Life & work

Bryant was born in White Plains, New York. However, he was raised on a cattle ranch in Wyoming. He had strong roots in that state attested to in his collection Wyoming Sun. He attended school in Wheatland, Wyoming and received his MA in English from the University of Wyoming in 1968.

During the 1950s his uncle, a rodeo star, encouraged his love of film. This perhaps ultimately led to his occasional work in screenplays and as an actor. He was in the films The Laughing Dead (1988) and Ill Met by Moonlight (1994). He also wrote screenplays for TV shows on channels from CBS, Lifetime and Disney.

At the beginning of his career he developed an association with Harlan Ellison, which proved longstanding. This led to collaborative efforts such as the novel Phoenix Without Ashes, based on Ellison's pilot script for The Starlost.

His writing career began in 1968 with his attendance at the Clarion Workshop. By 1973, he had gained acclaim for stories with a conversational style that mask rather dark realities. At times these realities are downright apocalyptic, although in other cases the message is joyous and hopeful.

His short horror story "Dark Angel", which appeared in Kirby McCauley's anthology Dark Forces, featured modern-day witch Angela Black, whose name reflects her moral ambiguity. She reappears as the narrator of Bryant's short novel Fetish.

He won two Nebula awards for his short stories, Stone (1978) and giANTS (1979). He is mostly known as a writer of short fiction, however he also writes poetry, nonfiction, reviews, criticism, and edits an e-zine.

When Bryant moved to Denver in 1972, he founded the Northern Colorado Writers Workshop, which continues today, and has produced a number of notable writers, including Steve Rasnic Tem, Melanie Tem, John Dunning, Wil McCarthy, Bruce Holland Rogers, Dan Simmons, and Connie Willis. He is currently a senior editor of Wormhole Books. In addition, Bryant has facilitated a number of other writing workshops over the years for writers ranging in skill and experience from amateur to professional. Although generally known as a writer himself, Bryant's greatest legacy may be the encouragement, instruction, and mentoring he has given to hundreds of other writers through the years.

Due to his immense amounts of experience in the literary fields, Edward Bryant has been Toastmaster at numerous literary conventions. Some of these include World Fantasy Convention, ArmadilloCon, TusCon, and Death Equinox. He has also chaired (and otherwise been a special guest at) multiple years of the World Horror Convention.

Illness

In 2010, various writers & editors including Melanie Tem and Ellen Datlow set up a Crowd-funding page to help Bryant deal with financial emergencies brought on by his ongoing fight against the effects of his long Type 1 Diabetes. The Site is called FRIENDS OF ED which solicits donations and manages sales of special editions of Bryant's works to help fund his treatment and living expenses. The Organization also has a Facebook presence.

Selected works

Novels

• Phoenix Without Ashes (1975) (an adaptation of Harlan Ellison's pilot script for The Starlost)

Collections

• Among the Dead and Other Events Leading Up to the Apocalypse (1973)
• Cinnabar (1976)
• Wyoming Sun (1980)
• Particle Theory (1981)
• Neon Twilight (1990)
• Darker Passions (1992)
• The Baku: Tales of the Nuclear Age (2001)
• Trilobyte (2014)
• Predators and Other Stories (2014)

Chapbooks

• The Man of the Future (1990)
• The Cutter (1991)
• Fetish (1991)
• The Thermals of August (1992)
• Aqua Sancta (1993)
• While She Was Out (2001)

Anthologies edited

• The American Tricentennial (1977) (with Jo Ann Harper)

Wild Cards

• Wild Cards: contains "Down Deep" by Bryant and Leanne C. Harper
• Jokers Wild: a mosaic novel, Bryant wrote the segments with the character "Sewer Jack"
• Aces Abroad: contains "Down in the Dreamtime"
• Down and Dirty: contains "The Second Coming of Buddy Holly"
• Dealer's Choice: a mosaic novel, Bryant wrote the segments with the character "Wyungare"

[ Source: Wikipedia ]