Helen Marshall is an author, poet, and bibliophile.
Her poetry and fiction have been published in ChiZine, Paper Crow, Abyss and Apex, Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet, and Tor.com among others.
She released a collection of poems entitled Skeleton Leaves from Kelp Queen Press in 2011 and her collection of short stories Hair Side, Flesh Side was released from ChiZine Publications in 2012.
Currently, she is pursuing a Ph. D in medieval studies at the University of Toronto, for which she spends a great deal of her time staring at fourteenth-century manuscripts.
She released a collection of poems entitled Skeleton Leaves from Kelp Queen Press in 2011 and her collection of short stories Hair Side, Flesh Side was released from ChiZine Publications in 2012.
On Hair Side, Flesh Side (available here)
Hair Side, Flesh Side has been short-listed for a 2013 British Fantasy Sydney J. Bounds Award for Best Newcomer, a 2013 Aurora Award for Best Related Work and it has been long-listed for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Prize.
“No Ghosts in London” will be reprinted in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy and Horror: 2013, ed. Paula Guran.
"The Book of Judgement" will be reprinted in Imaginarium 2013: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing of 2012, ed. Sandra Kasturi and Samantha Beiko.
. . . Sometimes a book comes along that is so original, so vibrantly alive, so beautifully imagined and so much a law unto itself that the only comment or advice a reviewer can offer is to say: go read it. Hair Side, Flesh Side is one such book, and having experienced it I am left with a genuine sense of excitement, thinking about where Helen Marshall might take us next.
—Nina Allan, Strange Horizons. Read the full review.
. . . Sometimes you hear people talking about the new face of horror. Well huddle closer, children. Hair Side, Flesh Side is it. . . . Marshall’s stories are frightening, touching, quirky, sexy and deeply lyrical. The 15 stories each seem deeply grounded in reality, making the otherworldly explorations all the more real.
—“Best F/SF Books of 2012,” January Magazine.
On Skeleton Leaves (available here)
Skeleton Leaves won the 2012 Aurora Award for Best Poem, presented by the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association.
“Helen Marshall’s sinister and elegant vision permeates this beautiful book, leaving the reader feeling like they have somehow been transported to Neverland and back, bringing with them the shades of lost boys and their spectral mothers, trailing words flying from between dark stars. Gorgeous and heartbreaking.” --Sandra Kasturi, author of The Animal Bridegroom (Tightrope Books, 2007).
On Editing
"In close to 30 years of being a published writer--as journalist, novelist, film screen writer/producer, comic book scribe--I have seldom had the pleasure of working with an editor so diligent, so thoughtful, so committed to the work at hand as Helen Marshall. No one is perfect, but Ms. Marshall comes darn close. I want her to edit all my work until I die." --Philip Nutman, author of Cities of Night
