Dr Helen Marshall is an acclaimed writer, editor and book historian. She is a Senior Lecturer of Creative Writing at the University of Queensland.
Her research emerges out of the recent interest in “weird” fiction, a sub-genre of fantasy which blends supernatural, mythical, and scientific writing popularized by Kelly Link, China Mieville and Jeff VanderMeer. It follows several interrelated strands. Firstly, using modern theories of cognition, it posits “weird” texts as “emotion machine[s]” designed to generate specific kinds of affect such as defamilarization and horror. Secondly, it finds antecedents for these narrative operations with the Middle English penitential texts of the mid-fourteenth century, which encouraged readers to process trauma firstly by reflecting on images of supernatural violence, and secondly by channelling their fabricated horror into salutary processes. Thirdly, it uses these studies as the underpinning for her own creative practice, which seeks to bring the past into conversation with the present.
Her first collection of fiction, Hair Side, Flesh Side, takes its name from the two sides of a piece of parchment—animal skin scraped, stretched and prepared to hold writing. Gifts for the One Who Comes After, her second collection, borrows tropes from the Gothic tradition to negotiate issues of legacy and tradition.Her debut novel, The Migration (Random House Canada, 2018) finds parallels between the emergence of the Black Death in the fourteenth century and the crises of the twenty-first century. Collectively, her works have won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Aurora Award from the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association, and the Shirley Jackson Award for outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic.
Selected Publications
Novels
The Migration. Random House Canada/Titan UK. (2019)
Short Story Collections
Gifts for the One Who Comes After. Toronto: ChiZine Publications (2014)
- winner of the World Fantasy Award for Best Collection
- winner of the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection
- short-listed for the British Fantasy Award for Best Collection
- short-listed for the Bram Stoker Award for Best Collection
- short-listed for the Aurora Award for Best Related Work
- short-listed for the ReLit Award for Best Collection
- honorable mention, Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic
- long-listed for the Edge Hill Short Fiction Prize
- long-listed for the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize
- recommended reading list, Locus Magazine
Hair Side, Flesh Side. Toronto: ChiZine Publications (2012).
- winner of the British Fantasy Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer
- short-listed for the Aurora Award for Best Related Work
- long-listed for the Frank O’Connor Short Story Prize
Poetry Collections
The Sex Lives for Monsters: Collected Poems. Toronto: Kelp Queen Press (2013).
- winner of the 2014 Elgin Chapbook Award
- short-listed for the 2014 Bram Stoker Award for Best Poetry
Skeleton Leaves: A Collection. Toronto: Kelp Queen Press (2011).
- winner of the 2012 Aurora Award for Best Canadian Speculative Poem
Edited Collections
The Year’s Best Weird Fiction. Toronto: Undertow Press. (2017)
Imaginarium 2014: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing of 2013, ed. with Sandra Kasturi. Toronto: ChiZine Publications, 2015.
Short Stories
“Heaven’s Night-blooming Garden”, Murder Ballads, ed. Mark Beech (Egaeus Press, 2017)
“They are Passing by Without Turning”, Gamut Magazine, ed. Richard Thomas, 2017
“The Embalmer”, The Mammoth Book of The Mummy, ed. Paula Guran (Constable-Robinson, 2017).
“The Way She Is With Strangers”, Dark Cities, ed. Christopher Golden (Titan, 2017).
“Caldera”, Unspeakable Horror 2: Abominations of Desire, ed. Vince Liaguno (Evil Jester Press, 2017).
“The Gold Leaf Executions”, CVC Anthology Series, Book Six (Exile Editions, 2016).
“Submerged”, Those Who Make Us: Canadian Creature, Myth, and Monster Stories, ed. Kelsi Morris and Kaitlin Tremblay (Exile Editions, 2016).
“One Quarter Dreaming, Three Quarters Want”, Liminal, issue 2, ed. Kelly Sandoval and Shannon Peavey, 2016.
Caro in Carnis”, The Mammoth Book of Original Cthulhu, ed. Paula Guran (Running Press, 2016).
“Exposure”, Cassilda’s Song: Tales Inspired by Robert W. Chambers King in Yellow Mythos, ed. Joe Pulver. (Chaosium, 2015).
“The Vault of Heaven”, Aickman’s Heirs, ed. Simon Strantzas (Undertow Press, 2015).
“Stud”, Gods, Memes and Monsters, ed. Heather Wood (Stone Skin Press, 2015).
“The Zhanell Adler Brass Spyglass”, CVC Anthology Series, Book Four (Exile Editions, 2014).
“All Things Fall and Are Built Again”, Dangerous Games, ed. Jonathan Oliver (Solaris Books, 2014).
“Funeral Rites,” Spectral Book of Horror Stories, ed. Mark Morris (Spectral Press, 2014).
“Crossroads and Gateways”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, ed. Scott H. Andrews, 2014.
“In the Time of Omens”, Fearful Symmetries, ed. Ellen Datlow (ChiZine Publications, 2014).
“Death and the Girl from Pi Delta Zeta”, Lackington’s, ed. Ranylt Richildis, 2014
“I’m the Lady of Good Times, She Said”, End of the Road, ed. Jonathan Oliver (Solaris, 2013).
“The Slipway Grey”, Chilling Tales 2, ed. Michael Kelly (EDGE, 2013).
“The Raising of Household Objects”, CVC Anthology Series, Book Three (Exile Press, 2013).
“The Hanging Game”, Tor.com, 2013.
“Skin”, Future Lovecraft, ed. Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Paula R. Stiles (Innsmouth Free Press, 2011).
Poems
“Aversions”, Goblin Fruit, Summer Issue, ed. Amal El-Mohtar and Caitlyn Paxson, 2014.
“The Feather Calls Me By My True Name”, Arc Poetry Magazine 73, ed. Monty Reid, 2014.
“The Dead Man’s Thumb”, Postscripts to Darkness 4, ed. Dominik Parisien, 2013.
“The Collected Postcards of Billy the Kid”, Postscripts to Darkness 4, ed. Dominik Parisien, 2013.
“The Ghosts of Birds”, Phantom Drift 2, 2012.
“Leda’s Daughter”, Abyss and Apex 41, 2012.
Reprinted Works
“Caro in Carno”, The Dark, ed. Sean Wallace, 2017.
“The Vault of Heaven”, Nightmare Magazine, ed. John Joseph Adams, 2017.
“Exposure”, Best New Horror 27, ed. Stephen Jones (PS Publishing, 2016)
“Secondhand Magic”, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 26, ed. Stephen Jones (PS Publishing, 2015).
Death and the Girl from Pi Delta Zeta”, Imaginarium 4: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing, ed. Sandra Kasturi and Jerome Stueart (ChiZine Publications, 2015).
“Secondhand Magic”, Best British Short Stories 2015, ed. Nicholas Royle (Salt Publishin, 2015g).
“Death and the Girl from Pi Delta Zeta”, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Dark Horror 6, ed. Paula Guran (Prime, 2015).
“In the Year of Omens”, Best British Horror 2015, ed. Johnny Mains (Salt Publishing, 2015).
“All My Love, A Fishhook”, New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird, ed. Paula Guran (Prime, 2015).
“The Slipway Grey”, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Dark Horror 5, ed. Paula Guran (Prime, 2014).
“The Old and the New”, The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 24, ed. Stephen Jones (Robinson/Running Press, 2013).
“No Ghosts in London”, The Year’s Best Fantasy and Dark Horror 4, ed. Paula Guran (Prime, 2013).
“The Book of Judgement”, Imaginarium: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing of 2012, ed. Sandra Kasturi and Samantha Beiko (ChiZine Publications, 2013).
“Sanditon”, World Science Fiction Blog, ed. Lavie Tidhar, 2013.
“The Mouth, Open”, Weird Fiction Review, ed. Adam Mills, 2013.
“The Book of Judgement”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet 28, 2013.