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Nick Mamatas

January 10, 2023

Nick Mamatas (Greek: Νίκος Μαμματάς) (born February 20, 1972) is an American horror, science fiction and fantasy author and editor for Haikasoru's line of translated Japanese science fiction novels for Viz Media. His fiction has been nominated for a number of awards, including several Bram Stoker Awards. He has also been recognised for his editorial work with a Bram Stoker Award, as well as World Fantasy Award and Hugo Award nominations. He funded his early writing career by producing term papers for college students, which gained him some notoriety when he described this experience in an essay for Drexel University's online magazine The Smart Set.[1]

Nick Mamatas
Born (1972-02-20) February 20, 1972 (age 50)
Long Island, New York
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • short story author
  • essayist
  • editor
NationalityAmerican
GenreHorror, fantasy, science fiction, personal essay

Biography

Nick Mamatas was born on Long Island, New York and attended Stony Brook University and New School University. He is also a graduate of the MFA program in creative and professional writing at Western Connecticut State University, which he attended only after publishing a number of books, short stories, and articles. During his early writing career he wrote not just non-fiction, but also worked in a essay mill as a ghostwriter for college students needing term papers, an experience he later described in an essay called "The Term Paper Artist".[2] His non-fiction work has appeared in Razor Magazine, The Village Voice, and various disinformation books and BenBella Books' Smart Pop Books anthologies. His parents are Greeks from the island of Icaria.

Career and themes

Mamatas is most known for his horror and dark fiction, but claims broad influences.[3] Writer Laird Barron described the short fictions in You Might Sleep... as running "the gamut of science fiction, fantasy, metafiction, horror, generic lit, to the realms of the effectively unclassifiable".[4]

The Internet Review of Science Fiction, reviewing You Might Sleep, contends that "J.D. Salinger [is] an obvious but unacknowledged influence" and also compares Mamatas' work to "Lewis Carroll with an ISP, Mishima hammering out his death poem on a Blackberry or Harlan Ellison hyped up on crystal meth..." while suggesting a certain immaturity to Mamatas's themes: "Despite his tremendous gifts, Mamatas dares little. One wonders how he would handle more profound materials, how his narrative sorcery might encompass (for example) bereavement, real tragedy or loss of self through enlightenment or love."[5]

A thematic touchstone for Mamatas is H.P. Lovecraft. His novel Move Under Ground, which combines Lovecraftian and Beat themes, was declared one of the best Cthulhu Mythos stories not written by Lovecraft by Kenneth Hite in the book Cthulhu 101. Mark Halcomb of the Village Voice reviewed the book and its peculiar meshing of Lovecraft and Kerouac, writing, in part:

"In fact, Kerouac's 'bebop prosody' and the Cthulhu mythos dovetail nicely, and what seems at first like literary stunt-casting actually gives Mamatas room to recast the Beats' fall from grace in fanciful terms unhindered by their tricky psychology, the strictures of reality and realism—or lingering platitudes."[6]

Publishers Weekly reviewed Move Under Ground, discussing the novel's "credible pastiche" of Kerouac's voice and declared the book "sophisticated, progressive horror..."[7]

A number of his short works, such as the novelette Real People Slash and the flash fiction "And Then And Then And Then", also explicitly combine Lovecraftian themes with the voices of non-fantastical literature. The short story "That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable", first published in the anthology Lovecraft Unbound is a pastiche of Lovecraft and several of the works of Raymond Carver. The Damned Highway combines a character based heavily on Hunter S. Thompson and Lovecraftian themes.

Satire is also a significant element of Mamatas's fiction. Ed Park, writing for his online The Los Angeles Times review column, described Mamatas's Under My Roof—a short novel about the formation of a microstate on Long Island—as an "accurate, fast-moving satire that transcends mere target shooting by virtue of its narrator, Daniel’s 12-year-old son Herbie".[8] A starred review in Publishers Weekly for the same title also highlighted the satirical elements in the work, declaring: "A big-bang ending caps the fast-paced novel, and there's much fun to be had watching Mamatas...merrily skewer his targets."[9]

Mamatas's nonfiction work includes essays on publishing, digital culture, and politics. A Village Voice piece on the Otherkin phenomenon[10] is cited as one of the earliest national publications on the subculture.[11] His essay about his settlement with the RIAA[12] for file-sharing has been cited in several law reviews,[13][14][15] as it is a relatively rare first-person account of the process of settlement with the RIAA. Essays from The Smart Set, Village Voice, The Writer and Tim Pratt's fanzine Flytrap were compiled, along with original material, into the writing handbook Starve Better in 2011, and published by Apex Publications[16] His essay "The Term Paper Artist" originally from The Smart Set, about his experiences as an academic ghostwriter for pay, has been discussed on National Public Radio, and reprinted in a pair of textbooks, both published by Nelson Education.[17][18]

Major works

Novels

  • Northern Gothic - Soft Skull Press (2001) ISBN 978-1887128742
  • Move Under Ground - Night Shade Books (2005) ISBN 978-1892389916
  • Under My Roof - Soft Skull Shortlit (2007) ISBN 978-1933368436
  • Sensation - PM Press (2011) ISBN 978-1604863543
  • The Damned Highway (with Brian Keene ) - Dark Horse (2011) ISBN 978-1595826855
  • Bullettime - ChiZine Publications (2012) ISBN 9781926851716
  • Love is the Law - Dark Horse Books (2013) ISBN 978-1616552220
  • The Last Weekend:A Novel of Zombies, Booze, and Power Tools - Night Shade Books (2016 reprint) (2014) ISBN 978-1597808422
  • I Am Providence - Night Shade Books (2016)[19] ISBN 978-1597808354
  • Sabbath - Tor Books (2019) ISBN 978-1250170118

Short story collections

Anthologies

Non-fiction

  • Kwangju Diary (with Jae-Eui Lee & Kap Su Seol) - University of California Los Angeles (1999) ISBN 978-1883191030
  • Starve Better:Surviving the Endless Horror of the Writing Life - Apex Book Company (2011) ISBN 978-0984553587
  • Insults Every Man Should Know (Stuff You Should Know) - Quirk Books (2011) ISBN 978-1594745249
  • Quotes Every Man Should Know (Stuff You Should Know) - Quirk Books 2013 ISBN 978-1594746369
  • The Battle Royale Slam Book:Essays on the Cult Classic by Koushun Takami (with Masumi Washington) - Haikasoru (2014) ISBN 978-1421565996

Poetry

Editor

Personal life

Mamatas is a student of Chen-style t'ai chi ch'uan.[21] In 2012, he won a push hands competition[22] at the 3rd Annual "Golden Gate" Chinese Martial Arts Championship in San Francisco, California. In 2015, he won the silver medal in push hands at the twenty-third Berkeley Chinese Martial Arts Tournament.[23] In 2019, he came in second in the 19th annual Mokomoko Invitational's gi-sumo competition, in the 180+ pound division.

References

  1. ^ . On the Media. 2008-11-28. Archived from the original on 2009-03-23.
  2. ^ "The Term Paper Artist" 2008-10-24 at the Wayback Machine, article in The Smart Set by Nick Mamatas
  3. ^ "A Career In Thrashing Around All Night". Apex Book Company. April 2009. from the original on 2009-05-17.
  4. ^ . Imago1, Laird Barron's LiveJournal. September 2009. Archived from the original on 2011-08-18.
  5. ^ "With Cautious Anticipation A review of You Might Sleep... by Nick Mamatas". The Internet Review of Science Fiction. May 2009. from the original on 2011-09-27.
  6. ^ "Beat Happening". Village Voice. May 25, 2004. from the original on November 1, 2010.
  7. ^ "Fiction Review: Move Under Ground". Publishers Weekly. April 12, 2004. from the original on October 6, 2012.
  8. ^ "Review of Brian Aldiss's HARM and Nick Mamatas's UNDER MY ROOF". latimes.com. April 2007. from the original on 2011-08-31.
  9. ^ "Fiction Review: Under My Roof". Publishers Weekly. December 18, 2006. from the original on October 6, 2012.
  10. ^ Mamatas, Nick (February 20, 2001). . The Village Voice, New York. 46 (7): 35. Archived from the original on October 7, 2008.
  11. ^ The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English. The McGraw-Hill Companies. 2006. ISBN 9780071491631.
  12. ^ "Meet John Doe". Village Voice. March 1, 2005. from the original on June 21, 2011.
  13. ^ "The Place of the User in Copyright Law". Fordham Law Review. 2005–2006. from the original on 2016-03-04.
  14. ^ "Comment: Copyright's Public-Private Distinction". Case Western Reserve Law Review. 2004–2005. from the original on 2016-03-03.
  15. ^ "Leave Them Kids Alone - A Proposed Fair Use Defense for Noncommercial P2P Sharing of Copyrighted Music Files". Florida International Law Review. 2007–2008. from the original on 2016-03-03.
  16. ^ "Starve Better". Apex Publications. 2011. from the original on 2011-05-13..
  17. ^ . Nelson Education. 2011. Archived from the original on 2012-03-23.
  18. ^ . Nelson Education. 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-07-21.
  19. ^ Heller, Jason (August 3, 2016). "'I Am Providence' Is A Love/Hate Letter To A Literary Subculture". NPR. from the original on March 8, 2017. Retrieved 2017-03-07.
  20. ^ Nick Mamatas's Livejournal Entry about editorial job at Viz Media
  21. ^ "The Good Fight". The Smart Set. April 2, 2009. from the original on October 19, 2012.
  22. ^ "San Francisco Kung Fu Tournament Results for 2012: Taiji Push Hands". International Chinese Martial Arts Championships. Sep 22, 2012.
  23. ^ "Berkeley CMAT Scores". Berkeley Chinese Martial Arts Tournament. March 16, 2015.

External links

January 10, 2023
nick, mamatas, greek, Νίκος, Μαμματάς, born, february, 1972, american, horror, science, fiction, fantasy, author, editor, haikasoru, line, translated, japanese, science, fiction, novels, media, fiction, been, nominated, number, awards, including, several, bram. Nick Mamatas Greek Nikos Mammatas born February 20 1972 is an American horror science fiction and fantasy author and editor for Haikasoru s line of translated Japanese science fiction novels for Viz Media His fiction has been nominated for a number of awards including several Bram Stoker Awards He has also been recognised for his editorial work with a Bram Stoker Award as well as World Fantasy Award and Hugo Award nominations He funded his early writing career by producing term papers for college students which gained him some notoriety when he described this experience in an essay for Drexel University s online magazine The Smart Set 1 Nick MamatasBorn 1972 02 20 February 20 1972 age 50 Long Island New YorkOccupationNovelist short story author essayist editorNationalityAmericanGenreHorror fantasy science fiction personal essay Contents 1 Biography 2 Career and themes 3 Major works 3 1 Novels 3 2 Short story collections 3 3 Anthologies 3 4 Non fiction 3 5 Poetry 3 6 Editor 4 Personal life 5 References 6 External linksBiography EditNick Mamatas was born on Long Island New York and attended Stony Brook University and New School University He is also a graduate of the MFA program in creative and professional writing at Western Connecticut State University which he attended only after publishing a number of books short stories and articles During his early writing career he wrote not just non fiction but also worked in a essay mill as a ghostwriter for college students needing term papers an experience he later described in an essay called The Term Paper Artist 2 His non fiction work has appeared in Razor Magazine The Village Voice and various disinformation books and BenBella Books Smart Pop Books anthologies His parents are Greeks from the island of Icaria Career and themes EditMamatas is most known for his horror and dark fiction but claims broad influences 3 Writer Laird Barron described the short fictions in You Might Sleep as running the gamut of science fiction fantasy metafiction horror generic lit to the realms of the effectively unclassifiable 4 The Internet Review of Science Fiction reviewing You Might Sleep contends that J D Salinger is an obvious but unacknowledged influence and also compares Mamatas work to Lewis Carroll with an ISP Mishima hammering out his death poem on a Blackberry or Harlan Ellison hyped up on crystal meth while suggesting a certain immaturity to Mamatas s themes Despite his tremendous gifts Mamatas dares little One wonders how he would handle more profound materials how his narrative sorcery might encompass for example bereavement real tragedy or loss of self through enlightenment or love 5 A thematic touchstone for Mamatas is H P Lovecraft His novel Move Under Ground which combines Lovecraftian and Beat themes was declared one of the best Cthulhu Mythos stories not written by Lovecraft by Kenneth Hite in the book Cthulhu 101 Mark Halcomb of the Village Voice reviewed the book and its peculiar meshing of Lovecraft and Kerouac writing in part In fact Kerouac s bebop prosody and the Cthulhu mythos dovetail nicely and what seems at first like literary stunt casting actually gives Mamatas room to recast the Beats fall from grace in fanciful terms unhindered by their tricky psychology the strictures of reality and realism or lingering platitudes 6 Publishers Weekly reviewed Move Under Ground discussing the novel s credible pastiche of Kerouac s voice and declared the book sophisticated progressive horror 7 A number of his short works such as the novelette Real People Slash and the flash fiction And Then And Then And Then also explicitly combine Lovecraftian themes with the voices of non fantastical literature The short story That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable first published in the anthology Lovecraft Unbound is a pastiche of Lovecraft and several of the works of Raymond Carver The Damned Highway combines a character based heavily on Hunter S Thompson and Lovecraftian themes Satire is also a significant element of Mamatas s fiction Ed Park writing for his online The Los Angeles Times review column described Mamatas s Under My Roof a short novel about the formation of a microstate on Long Island as an accurate fast moving satire that transcends mere target shooting by virtue of its narrator Daniel s 12 year old son Herbie 8 A starred review in Publishers Weekly for the same title also highlighted the satirical elements in the work declaring A big bang ending caps the fast paced novel and there s much fun to be had watching Mamatas merrily skewer his targets 9 Mamatas s nonfiction work includes essays on publishing digital culture and politics A Village Voice piece on the Otherkin phenomenon 10 is cited as one of the earliest national publications on the subculture 11 His essay about his settlement with the RIAA 12 for file sharing has been cited in several law reviews 13 14 15 as it is a relatively rare first person account of the process of settlement with the RIAA Essays from The Smart Set Village Voice The Writer and Tim Pratt s fanzine Flytrap were compiled along with original material into the writing handbook Starve Better in 2011 and published by Apex Publications 16 His essay The Term Paper Artist originally from The Smart Set about his experiences as an academic ghostwriter for pay has been discussed on National Public Radio and reprinted in a pair of textbooks both published by Nelson Education 17 18 Major works EditNovels Edit Northern Gothic Soft Skull Press 2001 ISBN 978 1887128742 Move Under Ground Night Shade Books 2005 ISBN 978 1892389916 Under My Roof Soft Skull Shortlit 2007 ISBN 978 1933368436 Sensation PM Press 2011 ISBN 978 1604863543 The Damned Highway with Brian Keene Dark Horse 2011 ISBN 978 1595826855 Bullettime ChiZine Publications 2012 ISBN 9781926851716 Love is the Law Dark Horse Books 2013 ISBN 978 1616552220 The Last Weekend A Novel of Zombies Booze and Power Tools Night Shade Books 2016 reprint 2014 ISBN 978 1597808422 I Am Providence Night Shade Books 2016 19 ISBN 978 1597808354 Sabbath Tor Books 2019 ISBN 978 1250170118Short story collections Edit 3000 MPH In Every Direction At Once Stories And Essays Wild Side Press 2003 ISBN 978 1930997318 You Might Sleep Prime Books 2009 ISBN 978 0809573127 The Nickronomicon Innsmouth Free Press 2014 ISBN 978 1927990087 The People s Republic of Everything Tachyon Publications 2018 ISBN 978 1616963002Anthologies Edit The Urban Bizarre Prime 2004 ISBN 978 1930997394 Spicy Slipstream Stories with Jay Lake Lethe Press 2008 ISBN 978 1590210253 Haunted Legends with Ellen Datlow Tor Books 2010 ISBN 9780765323002 The Future is Japanese with Masumi Washington Haikasoru 2012 ISBN 978 1421542232 Phantasm Japan Fantasies Light and Dark From and About Japan with Masumi Washington Haikasoru 2014 ISBN 978 1421571744 Hanzai Japan Fantastical Futuristic Stories of Crime From and About Japan with Masumi Washington Haikasoru 2015 ISBN 978 1421580258 Mixed Up Cocktail Recipes and Flash Fiction for the Discerning Drinker and Reader with Molly Tanzer Skyhorse Publishing 2017 ISBN 978 1510718036Non fiction Edit Kwangju Diary with Jae Eui Lee amp Kap Su Seol University of California Los Angeles 1999 ISBN 978 1883191030 Starve Better Surviving the Endless Horror of the Writing Life Apex Book Company 2011 ISBN 978 0984553587 Insults Every Man Should Know Stuff You Should Know Quirk Books 2011 ISBN 978 1594745249 Quotes Every Man Should Know Stuff You Should Know Quirk Books 2013 ISBN 978 1594746369 The Battle Royale Slam Book Essays on the Cult Classic by Koushun Takami with Masumi Washington Haikasoru 2014 ISBN 978 1421565996Poetry Edit Cthulhu Senryu Prime 2006 ISBN 978 0809562411Editor Edit Phantom Magazine Issue 0 November 2005 Clarkesworld Magazine August 2006 August 2008 Viz Media August 2008 present 20 Personal life EditMamatas is a student of Chen style t ai chi ch uan 21 In 2012 he won a push hands competition 22 at the 3rd Annual Golden Gate Chinese Martial Arts Championship in San Francisco California In 2015 he won the silver medal in push hands at the twenty third Berkeley Chinese Martial Arts Tournament 23 In 2019 he came in second in the 19th annual Mokomoko Invitational s gi sumo competition in the 180 pound division References Edit The Paper Market On the Media 2008 11 28 Archived from the original on 2009 03 23 The Term Paper Artist Archived 2008 10 24 at the Wayback Machine article in The Smart Set by Nick Mamatas A Career In Thrashing Around All Night Apex Book Company April 2009 Archived from the original on 2009 05 17 On You Might Sleep by Mamatas or I come not to praise Caesar but deliver the goods on Caligula Imago1 Laird Barron s LiveJournal September 2009 Archived from the original on 2011 08 18 With Cautious Anticipation A review of You Might Sleep by Nick Mamatas The Internet Review of Science Fiction May 2009 Archived from the original on 2011 09 27 Beat Happening Village Voice May 25 2004 Archived from the original on November 1 2010 Fiction Review Move Under Ground Publishers Weekly April 12 2004 Archived from the original on October 6 2012 Review of Brian Aldiss s HARM and Nick Mamatas s UNDER MY ROOF latimes com April 2007 Archived from the original on 2011 08 31 Fiction Review Under My Roof Publishers Weekly December 18 2006 Archived from the original on October 6 2012 Mamatas Nick February 20 2001 Elven Like Me The Village Voice New York 46 7 35 Archived from the original on October 7 2008 The Official Dictionary of Unofficial English The McGraw Hill Companies 2006 ISBN 9780071491631 Meet John Doe Village Voice March 1 2005 Archived from the original on June 21 2011 The Place of the User in Copyright Law Fordham Law Review 2005 2006 Archived from the original on 2016 03 04 Comment Copyright s Public Private Distinction Case Western Reserve Law Review 2004 2005 Archived from the original on 2016 03 03 Leave Them Kids Alone A Proposed Fair Use Defense for Noncommercial P2P Sharing of Copyrighted Music Files Florida International Law Review 2007 2008 Archived from the original on 2016 03 03 Starve Better Apex Publications 2011 Archived from the original on 2011 05 13 Table of Contents Essay Essentials Nelson Education 2011 Archived from the original on 2012 03 23 Canadian Content 7th Edition Nelson Education 2011 Archived from the original on 2011 07 21 Heller Jason August 3 2016 I Am Providence Is A Love Hate Letter To A Literary Subculture NPR Archived from the original on March 8 2017 Retrieved 2017 03 07 Nick Mamatas s Livejournal Entry about editorial job at Viz Media The Good Fight The Smart Set April 2 2009 Archived from the original on October 19 2012 San Francisco Kung Fu Tournament Results for 2012 Taiji Push Hands International Chinese Martial Arts Championships Sep 22 2012 Berkeley CMAT Scores Berkeley Chinese Martial Arts Tournament March 16 2015 External links EditOnline version of Move Under Ground 2002 interview 2006 interview on the Sturgeon s Law podcast Clarkesworld Magazine Nick Mamatas at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database Story behind Bullettime Online Essay by Nick Mamatas Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Nick Mamatas amp oldid 1126220964, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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