Casting A Shadow: Poppy Z. Brite
Known professionally as Poppy Z. Brite, Billy Martin helped leave a lasting impression in the 1990s through the early 2000s with his works of horror that included gay and bisexual main characters, starting with Lost Souls. At a time where being openly gay wasn’t as accepted, Martin helped push the culture forward with these characters and stories, but the love of writing began far earlier.
Born May 25, 1967 in New Orleans, LA. to parents from Kentucky, Billy Martin (assigned female at birth) was taught to read very early on by the age of 3, not knowing how to write but recording stories in a recorder. At 5-years-old, writing came naturally and Martin was able to write short stories. When Martin’s parents separated, he moved to North Carolina with his mother, where writing continued to be a mainstay in Martin’s life. By the time Martin was 18, after many rejection letters that all writers come to be absolutely fond of (sarcasm, of course), Martin sold his first story to “The Horror Show”, a magazine based in California but was well-respected. Martin was able to sell several more stories to the publication, and in 1987 was featured in their special issue for up-and-coming writers called “Rising Stars”. This issue helped capture the attention of Douglas E. Winter while Martin was attending University of North Carolina, inquiring if the writer was working on a novel, to which the writer decided was fate.
Martin took this opportunity to leave University of North Carolina and begin working on his first novel “Lost Souls”, a vampire novel set in a fictional city called Missing Mile on the outskirt of New Orleans about a set of young folks named Ghost, Ann, and Jason aka Nothing in love, lust, and wild times until vampires enter their lives—including drugs, sex, and blood-letting. While working on this novel, Martin held down a myriad of jobs to support himself and continue writing, writing during the day and using the night to write.
“Lost Souls” wasn’t an immediate success, but once it was bought by Dell, Martin signed a six-figure contract in October 1992. The novel, as the writer stated, was not a book that was received with indifference, but one that was work that you “loved or hated”, having been nominated for Best First Novel by the Horror Writers Association and a Lambda Literary Award. Works that followed “Lost Souls” included “Drawing Blood”, a collection of short stories “Swamps Foetus” (later titled “Wormwood” once reprinted with Dell), and “Exquisite Corpse”, which Dell came to decline to publish because of the content in the book, leaving, Penguin also decling to publish the work as well because of the same reason. It was picked up by Simon and Schuster, who published the book (and Orion in the U.K. side). In the mid-90s, Courtney Love contacted Martin to write an autobiography, but it wouldn’t be the official autobiography. However, Love was heavily involved with the book and gave Martin everything they needed to get it written in 1996. They also tapped Martin to write one book in the series for “The Crow”. Both works Martin was reluctant to work on, but completed both despite the lack of luster Martin felt.
Martin took a break from writing novels to get back to his first love: short stories. He wrote “Are you Loathsome Tonight?”, published in 1998 by Gauntlet Press in the U.S. (also known as “Self-Made Man” under Orion). Martin also wrote “The Seed of Lost Souls” in 1999 and novella “Plastic Jesus” in 2000. After experiencing a bout of the dreaded writer’s fatigue and taking time off to travel, the “LIQUOR” books came to be, and they were a departure from Martin’s horror creations, leaning more toward dark comedy. Martin wrote other works until deciding to retire in 2010, citing that he had lost the fervor that was once there for the characters and being able to connect to them, to create more, but in 2018 had taken to writing again, leaving the door open for more works to come through.
If you must start somewhere with Billy Martin a.k.a. Poppy Z. Brite’s works. Please give “Lost Souls” a chance. It will fill those of us who are past our younger days with nostalgia, but can be a great reference for how far we have come (and still coming along). It is steamy, but it will be worth the read.
