Barzak, Christopher
Entry updated 8 December 2025. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1975- ) US author and teacher of creative writing who began to publish work of genre interest with "A Mad Tea Party" in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet for Winter 1999; the story is collected in his Before and Afterlives (coll 2013), which won a Shirley Jackson Award as best collection. He has written Horror tales as part of the "Ratbastards" group which wrote and edited the Rabid Transit anthologies [see Checklist below]; he also co-edited two issues of Fantasy Magazine (2005-current).
Barzak's novels, beginning with One for Sorrow (2007), tend to be gay-themed supernatural Fantasy or Horror; perhaps of greatest sf interest is the Young Adult Wonders of the Invisible World (2015), whose distinctively rural-USA Magic-Realist love story features Timeslip elements and what may be read as Psi Powers. [DRL]
Christopher Michael Barzak
born Warren, Ohio: 21 July 1975
works
- One for Sorrow (New York: Bantam Books, 2007) [pb/]
- The Love We Share Without Knowing (New York: Bantam Books, 2008) [pb/]
- Wonders of the Invisible World (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2015) [hb/Lynn Buckley]
- The Gone Away Place (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 2018) [hb/]
collections
- Birds and Birthdays (Seattle, Washington: Aqueduct Press, 2012) [coll: pb/Kristine Campbell]
- Before and Afterlives (Maple Shade, New Jersey: Lethe Press, 2013) [coll: pb/Steven Andrew]
- Monstrous Alterations (Maple Shade, New Jersey: Lethe Press, 2023) [coll: pb/]
works as editor
series
Rabid Transit
- Rabid Transit: New Fiction by the Ratbastards (St Paul, Minnesota: Velocity Press, 2002) with Barth Anderson, Anya Johanna DeNiro and Kristin Livdahl, together as by Ratbastards [anth: chap: Rabid Transit: pb/]
- Rabid Transit: A Mischief of Rats (St Paul, Minnesota: Velocity Press, 2003) with Barth Anderson, Anya Johanna DeNiro and Kristin Livdahl, together as by Ratbastards [anth: chap: Rabid Transit: pb/]
- Rabid Transit: Petting Zoo (St Paul, Minnesota: Rabid Transit Press, 2003) with Barth Anderson, Anya Johanna DeNiro and Kristin Livdahl, together as by Ratbastards [anth: chap: Rabid Transit: pb/Jesse McManus]
- Rabid Transit: Menagerie (St Paul, Minnesota: Rabid Transit Press, 2005) with Anya Johanna DeNiro and Kristin Livdahl, together as by Ratbastards [anth: chap: Rabid Transit: pb/]
- Rabid Transit: Long Voyages, Great Lies (St Paul, Minnesota: Velocity Press, 2006) with Anya Johanna DeNiro and Kristin Livdahl, together as by Ratbastards [anth: chap: Rabid Transit: pb/]
individual titles as editor
- Interfictions 2: An Anthology of Interstitial Writing (Easthampton, Massachusetts: Small Beer Press, 2009) with Delia Sherman [coll: pb/Alex Myers]
links
previous versions of this entry