About the Author

Hal Duncan is a scion of 1970s Scotland, a queer kid who left Kilwinning to study at Glasgow University and never looked back. In the early '90s, he joined the Glasgow SF Writer's Circle, torched everything he'd ever written, and wrote his first functional short story, "Slab City, April 16," published in the Flamingo Book of Scottish Short Fiction 1994. The gods having patently smiled upon his sacrifice, he figured maybe he should take this writing malarkey seriously after all, and set to work.

His debut VELLUM was published in 2005, garnering nominations for the Crawford, Locus, BFS and World Fantasy Award, and winning the Spectrum, Kurd Lasswitz and Tähtivaeltaja. He's since published: the sequel INK and a collection of four stories in the same Book of All Hours mythos, ERRATA; the novella ESCAPE FROM HELL!; a poetry collection, SONGS FOR THE DEVIL AND DEATH; two chapbooks, THE A-Z OF THE FANTASTIC CITY and FABBLES: 1; and numerous short stories in magazines or anthologies. He's also worked as anthology editor himself, on CALEDONIA DREAMIN'. His first short story collection, SCRUFFIANS! will be released from Lethe Press in April 2014, alongside a non-fiction book RHAPSODY, a book-length study of strange fictions.

Hal is represented by Howard Morhaim Literary Agency.

Work in Other Media

Hal has written two musicals: the "gay punk Orpheus" musical, NOWHERE TOWN, staged most awesomely and much to his delight by the University of Chicago Theater Group; SODOM! THE MUSICAL, a rock opera based on a 17th century farce, The Quintessence of Debauchery by Lord Rochester. For the Ballads of the Book album, he wrote the lyrics to Aereogramme's “If You Love Me, You'd Destroy Me,” and more recently, he collaborated with Skye band The Dead Man's Waltz, filmmaker Johnny Barrington and artists including Kate McMorrine and Cat Ingalls, on the Story's End project, a multimedia show that played the CCA in Glasgow before running at the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Made In Scotland showcase. Other musical ventures include a stickman slideshow "animation" of his 43 verse sea shanty about the gay pirate gods of Love and Death, "The Ballad of Matelotage and Mutiny." If he was any more prone to throwing himself into left-field projects, he'd probably write a queer adaptation of As You Like It as a screenplay for a John Hughesian high school movie. Oh, wait. He did that too.

Homophobic hatemail once dubbed him "THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!!" (sic).

He's getting a t-shirt made up.

Contact

Agent email: howard AT morhaimliterary PERIOD com
Direct email: hal AT halduncan PERIOD com

Elsewhere

Follow him on Twitter: @Hal_Duncan
Watch him on YouTube: TheSodomiteHalDuncan