Thomas Wiloch

Thomas Wiloch (February 3, 1953 - September 4, 2008) was an American author, editor, poet, and illustrator. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Wiloch was "one of a handful of contemporary American masters of the prose miniature," Greg Boyd wrote in "Asylum." Writing in the "Gore Letter," Michael Arnzen stated: "Wiloch has been quietly working away in relative obscurity in his own 'niche' for two decades, developing a one-of-a-kind approach to a form he almost entirely owns. Wiloch writes surrealist short-short pieces, often no longer than a page, that are as philosophical as they are whimsical, as clever as they are poetic, and as disturbing as they are intelligent." According to Bruce Boston, writing in "Illumen" magazine, Wiloch is "arguably the leading writer of prose poems in the genre field for the last two decades." English writer and artist A.C. Evans wrote in "Stride" magazine that Wiloch portrays "fragmentary confrontation with alien Otherness described in a symbolic vocabulary of closed rooms, casual catastrophe, uncanny Fortean phenomena, rituals of cruelty, and fleeting visions of transmundane worlds." Wiloch was the principal instigator and editor of "Grimoire", a journal of surrealistic art and literature published from 1982-1985 that featured some of the earliest published work by the notable American horror writer Thomas Ligotti. After working on the editorial staff of Gale, a reference book publisher, for some 26 years, Wiloch became a freelance writer and editor in 2004.

Much of Wiloch's recent published writing is prose poetry, and has appeared in collections from various small press publishers including [http://www.nakedsnakepress.com/Naked Snake Press] and [http://www.wordcraftoforegon.com/index.html Wordcraft of Oregon] .

Wiloch has illustrated books by authors such as Bruce Boston, Robert Frazier, Andrew Joron, and Jessica Amanda Salmonson, and has contributed artwork to his own books as well. From 1988 to 1993, Wiloch wrote the column "Codes and Chaos" for "PhotoStatic," an arts magazine. He was an associate editor of "Sidereality" magazine, 2004-05.

Bibliography

Collections of prose poems

* Paper Mask (1988)
* The Mannikin Cypher (1989)
* Tales of Lord Shantih (1989)
* Mr. Templeton's Toyshop (1995)
* Stigmata Junction (2005)
* Screaming in Code (2006)

Collections of cut-up haiku

* Night Rain (1991)
* Decoded Factories of the Heart (1991)
* Narcotic Signature (1992)
* Lyrical Brandy (1993)
* Neon Trance (1997)

Nonfiction books

* Directory of Michigan Literary Publishers (1982)
* Everything You Need to Know about Protecting Yourself and Others Against Abduction (1998)
* Crime: A Serious American Problem (2004)
* National Security (2005)
* Prisons and Jails: A Deterrent to Crime? (2005)

Illustrator of books

* Bruce Boston, Sensuous Debris
* Jessica Amanda Salmonson, The Eleventh Jaguarundi
* Andrew Joron and Robert Frazier, Invisible Machines

Links

* [http://www.codeschaos.0catch.com/index.html Codes & Chaos] (Wiloch's official web site)
* [http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.asp?book=680 SF Reader] (Review of Stigmata Junction)
* [http://www.rambles.net/wiloch_code06.html Rambles] (Review of Screaming in Code)
* [http://gorelets.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi/archive/goreletter/20070211132635/ Gore Letter] (Review of Screaming in Code)
* [http://www.uri.edu/artsci/english/clf/n4_r6.html Council for the Literature of the Fantastic Newsletter] (Review of Mr. Templeton's Toyshop)
* [http://psrf.detritus.net/index.html PhotoStatic] (Archive of PhotoStatic magazine)
* [http://www.microhorror.com/microhorror/category/author/thomas-wiloch/ MicroHorror.com] (Two of Wiloch's flash fictions.)
* [http://www.bigtoereview.com/id32.html Big Toe Review] (Six of Wiloch's prose poems.)
* [http://www.ligotti.net/showthread.php?t=1991 Thomas Ligotti Online] (Tribute to Wiloch and his writings.) Retrieved on [2008-7-9]