Alan Ryan R.I.P.

Nancy Holder and Bob Booth are reporting that author/editor Alan Ryan passed away in Brazil on Friday, June 3, from pancreatic cancer. A three-time nominee and one-time winner of the World Fantasy Award, a nominee for the John W. Campbell Award, and winner of the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Award, Ryan was the author of four genre novels and two short story collections. He also edited five anthologies. He is perhaps best remembered for Dead White, The Kill, Cast A Cold Eye, The Penguin Book Of Vampire Stories, The Bones Wizard, and Halloween Horrors. He also edited the very first Night Visions anthology (which featured Charles L. Grant, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Tanith Lee). His non-genre work earned him bylines in such diverse publications as Playgirl, Smithsonian, and The American Scholar. Ryan had been in the midst of a comeback, with recent appearances in Postscripts, the Shivers anthology series from Cemetery Dance, and a number of forthcoming small press releases.