Poppy Z. Brite
| Poppy Z. Brite | |
|---|---|
Photo by Grey Cross
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| Born |
May 25, 1967 Bowling Green, Kentucky |
| Occupation | Novelist, writer |
| Period | 1985–Current |
| Notable works |
Lost Souls (1992) Drawing Blood (1993) Exquisite Corpse (1996) The Value of X (2002) Liquor (2004) Prime (2005) Soul Kitchen (2006) |
| Spouse | Grey Cross |
| Website | |
| www |
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Billy Martin (born May 25, 1967), known professionally as Poppy Z. Brite, is an American author. He is a trans man and prefers that male pronouns and terms be used when referring to him. Martin initially achieved notoriety in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s by publishing a string of successful novels and short story collections. His later work moved into the related genre of dark comedy, with many stories set in the New Orleans restaurant world. Martin's novels are typically standalone books but may feature recurring characters from previous novels and short stories. Much of his work features openly bisexual and gay characters.
Martin is best known for writing gothic and horror novels and short stories. His trademarks include featuring gay men as main characters, graphic sexual descriptions, and an often wry treatment of gruesome events. Some of Martin's better known novels include Lost Souls (1992), Drawing Blood (1993), and the controversial serial killer novel Exquisite Corpse (1996); he has also released the short fiction collections Wormwood (originally published as Swamp Foetus; 1993), Are You Loathsome Tonight? (also published as Self-Made Man; 1998), Wrong Things (with Caitlin R. Kiernan; 2001), and The Devil You Know (2003). His "Calcutta: Lord of Nerves" was selected to represent the year 1992 in the story anthology The Century's Best Horror Fiction.
In a 1998 interview, in response to a comment that "Growing up in the American South [shaped him] as a writer", Martin mentioned that Southern writers Carson McCullers, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Flannery O'Connor, Harper Lee, Thomas Wolfe and William Faulkner also influenced his writing. Answering a follow-up question about his literary influences, he also included "Bradbury, Nabokov, W.S. Burroughs, Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Shirley Jackson, Thomas Ligotti, Kathe Koja, Dennis Cooper, Dorothy Parker, Dylan Thomas, Harlan Ellison, Peter Straub, Paul Theroux, Baudelaire, Poe, Lovecraft, John Lennon... I could rattle off ten or twenty more easily; they're all in there somewhere."
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Wikipedia