T.E. Grau is a dark fiction author whose work has appeared in numerous anthologies, including Dead But Dreaming 2, The Aklonomicon, Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities, Horror for the Holidays, Dark Fusions: Where Monsters Lurk, Suction Cup Dreams: An Octopus Anthology, and Mark of the Beast, among others; and in the electronic publications Lovecraft eZine and Eschatology Journal. In addition to fiction writing, he is an essayist and contributor to The Teeming Brain, We Love Monsters, LORE, The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog, Yog-Sothoth.com, and the Esoteric Order of Dagon Amateur Press Association (edited by S. T. Joshi), and serves as Fiction Editor of Strange Aeons magazine. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife (writer, editor, and artist Ives Hovanessian), daughter, and bunny named Cthulhu. T.E. Grau often blogs about beautiful and terrifying things at The Cosmicomicon (cosmicomicon.blogspot.com).
Matt Cardin ( "Dark Awakenings," "Divinations of the Deep") described T.E. as "a rising author of idea-driven and stylistically rich horror fiction."
Out now in print: "The Screamer," published in 'Urban Cthulhu: Nightmare Cities', edited by Henrik Harksen for H. Harksen Productions
(
https://cosmicomicon.blogspot.com/2012/04/publishing-news-urban-cthulhu-nightmare.html)
"'The Screamer' is one of the best modern horror stories I've read. Ever. I keep wanting to discuss it at greater length and detail, to acknowledge its remarkable construction, its superb prose voice, its volcanic build-up of power (from subtle anxiety to all-stops-pulled-out-madness), and its brilliant sense of metaphor, but I have been too distracted. Oh wait...I kinda just did, a little.
... I have to praise 'The Screamer' again, myself. That one story is better than entire short story collections I've read by respected and (so far) better known writers. If you took all the stories in those collections and condensed them into one small mass like a collapsed star, you'd have 'The Screamer'. For real.
I liked how characters I thought were merely placed in there for background detail (and that would have been fine) reappeared later under other... circumstances. I liked the prose voice. I liked the masterfully tuned shift in volume from 0 to 11... The beautifully balanced ending. It is one of my favorite modern horror stories.
I wish I'd written this." - Jeffrey Thomas
"I read 'The Screamer' today and it was a massive enjoyment. T.E. Grau's use of language, his unfolding of the cosmically apocalyptic-horrific premise, the delectable evocation of honest-to-gods dread -- all were wonderful. Hats off! The words 'the real deal' are prominent in my thoughts as I come away from Grau's depiction of a truly harrowing urban-cosmic undoing of everything." - Matt Cardin
"Very, very powerful indeed. One of the best breakdown stories I've read in a long time - I love the richness of the collapse, the blurring of reality/unreality, the sense of terrible cataclysm both within and without the main character - and the language and description is suggestive of a lot more going on beneath the surface. I'm not surprised 'The Screamer' is being put up for nomination." - Michael Marshall Smith
"I don't manage to read much anymore, but I read a story a few days back that has stuck with me: 'The Screamer' by T.E. Grau. I'd heard it was good, and it is. Damn good. In particular, I keep going back to what Ted did with the ending. It is horrific on a cosmic scale yet elegantly understated at the same time. I expect this one to appear again in reprints, maybe The Year's Best. The Next wave of horror is in good appendages, my friends. Oh, yes it is." - Scott Nicolay
"'The Screamer' by T.E. Grau is the best story I have read all year. In fact, it tops any short story I read the year before, too! Grau masterfully weaves a tale of terror and madness with a sneaky surprise ending that I definitely did not see coming." - Marc Nocerino (
https://sheneverslept.com/newsandreviews/archives/9314)
"I want to group up three authors right at the start, as there are a lot of similarities between them for me. I became aware of each of them around the same time (about a year to year and a half ago), I’ve read a quite a few things by them since then, often in the same books, and they have never disappointed me with their story telling skills. In fact, they consistently blow me away. They are Glynn Owen Barrass, Pete Rawlik, and T.E. Grau and their stories here, 'Carcosapunk', 'The Statement of Frank Elwood' and 'The Screamer' respectively. These three are the best of the bunch here. When I suggested that there were young Turks in this book, these guys are the ones I was thinking of. They have each rapidly become three of my favorite writers. All fans of Lovecraftian fiction should consider them bright shining stars that need to be carefully followed." - Brian Sammons (
https://horrorworld.org/hw/2012/06/urban-cthulhu-nightmare-cities/)
"The second wonderful story is 'The Screamer' by T. E. Grau. I shall not spoil anyone in this review, suffice to say that the main character is obsessed with finding out who is making that awful screaming at his place of work, a screaming that no-one else seems to hear. I spent a lot of time trying to second-guess the storyline, and failed to do so. Epically. The denouement was so much better than anything I imagined." - Julia Morgan, Unfilmable.com (
https://unfilmable.blogspot.de/2012/08/review-urban-cthulhu-nightmare-cities.html)
Out now in print: "Flutes" and "In the Cave, She Sang," featuring art by Paul Carrick, both appearing in 'The Aklonomicon,' edited by Ivan McCann and Joseph S. Pulver, published by Aklo Press. (
https://aklopress.bigcartel.com/product/aklonomicon)
Out now in print: "Free Fireworks," published in 'Horror for the Holidays,' edited by Scott David Aniolowski, published by Miskatonic River Press. (
https://www.miskatonicriverpress.com/products/hh.shtml)
Out now in print: "Transmission," appearing in 'Dead But Dreaming 2,' edited by Kevin Ross, published by Miskatonic River Press. Available at
https://www.miskatonicriverpress.com/products/dbd2.shtml
"T.E. Grau's 'Transmissions' effectively utilizes the remoteness of the parched Southwest to evoke horror - a horror that comes from the chilling and potentially cataclysmic message heard on a radio transmission." - S.T. Joshi, Dead Reckonings No. 10, Fall 2011
"It astonishes me that 'Transmission' is T. E. Grau's first published story. He is off to a brilliant beginning. He has been working for a decade as a screenwriter in Hollywood, but that is a very different kind of writing than the short story form. This is one of the creepiest stories in the book, superbly told." - W.H. Pugmire
https://www.amazon.com/Dead-But-Dreaming-Kevin-Ross/dp/0982181868
Out now in (electronic) print: "That Old Problem," featuring art by Galen Dara, published in Issue #12 (March 2012) of the Lovecraft eZine.
(
https://lovecraftzine.com/issues/that-old-problem-by-t-e-grau/)
Flash fiction pieces "Downhill" and "Low Hanging Clouds" published by Eschatology Journal. (
https://eschatologyjournal.org/)
Coming in 2013:
"A Late Season Snow," published in 'Suction Cup Dreams: An Octopus Anthology', edited by David Joseph Clarke for publisher Obsolescent.Info.
(
https://www.obsolescent.info/suction-cup-dreams-an-octopus-anthology/)
"Ignis Fatuus," co-written by Scott David Aniolowski & T.E. Grau, published in 'Dark Fusions: Where Monsters Lurk', edited by Lois H. Gresh for PS Publishing.
(
https://www.loisgresh.com/darkfusions.html)
"Mr. Lupus," accepted for publication in 'Mark of the Beast', edited by Scott David Aniolowski, for Chaosium
(
https://scottdavidaniolowski.blogspot.com/2012/06/face-of-beast.html)
Writer of the column "The Extinction Papers," published at The Teeming Brain.
(
https://www.teemingbrain.com/category/columns/the-extinction-papers/)
Writer of the column "Murmurs from the Ether," published at The Horrifically Horrifying Horror Blog (
https://thehorrificallyhorrifyinghorrorblog.com/category/murmurs-from-the-ether/)
T.E. Grau blogs at The Cosmicomicon (
https://cosmicomicon.blogspot.com/), which was previously featured in Strange Aeons magazine (Issue #5), and has received praise from S.T. Joshi.
Member of the Esoteric Order of Dagon Amateur Press Association
Member of the Horror Writers Association Los Angeles (HWA LA)
Member of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society
Invited Guest to NecronomiCon 2013
Featured Author, Panelist, and Screenplay Judge at the annual H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival - Los Angeles (2011, 2012)
Official Patron of Yog-Sothoth.com
