Poppy Z. Brite
Poppy Z. Brite
Billy Martin, known professionally as Poppy Z. Brite, is an American author. He is a trans man and prefers that male pronouns and terms be used when referring to him. Martin initially achieved notoriety in the gothic horror genre of literature in the early 1990s by publishing a string of successful novels and short story collections. His later work moved into the related genre of dark comedy, with many stories set in the New Orleans restaurant world. Martin's novels are...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth25 May 1967
CountryUnited States of America
All at once it hit him: this was power too, just as surely as smashing your fist into someone’s face, just as surely as putting a hammer through someone’s skull. The power to make another person crazy with pleasure instead of fear and pain, to have every cell in another person’s body at your thrall.
When you have too much faith in something, it's bound to hurt you. Too much faith in anything will suck you dry. In this way, all the world is a vampire.
It was like discovering that your innermost fires and terrors, the things you believed no one else could fathom, were in fact the basis of a recognized philosophy. Some part of you felt intimately invaded, threatened; some other part fell to its knees and sobbed in gratitude that it was no longer alone.
If you're a freelance writer and aren't used to being ignored, neglected, and generally given short shrift, you must not have been in the business very long.
The sky is purple, the flare of a match behind a cupped hand is gold; the liquor is green, bright green, made from a thousand herbs, made from altars. Those who know enough to drink Chartreuse at Mardi Gras are lucky, because the distilled essence of the town burns in their bellies. Chartreuse glows in the dark, and if you drink enough of it, your eyes will turn bright green.
If you want something, you don't wait for the world to deal it out for you. You take it.
Maybe they did what they had to do to live, and tried to get a little love and have a little fun before the darkness took them.
With the first kiss his mouth will taste of wormwood.
Sometimes we gotta be brave even when we're scared. We gotta not let being scared keep us from thinkin' straight. That's all brave is, boy, when you come right down to it, not lettin' the fear get you so turned around you start doin' stupid things, instead of what you know you ought to do.
And I can't think of a reason I'd ever use a pseudonym, as I wouldn't want to publish something that I didn't like enough to put my name on it.
Celebrities, even insignificant ones like me, are created to be abused by the Great Unwashed.
Horror is the badge of humanity, worn proudly, self-righteously, and often falsely.
I don't like to talk about work in progress, but the novel I'm working on now is definitely not horror.
I believe in whatever gets you throught the night. [...] Night is the hardest time to be alive. For me, anyway. It lasts so long, and four A.M.knows all my secrets.