James Lowder

James Daniel Lowder (born January 2, 1963, in Quincy, Massachusetts) is an American author, anthologist, and editor, working regularly within the fantasy, dark fantasy, and horror genres, and on tabletop role-playing games and critical works exploring popular culture.

Early life and education

Lowder graduated from Whitman-Hanson Regional High School in 1981 and was inducted into the high school's hall of fame in 1991. While at Whitman-Hanson, he wrote and edited for the school newspaper and yearbook, and did the same for two summers at Project Contemporary Competitiveness at Bridgewater State University. In 1985 he graduated from Marquette University with an honors BA in English and History. While at Marquette, he edited and wrote for the '' Marquette Journal'', the school's literary magazine. After Marquette, he took graduate classes in English at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where he also taught writing, film, and fantasy literature courses. Lowder completed a master's degree in Literary Studies from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee in 1999.

Career

Novels and short fiction

His earliest novels were part of the ''Forgotten Realms'' and ''Ravenloft'' shared universe book lines, but beginning in the late 1990s he turned his attention more often to creator-owned projects. His novels include '' Prince of Lies'', ''The Ring of Winter'', and '' Spectre of the Black Rose'' (the latter with Voronica Whitney-Robinson), and his short fiction has appeared in such anthologies such as '' Shadows Over Baker Street'', ''Truth Until Paradox'', and ''Historical Hauntings''. Some of his short stories have been cited in the honorable mention list of the annual '' Year's Best Fantasy and Horror''. He was an Origins Award finalist in the ''Best Short Fiction'' category for his 2003 novella, "The Night Chicago Died", a story that featured the debut of his mystery man character, The Corpse. His novels have been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Prose editing and anthologies

As an editor, Lowder directed several best-selling book lines for TSR, Inc. in the late 1980s and early 1990s, including the Forgotten Realms, Ravenloft, and Dark Sun. Peter Corless brought Lowder over in 1999 to oversee the '' Pendragon'' fiction line for Green Knight Publishing; Lowder reprinted classic Arthurian works and starting in 2000 he also published original material including the short story collections ''The Doom of Camelot'' (2000) and ''Legends of the Pendragon'' (2002) as well as the novel ''Exiled from Camelot'' (2001). He served as executive editor for Green Knight Publishing's line of Arthurian fiction — the ''Pendragon'' fiction series — and as a consulting editor for CDS Books on their ''City of Heroes'' novels. Lowder has edited more than a dozen anthologies, with subjects ranging from King Arthur to superheroes to zombies. He has won several Origins Awards and an ENnie Award, and been shortlisted for an International Horror Guild Award for these projects. Though some of these anthologies have been published in connection with role-playing game product lines, they often contain only creator-copyrighted stories. This makes them unusual, as game publishers frequently insist on work for hire contracts for such projects.

Lowder edited a series of zombie anthologies based on the '' All Flesh Must Be Eaten'' game, beginning with '' The Book of All Flesh'' (2001); these were the first fictional works from Eden Studios. His final short story collection for the series was ''The Book of Final Flesh'' (2003). Lowder edited a 2003 short story anthology based on the '' Silver Age Sentinels'' game from Guardians of Order. He also worked on other fiction including '' Astounding Hero Tales'' (2007) for Hero Games and ''Worlds of their Own'' (2008) for Paizo Publishing. Lowder produced '' Hobby Games: The 100 Best'' (2007) and ''Family Games: The 100 Best'' (2010) for Green Ronin Publishing.

In May 2017, Chaosium appointed Lowder executive editor of their fiction line. Chaosium President Rick Meints commented on the hire: “James embodies that magic combination of wisdom and enthusiasm. Knowing his craft inside and out, he brings his advocacy and integrity to the table at every turn. Having him relaunch our fiction line is a ‘the stars are right’ moment.” Lowder had previously served as a consultant for Chaosium, helping the company and freelancers resolve payment and contract problems with past fiction projects. Lowder was eventually promoted to the position of executive editor for all of Chaosium, but ended his contract with the publisher in March 2023 to move back to "full-time freelancing as a writer, editor, and publishing consultant for books, tabletop games, comics, and transmedia projects."

Game design and editing

Lowder has designed, edited, or consulted on books for the first, second, third, and fifth editions of ''Dungeons & Dragons''. He served as editor for the Carl Sargent B-series modules '' King's Festival'' and '' Queen's Harvest'', edited and developed the Greyhawk module '' Puppets'', and edited and wrote content for the early Forgotten Realms sourcebook '' Hall of Heroes''. His other contributions to the Forgotten Realms RPG include design for '' Curse of the Azure Bonds'' and '' Inside Ravens Bluff, The Living City'', project coordination on the three Avatar Trilogy modules, and design on '' The Jungles of Chult'', which tied to his Realms novel ''The Ring of Winter''. Lowder later consulted on the fifth edition product '' Tomb of Annihilation'' on the use of Artus Cimber, Aramag the dragon turtle, Ras Nsi, the city of Mezro, and other specific elements he had created for his earlier Realms fiction.

Lowder's other contributions to ''D&D'' include articles in ''Polyhedron'' and ''Dragon'', entries in the first two volumes of the second edition '' Monstrous Compendium'', as well as the ''Monstrous Compendium Spelljammer Appendix''; development work on '' Spelljammer: AD&D Adventures in Space'', and the darklord Stezen D'Polarno for the Ravenloft sourcebook '' Darklords''. Lowder and Bruce Nesmith designed a two-round tournament featuring D'Polarno for Gen Con 1991, with Lowder creating a three-round Ravenloft tournament featuring D'Polarno, "The Return of Stezen D'Polarno (Or Portrait of the Artist as a Young Necromancer)" as the RPGA Grandmasters Event for Gen Con the following year. Lowder's other contributions to the Ravenloft RPG center around the domain of Sithicus, with sections in both the White Wolf/Arthaus releases ''Heroes of Light'' and ''Gazetteer Volume IV''.

He has also designed or edited material for '' Pendragon'', '' Prince Valiant: The Story-Telling Game'', '' Marvel Super Heroes'', ''GURPS'', '' Deadlands'', '' Mage: The Ascension'', and ''Feng Shui''. For the horror RPG '' Call of Cthulhu'', Lowder contributed the Vanguard Club to the ''d20 Gamemaster's Pack'' and did early development and writing on the award-winning ''Pulp Cthulhu''. Beginning in 2017, Lowder designed a linked trilogy of ''Call of Cthulhu'' scenarios tied to his Corpse prose fiction and comics cycle, running them as gamemaster at such conventions as Gen Con and Gamehole Con, sometimes for charities such as Worldbuilders.

Since joining Chaosium as executive editor, Lowder has worked extensively on licensing for all of the company's role-playing game lines, helping to oversee both the licensing of Chaosium books to partner companies and securing licenses from other IP holders for Chaosium's use.

Comic books and other works

Lowder also works in comic books. He has penned scripts for several companies, including Image, DC, Devil's Due, and Desperado. A ''Ravenloft'' comic by Lowder was in development until DC ended its relationship working with TSR in 1991; Lowder had previously handled licensing review at TSR for some of the DC titles, written text pages for the ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' comic, and scripted a story for ''TSR Worlds Annual'' #1. His short work "Lost Loves", from the ''Moonstone Monsters: Demons'' anthology, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in 2004 for Best Illustrated Narrative. He contributed as a writer and consulting editor to the ''Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons'' comic book series, published by Devil's Due. He became the editor for the monthly series '' Hack/Slash'' with issue #25 and continued with the series when it moved from Devil's Due to Image. His pulp hero serial "The Corpse: Orphans of the Air" ran as an occasional back-up in ''Hack/Slash'', starting in 2011.

Lowder's critical essays and film, book, and comics reviews have appeared in such publications as ''Amazing Stories'' and ''Polyhedron'', the latter of which featured his long-running video review column "Into the Dark" from 1991 to 1994. His essay "Scream for Your Life" appeared in the 2005 anthology '' King Kong is Back!'', edited by David Brin, while "Infinite Mutation, Eternal Stasis" appeared in ''The Unauthorized X-Men'', edited by Len Wein, both from BenBella Books. He penned the entry on shared worlds for ''The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy: Themes, Works, and Wonders''. Starting in 2021 with ''Transgressive Horror: Reflections on Scare Films that Broke the Rules'', each of the first four volumes in Ghost Show Press's anthology series Everyone's Gone to the Movies contains a critical essay by Lowder.

In the media

Beginning in 2010, Lowder contributed to an annual "Games to Gift" holiday segment for the show "Lake Effect" on WUWM, Milwaukee Public Radio. He appeared as himself in episode 302 ("Man Beasts") on the television series Weird or What?, discussing the history of werewolf lore and the Beast of Bray Road. Lowder also served as a puppeteer for the low budget zombie puppet musical ''Misfit Heights'' (2012). For the 2022 live action actual play series ''Call of Cthulhu: Bookshops of Arkham'', Lowder is credited as an executive producer.

Notable works

Novels

*''Crusade'' ( TSR, 1991)
*'' Knight of the Black Rose'' ( TSR, 1991)
*''The Ring of Winter'' ( TSR, 1992)
*'' Prince of Lies'' ( TSR, 1993)
*''Name Your Nightmare'' ( Random House Sprinter, 1995); written as J.D. Lowder.
*''Spectre of the Black Rose'' (Wizards of the Coast, 1999); with Voronica Whitney-Robinson.

Short fiction

*"The Family Business" (in ''Realms of Valor'', TSR, 1993)
*"The Rigor of the Game" (in ''Tales of Ravenloft'', TSR, 1994)
*"Laughter in the Flames" (in ''Realms of Infamy'', TSR, 1994)
*"Make 'Em Laugh" (in ''Truth Until Paradox'', White Wolf Publishing

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