into his dark dystopia with a surprising fluidity, teasing the reader with the faintest glimmer of hope on the distant, smoke obscured horizon.

At the end, on the last page, not only do you want to read it again, you want the next chapter, the next adventure, the next book.

With this as a debut novel, I'd say Richard Thomas is a force to be reckoned with. (less)

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Aug 22, 2010 Simon West-bulford rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: author-friends

Okay, so there may be some bias from me in considering this novel. Having seen the early draft and being privileged to see this develop, I was thrilled to see it get published, but I remember reviewing it, looking forward to reading each chapter, and dreading whatever fate was in store for the seven characters. I was eager to get my hands on the final glossy product so that I could enjoy the whole story all over again. And enjoy it I did.

There’s no escaping Thomas’s fond nod to “Lost” or “The Pr...more

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Oct 18, 2010 Aaron rated it 2 of 5 stars

A book that tries to bring together a lot of disparate elements, what Transubstantiate has in ambition does not make up for its short comings in execution. It seems like this book was self-published so expecting a veteran editor there helping to shape the book is too much. However, Thomas could have at least run some grammar checker on it to keep the typos from accumulating until sentences started to evoke News Radio's Super Karate Monkey Death Car episode where a book is translated into Japanes...more A book that tries to bring together a lot of disparate elements, what Transubstantiate has in ambition does not make up for its short comings in execution. It seems like this book was self-published so expecting a veteran editor there helping to shape the book is too much. However, Thomas could have at least run some grammar checker on it to keep the typos from accumulating until sentences started to evoke News Radio's Super Karate Monkey Death Car episode where a book is translated into Japanese and then back into English. There really are too many sentences like "Jimmy, who don't you tell them what you're doing right now." And then there are minor details like the disaffected youth in 2018 who shows his rebellious streak by tagging "Metallica" and "Nirvana", which seemed so wrong I assumed I had misread the date on the chapter header. But no, the book's flash back to six years into my future is filled with already beyond-sell-date cultural references. These seem like minor gripes, but if there are going to be so many moving parts, it helps for them to be welded together well.

Also, weirdly, in a book that runs 200 pages where questions like "why is there a talking squirrel?"or "how are half of these 'mysteriously linked' characters actually linked?" remain unanswered, Thomas spends two pages talking about what an amazing a writer Chuck Palahniuk is.

Therefore, it's not that surprising that the portrayal of women in this book is, uh, interesting. One of the women is written like the never-satisfied one-dimensional nympho usually only found in particularly underambitious porn. I assumed there was going to be some sort of twist where it was revealed that she was suffering from some massive brain lesion a la Kluver-Bucy syndrome in a way that would establish her as a real character, forcing the reader to reconsider their expectations of "realistic" writing. Nope, although she uses tantric magic at the end, so I guess that was that.

I did like the book's structure, as it was something I'd never seen before. It just wasn't sufficient to get me to ignore all the flaws.(less)

5 likes · like · see review

Feb 19, 2012 Edward rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, noir

Transubstantiate is a very good neo-noir sci-fi thriller. It's a book of multiple genres and Richard Thomas pulls it off very nicely. I see the noir influence of Will Christopher Baer and the thriller influence of Stephen King with the sci-fi aspects of a show like Lost. My only problem is that with all of the different elements it got a little bit confusing at times, but not so much that you get completely lost. A very interesting read that I would recommend to anyone looking for something diff...more

1 like · like · see review

Jul 24, 2012 Sam rated it 3 of 5 stars

The thing about having a Kindle is now you can get a bunch of free books. So I downloaded this awhile back, but just now got around to reading it and went into it having no idea what it was about. Turns out it's this CRAZY mix of Lost and the Matrix and a post-apocalyptic virus devastated world...and there's a talking chipmunk. I still don't know what all was going on here, but it was intriguing enough to keep me reading til the end.

1 like · like · see review

Jan 14, 2012 Jeremy Darby rated it 5 of 5 stars

Great freshman effort from a very promising writer! The name drops of Chuck Palahniuk and The Velvet authors were a little awkward, since I know Thomas is a big fan, but beyond that I had no trouble immersing myself in the novel's world. The characters each had a distinct enough personality that I didn't get lost in the constantly shifting narrations, and they each brought an interesting element to the story by telling things from their point of view. I highly recommend this to any fans of the n...more

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Nov 10, 2010 Kristin Fouquet rated it 4 of 5 stars

I’m compelled to admit I don’t usually seek out post-apocalyptic themed books, but this one caught my interest and so I thought I’d give it a read. I’m very pleased I didn’t miss out on Transubstantiate.

Richard Thomas pulls you into his tightly crafted tale with the clever use of multiple narrators. The device equips the reader with experiences of the future present and past of a world in trouble from many perspectives. This intimacy of being allowed in each character’s mind fully connects the r...more

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Aug 18, 2010 Peter Goutis rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really liked this book. This is a really solid debut from Richard. It's a book that kind of sticks with you. I'm not sure if I'm done processing it yet even though I finished it a couple days ago. I can't wait for our Book Club discussion on it because I have a quite a few questions I'd like to see answered.

I highly recommend this one to just about anybody.

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Jan 28, 2011 Daniel Short rated it 5 of 5 stars

Say one thing for Richard Thomas, say he's got the heart of a writer. I admired the scope of this novel, and though at times it stumbled (yet never stopped moving), I admired the man's heart that bled through nearly every page. Read this book, simply because there is nothing quite like it.

And it's a debut! Are you kidding me? A very solid five.

1 like · like · see review

Sep 23, 2010 Georgina Kamsika rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent first novel by a talented author. I've been lucky enough to read the odd short before, but with this novel, Richard has out done himself in creating a mysterious world, populated by living, breathing characters.

Well worth a read - go buy it now!

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Feb 17, 2011 Bryan Alaspa rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved this book. It is a challenging read, but worth it. I love discovering a new voice within ficiotn and Richard Thomas is IT. Highly recommended.

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Aug 22, 2011 Annette rated it 3 of 5 stars

At first it was very confusing, then it became totally predictable, almost like a tv movie of the week. Not badly written though, and I did enjoy it over all.

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Nov 09, 2010 lance rated it 3 of 5 stars

This was a strong debut novel, sadly my reading of it was ruined by time. I had to read this book in pieces over 4 or 5 days, as I kept getting interrupted. I think if i sat down and read this for the 1st time in one sitting, I would have really loved it.

I think this guy has a fairly healthy writing career in his future and am very much looking forward to his next book. Next time I will make sure when I read his work there will be no distractions!

Right now Im about to go and read all of his sho...more

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Aug 02, 2010 Chris Deal rated it 5 of 5 stars

There's a lot to think on when it comes to this debut. It's bold, ambitious, and intimate all at the same time. Seven characters sending the narrative forward or backwards, giving you a glimpse at a world you can only hope doesn't come to pass. Each character can act as a sort of archetype but is entirely themselves, free from expectations. Nothing is easy, there are no simple answers, but at the same time, you'll enjoy the trip down the rabbit hole. I enjoyed every page, every character. There...more

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About Richard Thomas

Richard is the author of three books, Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications, 2010) a neo-noir, speculative thriller, and two collections, Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press, 2012) and Staring Into the Abyss (Kraken Press, 2013). He received his MFA from Murray State University in 2012, and is represented by Paula Munier at Talcott Notch.

He was the winner of the ChiZine Publications “Enter the Wor...more Richard is the author of three books, Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications, 2010) a neo-noir, speculative thriller, and two collections, Herniated Roots (Snubnose Press, 2012) and Staring Into the Abyss (Kraken Press, 2013). He received his MFA from Murray State University in 2012, and is represented by Paula Munier at Talcott Notch.

He was the winner of the ChiZine Publications “Enter the World of Filaria” contest. His short story “Maker of Flight” was chosen by Filaria author Brent Hayward and Bram Stoker Award-Winning editor Brett Alexander Savory. It has since gone on to also win at Jotspeak, beating out over 200 entries. This short was based on the novel Filaria by Brent Hayward, published by ChiZine in 2009. He was also the winner of the 2011 Cafe Doom / One Buck Horror contest, for his short story “Wicker Park Pause.” He has been nominated for five Pushcart prizes, as well as awarded a writing residency at Writers in the Heartland in 2011, and participation in the Flying House co-op, resulting in a grant from Poets & Writers magazine, in 2012

His work has been accepted in over 75 publications, including the Shivers VI anthology (Cemetery Dance) with Stephen King and Peter Straub, the Warmed and Bound anthology (Velvet Press), the Noir at the Bar anthology, Speedloader (Snubnose Press), In Search of a City: Los Angeles in 1,000 Words and Cipher Sisters (Thunderdome), Slices of Flesh (Dark Moon Books), Nova Parade (Solarcide), Arcadia, Midwestern Gothic, ChiZine, Gargoyle, Murky Depths, PANK, Pear Noir!, 3:AM Magazine, Word Riot, Dogmatika, Opium, Vain, Weird Fiction Review, Crime Factory, Beat to a Pulp, Metazen, Circa Review, Beat the Dust, Emprise Review, Flywheel Magazine, Punchnel’s, Cannoli Pie, Surreal Grotesque, Conjectural Figments, Dirty Noir, Stepaway, Shotgun Honey, Cherry Bleeds, Zouch Magzine, Rotten Leaves, We Are Vespertine, Blink-Ink, Leodegraunce, Eternal Night: A Vampire Anthology (Living Dead Press), Outsider Writers Collective, The Oddville Press, Colored Chalk, Cause and Effect, Gold Dust, Nefarious Muse, and Troubadour 21.

He is currently editing an anthology for Black Lawrence Press, entitled The Lineup: 25 Provocative Women Writers, out in 2014, with work by such luminaries as Monica Drake, Cheryl Strayed, Holly Goddard Jones, Roxane Gay, Mary Miller, Paula Bomer, Karen Brown, Lindsay Hunter, Amelia Gray, xTx, Claire Vaye Watkins, and many others. He was a workshop moderator at The Cult writer’s workshop where they are putting together an anthology, Burnt Tongues: Stories from ChuckPalahniuk.net, that will be publish in the near future. He has been an Editor for Colored Chalk (Issue #6 – Waking Up Strange and Issue #9 – Heaven and Hell) where he published work by Joe Meno, Karen Brown and Joey Goebel, and was Co-Editor and Designer at Sideshow Fables where they published work by Stephen Graham Jones and Steve Almond. He also writes book reviews and interviews for The Nervous Breakdown, as well a column, “Storyville” at Lit Reactor, where he has gotten over 48,000 pageviews. Richard is a member of the Horror Writers Association. He was the Fiction and Poetry Curator for Around the Coyote, a Wicker Part art festival.

Richard lives in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. He was born in St. Louis, Missouri (Webster Groves) where he attended Webster Groves High School. He did his undergraduate studies at Bradley University (Peoria, IL), where he majored in Advertising and Communications, and minored in Psychology and received his MFA at Murray State University (Murray, KY) and studied under the Pulitzer nominated author, Dale Ray Phillips.(less)

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