Bruce Boston

Bruce Boston (born 1943) is an American speculative fiction writer and poet who was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California. He received a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley, 1965, and an M.A., 1967. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1961 to 2001, where he worked in a variety of occupations, including computer programmer, college professor (literature and creative writing, John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California, 1978-82), technical writer, book designer, gardener, movie projectionist, retail clerk, and furniture mover. He currently lives in Ocala, Florida, with his wife, writer-artist Marge Simon, whom he married in 2001.

Boston has won the Rhysling Award for speculative poetry a record seven times: for Best Long Poem in 1989 and 1999, and for Best Short Poem in 1985, 1988, 1994, 1996, and 2001, and the Asimov's Readers' Award for poetry a record five times: 1990, 1994, 1997, 2003, and 2005. He has also received a Pushcart Prize for fiction, 1976, the Bram Stoker Award for his poetry collections Pitchblende, 2004, and Shades Fantastic, 2006, and the Grand Master Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, 1999. His collaborative poem with Robert Frazier, "Return to the Mutant Rain Forest," received first place in the 2006 Locus Online Poetry Poll for Best All-Time Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror Poem.

Boston has also published more than a hundred short stories and the novels Stained Glass Rain and The Guardener's Tale (a Bram Stoker Award Finalist and Prometheus Award Nominee). His work has appeared widely in periodicals and anthologies, including Asimov's SF Magazine, Amazing Stories, Realms of Fantasy, Science Fiction Age, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Dark Wisdom, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and the Nebula Awards Showcase. Both his fiction and poetry exhibit a variety in styles and subjects. Writing in The Washington Post, Paul Di Filippo described his collection Masque of Dreams as containing "nearly two dozen brilliant stories ranging across all emotional and narrative terrains." Reviewing Stained Glass Rain for Tangent, Howard V. Hendrix called it "probably the best novel yet written about the sixties and its drug culture."

Boston has chaired the Nebula Award Novel Jury (SFWA) and the Philip K. Dick Award Jury, and served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. He has served as fiction and/or poetry editor for a number of publications, including Occident, The Open Cell, Berkeley Poets Cooperative, City Miner, Star*Line, and The Pedestal Magazine.

Bibiliography

Novels

• Stained Glass Rain. Ocean View, 1993, Wildside, 2003
• The Guardener's Tale. Sam's Dot Publishing, 2007

Novelettes

• After Magic. Eotu, 1990, Dark Regions, 1999
• Houses. Talisman, 1991

Fiction and Poetry Collections

• The Complete Accursed Wives. Talisman/Dark Regions, 2000
• Masque of Dreams. Wildside, 2001
• Bruce Boston: Short Stories, Volume 1 (ebook). Fictionwise, 2003
• Bruce Boston: Short Stories, Volume 2 (ebook). Fictionwise, 2003

Fiction Collections

• Jackbird. BPW&P, 1976
• She Comes When You're Leaving. BPW&P, 1982
• Skin Trades, Chris Drumm, 1988
• Hypertales & Metafictions. Chris Drumm, 1990
• All the Clocks Are Melting (single story booklet), Pulphouse, 1991
• Night Eyes. Chris Drumm, 1993
• Dark Tales & Light. Dark Regions, 1999
• Flashing the Dark. Sam's Dot Publishing, 2006

Poetry Collections

• XXO. Maya Press, 1969
• Potted Poems. Maya Press, 1970
• All the Clock Are Melting. Velocities, 1984
• Alchemical Texts. Ocean View, 1985
• Nuclear Futures. Velocities, 1987
• Time. Titan, 1988
• The Nightmare Collector. 2AM Publications, 1989
• Faces of the Beast. Starmont House, 1990
• Other Voices, Other Worlds (audio tape, music by Jack Poley). Chris Drumm, 1990, (MP3 audio) Telltale Weekly, 2004
• Short Circuits (prose poems). Ocean View, 1991
• Cybertexts. Talisman, 1991
• Chronicles of the Mutant Rain Forest (with Robert Frazier). Horror's Head Press, 1992
• Accursed Wives. Night Visions, 1993
• Specula: Selected Uncollected Poems, 1968-1993. Talisman, 1993
• Sensuous Debris: Selected Poems, 1970-1995. Dark Regions, 1995
• Conditions of Sentient Life. Gothic Press, 1996
• Cold Tomorrows. Gothic Press, 1998
• Pavane for a Cyber-Princess (single poem chapbook). Miniature Sun, 2001
• White Space. Dark Regions, 2001
• Quanta: Award Winning Poems. Miniature Sun, 2001
• Night Smoke (ebook, with Marge Simon), Miniature Sun & Quixsilver, 2002
• She Was There for Him the Last Time (single poem chapbook). Miniature Sun, 2002
• Head Full of Strange (ebook). CyberPulp, 2003
• Pitchblende. Dark Regions, 2003
• Etiquette with Your Robot Wife. Talisman, 2005
• Shades Fantastic. Gromagon Press, 2006
• Night Smoke (with Marge Simon, expanded print edition of 2002 ebook). Kelp Queen Press, 2007
• The Nightmare Collection. Dark Regions, forthcoming, 2008

Poetry Broadsides

• Musings. Eldritch Emu Press, 1988
• The Last Existentialist. Chris Drumm, 1993
• Confessions of a Body Thief. Talisman, 1998
• The Lesions of Genetic Sin. Miniature Sun, 2000
• In Far Pale Clarity. Quixsilver, 2002
• The Crow Is Dismantled in Flight (ebroadside). Miniature Sun, 2003

External links

• Bruce Boston's website
• Interview by John Amen at The Pedestal Magazine
• Interview by JoSelle Vanderhooft at Strange Horizons
• Bruce Boston at Fictionwise
• "Songs of the Stars: The Poetry of Bruce Boston," retrospective essay by Gary William Crawford.
• Locus Index to SF Awards