Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Box
Title
Manuscripts
Date(s)
- 1981 - 1999 (Creation)
Extent
1 box
Name of creator
Biographical history
Steve Rasnic Tem is an award-winning writer of horror, as well as fantasy, science fiction, crime, and other genres, and also (as his website notes) "a less-classifiable imaginative prose more than one critic has called "Temism"". Born in Jonesville, Virginia on September 14, 1950 as Steve Rasnic, Tem attended both Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) and Virginia Commonwealth University, the former from which he graduated with a B.A. in English Education. Rasnic moved to Colorado in 1974, and he attained a M.A. in Creative Writing from Colorado State University. While attending a writer's workshop, Rasnic met fellow writer Melanie Kubachko; the two married in 1980 and took the joint surname "Tem". They were loving partners and collaborators for over three decades, until Melanie Tem's death in 2015. He still resides in Colorado.
Tem's writing career has spanned over four decades. His first published stories were "Hideout" and "The Painters Are Coming Today", both included in the fantasy anthology Other Worlds 1 in 1979. He has gone on to create a large and well-received, multi-faceted body of work that includes novels, chapbooks, novellas, short stories (over 450), and poetry. Some of Tem's more notable works include the 2000 novella The Man on the Ceiling (written in collaboration with Melanie Tem, inspired by the death of their son Anthony), which won the 2001 World Fantasy, Bram Stoker, and International Horror Guild Awards; the 1983 British Fantasy Award-winning story "Leaks"; the 2001 Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction winner "In These Final Days of Sales"; the 2002 multimedia collection Imagination Box (w/Melanie Tem), which won the Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Alternative Forms; the 2014 Southern Gothic novel Blood Kin, which won the Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Novel; and the 2000 IHG winner for Best Collection City Fishing.
Tem's short stories have been assembled into 17 collections, starting with 1991's Absences: Charlie Goode's Ghosts. He has written or co-written 8 novels (the first, Excavation, appearing in 1987), 8 chapbooks, and edited two anthologies: The Umbral Anthology of Science Fiction Poetry (1982, nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award) and High Fantastic: Colorado's Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, and Science Fiction (1995, nominated for the World Fantasy Award). He co-wrote with his wife a handbook on writing, Yours to Tell: Dialogues on the Art & Practice of Fiction, published in 2017.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
1-2/1: "When Coyote Takes Back The World" (1983), early typescript (under old title of 'When Coyote Took Back The World') with handwritten edits
1-2/2: "When Coyote Takes Back The World" (1983), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript (both under old title 'When Coyote Took Back The World')
1-2/3: "When Coyote Takes Back The World" (1983), later typescript - 2 copies
1-2/4: "The Bad People" (1984), earlier typescript, and typescript with handwritten edits and revisions
1-2/5: "The Bad People" (1984), later typescript, and later typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/6: "Dark Shapes in The Road" (1984), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/7: "Dark Shapes in The Road" (1984), later typescript with handwritten edits (2900 words) - 2 copies
1-2/8: "Dark Shapes in The Road" (1984), later typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/9: "Dark Shapes in The Road" (1984), later typescript
1-2/10: "The Day It Rained Vaginas" (1984), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/11: "The Day it Rained Vaginas" (1984), early typescript and additional pages
1-2/12: "The End of the Yarn" (1984), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/13: "Facing It" (1984), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/14: "Facing It" (1984), later typescript - one with handwritten edits
1-2/15: "Harvest Child" (1984), early typescript with handwritten edits (under old title of 'The Hunger Child')
1-2/16: "Harvest Child" (1984), later typescripts, and photocopy of published story
1-2/17: "The Men and Women of Rivendale" (1984), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/18: "The Men and Women of Rivendale" (1984). early typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/19: "The Men and Women of Rivendale" (1984), later typescripts - one with handwritten edits
1-2/20: "The Overcoat" (1984), earlier typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/21: "The Overcoat" (1984), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/22: "The Overcoat" (1984), later typescript with handwritten edits, and letter from Martin H. Greenberg (December 9, 1999)
1-2/23: "Punishment" (1984), typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/24: "Punishment" (1984), typescript - 2 versions, one with handwritten edits
1-2/25: "Punishment" (1984), typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/26: "Punishment" (1984), typescript
1-2/27: "Rider" (1984), early typescript [under old title of "Kelpie"] with handwritten edits
1-2/28: "Rider" (1984), later typescripts - 2 copies, one missing the first page [under old title of "Kelpie"]
1-2/29: "Rider" (1984), later typescript - 4 copies, three with handwritten edits
1-2/30: "Rider" (1984), final typescript
1-2/31: "Spidertalk" (1984), typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/32: "Spidertalk" (1984), final typescript, and publisher's correspondence, 1993, 1999
1-2/33: "There's No Such Thing As Monsters" (1984), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story in Fantasy and Terror #3
1-2/34: "There's No Such Thing As Monsters" (1984), later typescripts - 3 copies, two with handwritten edits, and photocopy of republished story
1-2/35: "The World Through The Tree" (1984), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, later typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-2/36: "Worms" (1984), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, , and later typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/37: "You Dreamed It" (1984), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript - 2 copies
1-2/38: "August Freeze" (1985), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-2/39: "The Battering" (1985), earlier typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/40: "The Battering" (1985), later typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/41: "Buzz" (1985), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/42: "Buzz" (1985), later typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/43: "Buzz" (1985), later typescript
1-2/44: "Father's Day" (1985), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/45: "Father's Day" (1985), later typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/46: "In a Guest House" (1985), earlier typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/47: "In a Guest House" (1985), later typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/48: "Piano Moon" (1985), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/49: "Piano Moon" (1985), typescript and photocopies of published story
1-2/50: "Pulled Down to Sleep" (1985), typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/51: "Pulled Down to Sleep" (1985), typescript
1-2/52: "Wake" (1985), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/53: "Bite" (1986), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/54: "Daddy" (1986), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/55: "Daddy (1986), later typescript - 3 copies
1-2/56: "Embrace of Clay, Embrace of Straw" (1986), early typescript with handwritten edits, later typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-2/57: "In Control" (1986), typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/58:"Katherine's Shadow" (1986), early typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "Katerina's Shadow"], and later typescripts - 2 with handwritten edits
1-2/59: "Katherine's Shadow" (1986), later typescript
1-2/60: "Late Night Thoughts on Horror Fiction" (1986), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, later typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/61: "Late Night Thoughts on Horror Fiction" (1986), typescript
1-2/62: "Little Cruelties" (1986), earlier typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/63: "Little Cruelties" (1986), later typescript, and letter from Lennart Sane Agency, 1994
1-2/64: "Night, The Endless Snowfall" (1986), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-2/65: "Self-Possessed" (1986), typescript - 2 versions with handwritten edits and comments, and photocopy of published story
1-2/66: "The Three Billy Goats Gruff" (1986), typescript
1-2/67: "Trickster" (1986), typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "Animal Masks and Man Suits"]
1-2/68: "Trickster" (1986), typescript with handwritten edits, later typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-2/69: "Dinosaur" (1987), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/70: "Dinosaur" (1987), later typescript (5000 words) with handwritten edits - 2 copies
1-2/71: "Dinosaur" (1987). later typescript (5200 words) with handwritten edits
1-2/72: "Dinosaur" (1987), later typescript with handwritten edits, comments, and handwritten notes
1-2/73: "Dinosaur" (1987), workshop copy typescript with handwritten edits, 1981?
1-2/74: "Dinosaur" (1987), later typescript (5000 words) - 2 versions
1-2/75: "Dinosaur" (1987), final typescript, and proofs
1-2/76: "Excavation" (1987), partial early typescript drafts with handwritten edits [under old title of "Excavations"]
1-2/77: "Excavation" (1987), typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "Excavations"]
1-2/78: "Fogwell" (1987), typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/79: "Hidey Hole" (1987), typescript with handwritten edits
1-2/80: "Last Dragon" (1987), typescript
1-2/81: "Leaks" (1987), earlier typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/82: "Leaks" (1987), later typescript
1-2/83: "Mother Hag" (1987), earlier typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/84: "Mother Hag" (1987), photocopy of later typescript, final typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-2/85: "Off The Subject" articles (1987), typescript with handwritten edits of "Off The Subject" #1, typescript of "Off The Subject" #2, and photocopy of published "Off The Subject" #2
1-2/86: "One View: Creating Character in Fantasy and Horror Fiction" (1987), typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "Creating Character in Dark Fantasy Fiction: One View"
1-2/87: "One View: Creating Character in Fantasy and Horror Fiction" (1987), typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript [under old title of "Creating Character in Horror Fiction: One View"
1-2/88: "Woman on the Corner" (1987), early typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "Corpse Child"]
1-2/89: "Woman on the Corner" (1987), later typescripts with handwritten edits
1-2/90: "Woman on the Corner" (1987), later typescript