Brian Evenson

Born in Ames, Iowa in 1966, Brian Evenson was raised in the Rock Canyon neighborhood of Provo. He received a BA in English from Brigham Young University (1989), and both an MA in English (1990) and a joint PhD in English and Critical Theory (1993) from University of Washington. He taught at BYU from 1994 to 1996 and subsequently taught at Oklahoma State University, University of Denver, and Brown University. Currently he teaches in the Critical Studies Program at CalArts.

Evenson has published a dozen and a half books of fiction. His most recent is the short story collection Song for the Unraveling of the World (Coffee House Press, 2019), which won the Shirley Jackson Award and the World Fantasy Award, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times's Ray Bradbury Prize. His novel Last Days won the ALA-RUSA award for Best Horror Novel. His novel The Open Curtain (2006), about a young boy slowly growing crazy in Utah County, was a finalist for an Edgar Award and an International Horror Guild Award. The Wavering Knife (2003) won the International Horror Guild Award. He is the recipient of three O. Henry Prizes, an NEA fellowship, and a Guggenheim Award. His work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Evenson's twelve book-length translations from French include work by Jean Frémon, Manuela Drager, Claro, Gerard Macé, Jacques Jouet, and David B. Three of his translations have been finalists for the French-American Foundation Prize and one was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His scholarly work includes Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love (IG Publishing, 2018), Ed vs. Yummy Fur, or What Happens When a Serial Comic Becomes a Graphic Novel (Uncivilized Books, 2014), and Understanding Robert Coover (University of South Carolina Press, 2003).

He lives in Valencia, California with his wife, Young Adult novelist and Emily Dickinson Prize-winning poet, Kristen Tracy, and their son Max.

 

Work

 

“Come on,” the man said. “I can teach you. Don’t be shy.”BibliBBibliography

The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell: Stories (Coffee House Press, forthcoming 2021).

Song for the Unraveling of the World: Stories (Coffee House Press, 2019).

The Deaths of Henry King (co-written with Jesse Ball, with illustrations by Lilli Carré) (Uncivilized Books, 2017).

The Warren (Tordotcom, 2016).

A Collapse of Horses: Stories (Coffee House Press, 2016).

Windeye: Stories (Coffee House Press, 2012).

Immobility (Tor, 2012).

Fugue State: Stories (Coffee House Press, 2009).

Last Days (Underland Press, 2009). Second edition Coffee House Press, 2016.

The Open Curtain:  A Novel (Coffee House Press, 2006).

The Wavering Knife (Fiction Collective 2, 2004).

Dark Property: An Affliction  (Black Square Editions, 2002).

Contagion (Wordcraft Press, 2000). Second Edition:  Astrophil Press, 2011.

Father of Lies (Four Walls Eight Windows, 1998).  Second edition 2016, Coffee House Press.

The Din of Celestial Birds (Wordcraft Press, 1997).

Altmann's Tongue:  Stories and Novella (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).


Links

Windeye

An Accounting

Solution

Elo Havel

Never Little, Never Grown

A Report on the Aperture

Interview for Bomb

Interview for LA Review of Books

Podcast for The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell

 

 

Additional Info

  • Region: Wasatch Front
  • Genre: Fiction