Slouching Towards Bethlehem

Jess Nevins was found on the steps of Boston City Hospital approximately nine months after Elvis, in his bloated/diaper-wearing phase, toured through Boston. This coincidence has not gone overlooked.

I'm the author of the World Fantasy Award-finalist Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana, a guide to the characters and concepts of 19th century world literature, and The Pulp Magazine Holdings Directory, an index of library holdings of pulp magazines (essentially, which issues of which pulp magazines are held in which American, British, and European libraries). I've also written the International Horror Guild Award-finalist Heroes & Monsters: The Unofficial Guide to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, its sequel A Blazing World: The Second Unofficial Guide to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the third book in the series, Impossible Territories (MonkeyBrain Books, August 2008), the companion to the third in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, Black Dossier. I also wrote the introductions to the Ann & Jeff Vandermeer anthology Steampunk and to the World Fantasy Award-winning anthology Paper Cities.

In 2012 P.S. Publishing (the British publisher, not the vanity press) will publish my The Encyclopedia of Pulp Heroes, a 750,000 word encyclopedia with descriptive entries on over 6400 series characters from global popular culture of 1902-1945, including pulps, slicks, series fiction, comic strips, radio serials, movie serials, and international series fiction. (A somewhat typical range of characters from the book is here). After that will come The Encyclopedia of Golden Age Detectives (2012?), a 300,000 word encyclopedia of detectives appearing from 1902 to 1945 in novels, pulps, slicks, radio serials, and international fiction. After that will come The Victorians For Freshmen (2014?). I'm also working on becoming a published novelist, but that probably won't happen for a couple of years. I also write semi-regularly for No Fear of the Future; a somewhat typical example of my work there is An Alternate History of Chinese Science Fiction, which was a finalist for the Sidewise Award.

Finally, my story "The Student and the Rats" appeared in the "Clockwork Jungle" issue of Shimmer, and my story "Unpublished Pages from the Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana" will appear in the Vandermeers' anthology Steampunk Reloaded.

I spend most of my time these days on Twitter, as @jessnevins. I also have a Tumblr account</a>.

I am a reference librarian at Lone Star Community College in Tomball, Texas, the husband of Alicia, father of Henry Ian, and Alpha Male and foodgiver to Tuco (chihuahua) and Daisy (catahoula leopard).