<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Poppy Z. Brite (Melissa Ann Brite) (May 25, 1967–) American writer.

Brite's first three novels, Lost Souls (1992), Drawing Blood (1993), and Exquisite Corpse (1996) all revolve around homosexuality and male characters, and include visceral depictions of violence and graphic sexual scenes. The Lazarus Heart (1998), a tie-in novel based on James O'Barr's Crow character, offered sociopolitical bite with a serial killer whose madness is repellent, fascinating, and all too believable. Novella "Plastic Jesus" (2000) speculated on the 1960s with a "what if" gay love story between characters based on Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney. In the introduction to a tenth anniversary edition of Lost Souls (2002), Brite stated she is attempting to put the book "to bed," thus marking the end of the era. (A short novel, Triads, co-written with Christa Faust, appeared in 2004. It is based on a supernatural novella the pair wrote for a 1997 anthology.) Her earliest published fiction, lushly written modern Southern gothic, was collected in Swamp Foetus (1993; UK, 1995; retitled Wormwood, 1996). In Are You Loathsome Tonight? (1998), several stories present familiar characters from previous works, but her growing mastery as a writer is best shown in two stories that employ historical figures: "Entertaining Mr. Orton" (1997) and "Mussolini and the Axeman's Jazz" (1995). The Devil You Know (2003), collecting stories from 1999 through 2002, caps Brite's transitional period. Of special note are three stories—"Oh Death, Where Is Thy Spatula?" (2001), "Marisol" (2001), and "The Heart of New Orleans (2002)—featuring the author's alter ego "Dr. Brite," the coroner of New Orleans stories, and three stories—"Bayou de la Mere," (2002), "The Heart of New Orleans," and "A Season in Heck" (2003) that connect with the characters of Brite's The Value of X (2002), a short novel that marks the beginning of Brite's "new era." X introduces two boys, Rickey and G-man, growing up in a poor New Orleans neighborhood. Their lives in the world of New Orleans cuisine and restaurateuring become the focus of a series of darkly comedic mainstream novels: Liquor (2004), Prime (2005) and Soul Kitchen (forthcoming 2006).

Brite edited (with Martin H. Greenberg) two successful anthologies of erotic vampire fiction, Love in Vein (1994) and Love in Vein 2 (1996). She also wrote the biography Courtney Love: The Real Story (1997). An essay collection, Guilty but Insane, appeared in 2001. Brite received the British Fantasy Society's award for Best Newcomer in 1994 and the French 1998 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire for a translated version of "Calcutta Lord of Nerves."

External Links

Official Web Site

Author's Blog