Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Box
Title
Manuscripts
Date(s)
- 1995 - 2001 (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
1-5/1: "After The Night" (1995), typescripts with handwritten edits - early version and version #2
1-5/2: "After The Night" (1995), final typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-5/3: "Archetype" (1995), typescript with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-5/4: "Blood Knot" (1995), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/5: "Blood Knot" (1995), later typescript, and galleys
1-5/6: "The Burdens" (1995), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-5/7: "The Burderns" (1995), later typescripts
1-5/8: "The Burdens" (1995), later typescript, and proofs
1-5/9: "Disturb Not Her Dream" (1995), typescript, handwritten notes, and correspondence (1994)
1-5/10: "Disturb Not Her Dream" (1995), proofs
1-5/11: "A Hundred Wicked Little Witches" (1995), typescript with handwritten edits, and partial typescript
1-5/12: "A Hundred Wicked Little Witches" (1995), typescript
1-5/13: "Janael" (1995), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/14: "Janael" (1995), later typescripts - one with handwritten edits, and photocopy of published story
1-5/15: "Mouths" (1995), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/16: "Presage" (1995), early typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "These Are The Houses of the Dead"]
1-5/17: "Presage" (1995), later typescript - 2 copies, and proofs - 2 copies
1-5/18: "Sampled" (1995), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript - 2 copies
1-5/19: "Shades" (1995, w/Roma Felible), original (?) typescript [under old title of "Silhouettes"]
1-5/20: "Shades" (1995, w/Roma Felible), typescript with handwritten edits [under old title of "Silhouettes"]
1-5/21: "Shades" (1995, w/Roma Felible), partial typescript with handwritten edits, photocopies pages, and notes [under old title of "Silhouettes"]
1-5/22: "Shades" (1995, w/Roma Felible), typescript - 3 copies, one with handwritten edits
1-5/23: "Shades" (1995, w/Roma Felible), typescript (longer version)
1-5/24: "Tall Skies" (1995), typescript
1-5/25: "Andrew" (1996), early typescript with handwritten edits, and additional pages 23-24 with handwritten edits
1-5/26: "Andrew" (1996), later typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-5/27: "A Cascade of Lies" (1996), later typescript (5300 words), and correspondence, 1995
1-5/28: "A Cascade of Lies" (1996), revised typescript, and correspondence, 1995
1-5/29: "A Cascade of Lies" (1996), later typescript, and typeset pages of published story
1-5/30: "A Cascade of Lies" (1996), correspondence, 1995-1996
1-5/31: "Close To You" (1996), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/32: "Elena" (1996), typescript
1-5/33: "Ghost In The Machine" (1996), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/34: "The Hideaway Man" (1996), typescript with handwritten edits, proofs, and photocopy of published story
1-5/35: "Jason's Nightmare" (1996), outline, typescript, and proofs
1-5/36: "Jungle J.D." (1996), earlier typescript with handwritten edits
1-5/37: "Jungle J.D." (1996), later typescript, and proofs
1-5/38: "The Rains" (1996), earlier typescripts with handwritten edits
1-5/39: "The Rains" (1996), later typescripts (4400 words) with handwritten edits
1-5/40: "The Rains" (1996), later typescript (4500 words), and editorial correspondence, 1996
1-5/41: "The Man Under The Bridge" (1997), typescript of initial submission with handwritten edits, and editorial correspondence, 1996
1-5/42: "The Man Under The Bridge" (1997), typescripts
1-5/43: "The Man Under The Bridge" (1997), photocopy of published story, and publisher's correspondence, 1996
1-5/44: "Sharp Edges" (1997), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-5/45: "Sharp Edges" (1997), later typescripts - one with handwritten edits
1-5/46: "Sharp Edges" (1997), typescript (7500 words) with editorial notes and handwritten edits
1-5/47: "Wet Kisses in the Dark" (1997), earlier draft with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/48: "After Work" (1998), typescript with handwritten edits, and typescript
1-5/49: "The Doll Thief" (1998), early typescripts with handwritten edits [under original title of "The Dolls"]
1-5/50: "The Doll Thief" (1998), typescript
1-5/51: "The Doll Thief" (1998), later typescript - 2 copies [under old title of "The Dolls"]
1-5/52: "Each Day" (1998), typescript
1-5/53: "Voices In The Dark" (1998), early typescript (1100 words) - 2 copies, and correspondence, 1994, 1996
1-5/54: "Voices In The Dark" (1998), earlier typescript (800 words) with handwritten edits, later typescript (800 words), later typescript (750 words), and photocopy of published story
1-5/55: "What Slips Away" (1998), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, later typescript, and photocopy of published story
1-5/56: "City Fishing" (1999), copy of Salamander Press edition (2000)
1-5/57: "Halloween Street" (1999), early typescripts with handwritten edits
1-5/58: "Halloween Street" (1999), later typescripts, and proofs
1-5/59: "Heat" (1999), typescript
1-5/60: "In His Image" (1999), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, later typescript, and source material on masks
1-5/61: "The Lonely Gorilla" (1999), typescript, and artprint of gorilla
1-5/62: "The Mouse's Bedtime Story" (1999), typescript with hand-drawn sketches
1-5/63: "The Mouse's Bedtime Story" (1999), typescript, and photocopies of published story
1-5/64: "Tricks and Treats: One Night on Halloween Street" (1999), early typescript with handwritten edits
1-5/65: "Tricks and Treats: One Night on Halloween Street" (1999), later typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/66: "Tricks and Treats: One Night on Halloween Night" (1999), letter w/suggested edits from Gordon Van Gelder, February 17, 1998, and uncorrected proofs
1-5/67: "Bad Dogs Come Out Of The Rain" (2000), typescript with handwritten edits
1-5/68: "A Condemned Man" (2000), typescript with handwritten edits
1-5/69: "Creeps" (2000), typescript with handwritten edits
1-5/70: "Cubs" (2000), typescript - 2 copies, photocopy of published story, and correspondence, 1999
1-5/71: "Derangement" (2000), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/72: "Eggs" (2000), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/73: "Jake's Body" (2000), early typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescripts [under old title of "Jake the Fox Boy"]
1-5/74: "Jake's Body" (2000), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript
1-5/75: "Jake's Body" (2000), photocopy of published story
1-5/76: "Jake's Body" (2000), later typescript, galley proofs, and rejection letter from Harcourt Brace, September 1996
1-5/77: "My Favorite Halloween Memory: A Condemned Man" (2000), typescript [under old title of "A Condemned Man: A Halloween Memory"]
1-5/78: "Pareidolia" (2000), early typescript with handwritten edits [under original title "Regenerations"]
1-5/79: "Pareidolia" (2000), typescript - 3 copies, and documentation, 2001
1-5/80: "The Sadness of Angels" (2000), typescript with handwritten edits
1-5/81: "The Slow Fall of Dust in A Quiet Place" (2000), typescript with handwritten edits
1-5/82: "The Slow Fall of Dust in A Quiet Place" (2000), later typescript, with publisher agreement and proof copy
1-5/83: "We All Live On Sycamore Street" (2000), earlier typescript with handwritten edits, and later typescript