Jessup, Paul
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1977- ) US author primarily of short fiction, beginning with the Horror tale "When Max Was Hungry Again" in The Harrow for 2006, though this was preceded by a juvenile novel (begun when he was 14), Angelwings and Finerthings: A Dream (2001). His first professional sale was "PostFlesh" (2008 Apex Magazine), followed closely by the meatier "Ghost Technology from the Sun" (Autumn 2007 Postscripts). He continued to be closely associated with both magazines.
Jessup's work is best described in fabulist terms. He draws on both horror and sf in his work, but imbues the resultant worlds with a sort of fairy tale feel and dream logic. Glass Coffin Girls (coll 2009) collects some of these stories. The Open Your Eyes sequence beginning with Open Your Eyes (2009) is an ambitiously and consciously weird Space Opera that begins when a woman becomes pregnant from her lover, who just happens to be a Star undergoing transformation into a supernova. An expanded version was published – along with a sequel – as Close Your Mouth (coll of linked stories 2018). [LTi]
see also: Farrago's Wainscot.
Paul Matthew Jessup
born Geneva, Ohio: 24 August 1977
works
series
Open Your Eyes
- Open Your Eyes (Lexington, Kentucky: Apex Publications, 2009) [Open Your Eyes: pb/Daniele Cascone]
- Close Your Eyes (Lexington, Kentucky: Apex Publications, 2018) [coll of linked stories: exp of the above plus "Close Your Mouth": Open Your Eyes: pb/Daniele Cascone]
individual titles
- Angelwings and Finerthings: A Dream (Geneva, Ohio: Six Gallery Press, 2001) [pb/]
- Werewolves (San Francisco, California: Chronicle Books, 2010) [illus: pb/Allyson Haller]
collections and stories
- Glass Coffin Girls (Hornsea, East Yorkshire: PS Publishing, 2009) [coll: hb/Darin Bradley]
- Dead Stay Dead (Lexington, Kentucky Apex Publications, 2011) [novella: chap: pb/]
works as editor
- Hatter Bones (Los Angeles, California: ENE Press, 2010) [anth: pb/]
links
previous versions of this entry