Quick Facts
Biography
Bruce Boston (born 1943) is an American speculative fiction writer and poet.
Early years
Bruce Boston was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California. He received a B.A. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1965, and an M.A. in 1967. He lived in the San Francisco Bay Area from 1961 to 2001, where he worked in a variety of occupations, including computer programmer, college professor (literature and creative writing, John F. Kennedy University, Orinda, California, 1978–82), technical writer, book designer, gardener, movie projectionist, retail clerk, and furniture mover.
According to Boston, he meant to major in math at university and write on the side, but soon found that he was more interested in writing. After being advised by a friend that he should not major in English to become a writer, he decided on economics instead.
Writing career
Boston has won the Rhysling Award for speculative poetry a record seven times, and the Asimov's Readers' Award for poetry a record seven times. He has also received a Pushcart Prize for fiction, 1976, a record four Bram Stoker Awards in poetry for his collections, and the first Grandmaster Award of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, 1999. His collaborative poem with Robert Frazier, "Return to the Mutant Rain Forest," received first place in the 2006 Locus Online Poetry Poll for Best All-Time Science Fiction, Fantasy, or Horror Poem.
Boston has also published more than a hundred short stories and the novels Stained Glass Rain and The Guardener's Tale (the latter a Bram Stoker Award Finalist and Prometheus Award Nominee). His work has appeared widely in periodicals and anthologies, including Asimov's SF Magazine, Amazing Stories Magazine, Realms of Fantasy, Science Fiction Age, Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, and the Nebula Awards Showcase. Writing in The Washington Post, Paul Di Filippo described his collection Masque of Dreams as containing "nearly two dozen brilliant stories ranging across all emotional and narrative terrains."
Boston has chaired the Nebula Award Novel Jury (SFWA), the Bram Stoker Award Novel Jury, and the Philip K. Dick Award Jury, and served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. He has served as fiction and/or poetry editor for a number of publications, including Occident, The Open Cell, Berkeley Poets Cooperative, City Miner, and Star*Line. As of 2014, he edits speculative poetry for The Pedestal Magazine.
He was the poet guest of honor at the World Horror Convention in 2013.
Personal life
As of 2015 Boston was living in Ocala, Florida, with his wife, writer-artist Marge Simon, whom he married in 2001.
Major awards and honors
Bram Stoker Award for Poetry Collection
- 2003 Pitchblende, Dark Regions Press
- 2006 Shades Fantastic, Gromagon Press
- 2008 The Nightmare Collection, Dark Regions Press
- 2010 Dark Matters, Bad Moon Books
Asimov’s Readers Award for Poetry
- 1989 Old Robots Are the Worst
- 1993 Curse of the Shapeshifter’s Wife
- 1997 Curse of the SF Writer’s Wife
- 2003 Eight Things Not to Do or Say When a Mad Scientist Moves into Your Neighborhood
- 2005 Heavy Weather
- 2007 The Dimensional Rush of Relative Primes
- 2014 In the Quiet Hour
Rhysling Award for Speculative Poetry (SFPA)
- 1985 For Spacers Snarled in the Hair of Comets, short
- 1987 The Nightmare Collector, short
- 1988 In the Darkened Hours, long
- 1994 Spacer’s Compass, short
- 1995 Future Present: A Lesson in Expectation, short
- 1999 Confessions of a Body Thief, long
- 2001 My Wife Returns as She Would Have It, short
Others
- 1976 Pushcart Prize for Fiction for “Broken Portraiture”
- 1999 Grandmaster Award, Science Fiction Poetry Association
- 2006 Winner of Locus Poll for Favorite SF, Fantasy, Horror Poem -- "Return to the Mutant Rain Forest" with Robert Frazier
- 2013 Poet Guest of Honor, World Horror/Bram Stoker Awards Convention, New Orleans