Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Box
Title
Manuscripts
Date(s)
- 1988 - 1996 (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
1-3/1: "Among The Old" (1988), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescripts
1-3/2: "Be Mine" (1988), typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/3: "Boxer" (1988), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/4: "Fictional Horrors and the Horror of Real Life" (1988), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/5: "Grim Monkeys" (1988), earlier typescript (4600 words) with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/6: "Her New Parents" (1988), earlier typescript with additional typescript pages and handwritten edits
1-3/7: "Her New Parents" (1988), later typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/8: "The Lie" (1988), earlier typescripts with handwritten edits
1-3/9: "The Lie" (1988), later typescript - 2 copies
1-3/10: "Small Acts of Revenge" (1988), photocopy of story - 2 copies
1-3/11: "Umbrellas" (1988), typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/12: "Black" (1989), print copy of story
1-3/13: "Bodies and Heads" (1989), proofs
1-3/14: "Carnal House" (1989), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-3/15: "Carnal House" (1989), later typescript
1-3/16: "Cornwoman" (1989), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-3/17: "Cornwoman" (1989), later typescript, later typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/18: "Cornwoman" (1989), typescript
1-3/19: "The Deep Blue Sea" (1989), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/20: "The Deep Blue Sea" (1989), later typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/21: "The Deep Blue Sea" (1989), later typescript, and 2 copies
1-3/22: "Does It Scare You?" (1989), typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/23: "Hooks" (1989), earlier typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/24: "Hooks" (1989): 'Rewrite #1' typescript with handwritten edits, 'Rewrite #2' typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/25: "Markers" (1989), typescript - 2 versions, one with handwritten edits
1-3/26: "Motherson" (1989), partial typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/27: "Motherson" (1989), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and partial early typescript
1-3/28: "Motherson" (1989), typescript w/letters and comments from Weird Tales (September 1987), and later typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/29: "Merry-Go-Round" (1989), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/30: "Nocturne" (poem, 1989), typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/31: "Riverbanks" (1989), earlier typescripts with handwritten edits
1-3/32: "Safe House" (1989), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/33: "The Strangers" (1989), typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/34: "The Unmasking" (1989), typescript with handwritten edits, and handwritten notes
1-3/35: "Ancient Grass" (1990), typescript with handwritten edits (1989?), and photocopy of published story
1-3/36: "Aquarium" (1990), typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/37: "Back Windows" (1990), typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/38: "Dune Shack" (1990), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/39: "Dune Shack" (1990), later typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/40: "Escape on a Train" (1990), earlier typescripts with handwritten edits
1-3/41: "Escape on a Train" (1990), later typescript
1-3/42: "Fairytales" (1990), 'original version' typescript
1-3/43: "Fairytales" (1990), early typescripts with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/44: "Fairytales" (1990), typescript excerpts
1-3/45: "Fairytales" (1990), later typescript
1-3/46: "In The Trees" (1990), typescript with handwritten edits, proofs of 1996 republication of story, and photocopy of published story
1-3/47: "My Wife, With The Yellow Hair" (1990), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript w/photocopy
1-3/48: "Playing Dead" (1990), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/49: "Playing Dead" (1990), typescript, with faxed copy of published story
1-3/50: "Stories" (1990), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/51: "Stories" (1990), later typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-3/52: "Strands" (1990), early typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "Life Slices"], later typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/53: "The Visible Man" (1990), typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/54: Absences: Charlie Goode's Ghosts (1991), typescripts of stories with handwritten edits
1-3/55: "Adleparmeun" (1991), typescript with handwritten edits - 2 versions
1-3/56: "At the End of the Day" (1991), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later (1800 words) typescripts
1-3/5: "At the End of the Day" (1991), later typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/58: "Brutes" (1991), typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/59: "Celestial Inventory" (1991), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and additional pages 69-70 with handwritten edits
1-3/60: "Celestial Inventory" (1991), later typescript
1-3/61: "Celestial Inventory" (1991), correspondence, 1991, and mockups of cover
1-3/62: "Daddy's An Actor" (1991), 'original draft' typescript with handwritten edits, 'original draft' typescript, and copy
1-3/63: "Daddy's An Actor" (1991), early typescript (2700 words) with handwritten comments, and 2 copies of typescript
1-3/64: "Daddy's an Actor" (1991), later typescript with handwritten edits and June 1989 review letter, later typescript and October 1989 review letter, and later typescript
1-3/65: "Goode Farm" (1991), first draft typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/66: "Goode Farm" (1991), partial typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/67: "Hearts" (1991), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/68: "The Hunter Home from the Hill" (1991), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript [under old title of "The Hunter"], and photocopy of published story
1-3/69: "Jesse" (1991), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/70: "Plainclothes" (1991), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-3/71: "Plainclothes" (1991), typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/72: "Plainclothes" (1991), typescript - 2 copies
1-3/73: "The Regulars" (1991), earlier typescript [under old title of "Nighthawks At The Diner"] with handwritten edits, later typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-3/74: "Robin in the Mists" (1991), typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/75: "The Secret Flesh" (1991), typescript - 2 versions, one with handwritten edits, 1990
1-3/76: "Squeezer" (1991), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-3/77: "Taking Down the Tree" (1991), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/78: "Taking Down the Tree" (1991), typescript - 3 copies
1-3/79: "Teddy Bear Winter" (1991), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, later typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-3/80: "Twelve Minutes of Darkness" (1991), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-3/81: "Twelve Minutes of Darkness" (1991), later typescript - 2 copies, and copy of published story
1-3/82: "Wanderlust" (1991), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, later typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-3/83: "Writing in the Dark" (1991), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "The Writing Life"]
1-3/84: "Writing in the Dark" (1991), later typescript (1500 words), final typescript, and photocopy of published story