D. Harlan Wilson

D. Harlan Wilson (born September 3 1971 in Grand Rapids, Michigan) is an American short-story writer and novelist whose body of work is typically associated with the genres of irrealism, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and Bizarro fiction. Elements of splatterpunk, absurdism, literary fiction, ultraviolence, and postmodernism deeply inform his writing, too. He is the author of several books, and his stories and flash fiction have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies throughout the world in multiple languages.

A literary critic in addition to a fiction author, Wilson holds a Ph.D. in English and is a college professor. Both his cultural criticism and creative writing focus on how the human condition is an increasingly pathological construction of technocapitalist media forces.

His work has been allied with a wide range of authors, especially Bizarro authors like Carlton Mellick III, John Edward Lawson, Steve Aylett, Kevin L. Donihe, Vincent Sakowski and Steve Beard.

Wilson is also the editor-in-chief of The Dream People, an online journal of Bizarro literature, art and animation.

Books

• The Kafka Effekt (2001)
• Stranger on the Loose (2003)
• Pseudo-City (2005)
• The Bizarro Starter Kit (Contributing Author) (2006)
• Dr. Identity, or, Farewell to Plaquedemia: Book 1 of the Scikungfi Trilogy (2007)
• Counting Earps & Other Rejekts (2008)
• Blankety Blank: A Memoir of Vulgaria (2008)
• Technologized Desire: Selfhood & the Body in Postcapitalist Science Fiction (2008)
• Codename Prague: Book 2 of the Scikungfi Trilogy (Forthcoming)
• Peckinpah: A Novel (Forthcoming)
• The Kyoto Man: Book 3 of the Scikungfi Trilogy (Forthcoming)

Quotes

• "Every facet of life is a form of psychological warfare." —The Kafka Effekt
• "Dreams are constant reminders of the nightmare of reality." —Stranger on the Loose
• "Pseudofolliculitis barbae ... is one of life's many hard truths." —Pseduo-City
• "The mass of men don't lead lives of quiet desperation. They lead lives of quixotic douchebaggery." —Dr. Identity
• "One man’s delusion is another ’gänger’s reality." —Dr. Identity
• "Individuality is an evolving fiction." —Technologized Desire
• "An effective neighbor never licks his lips before tackling the job of being an effective neighbor." —Blankety Blank

Films

• The Cocktail Party (2006) - Co-written with director Brandon Duncan, this short, animated, rotoscoped film is a highly abstracted and philosophical (post)postmodern meditation on the narcissistic themes of consumerism, redundant self-analysis and rampant hypocrisy. The film won several awards, including a Platinum Remi Award (WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival 2007), Grand Jury Award Best of Show (Fear No Film Festival 2007), Best Student Film (Kansas City Filmmakers Jubilee 2007), and Best Animation (ACE Film Festival 2007).

Trivia

Wilson's narratives are fraught with ellipses, a technique he has admitted to borrowing from William S. Burroughs (who himself borrowed the technique from Louis-Ferdinand Céline) for the purposes of "representing the terminal lack around which reality is perpetually (re)structured." For Wilson, ellipses are manifestations of Jacques Lacan's concept of The Real.

External links

• Official Website
• Bizarro Central Biography
• Bizarro Journal
• Select Interviews
• Book Reviews