Richard Gilliam is a short story author and the editor of such theme anthologies as ''Confederacy of the Dead'' (1993), ''Phobias'' (1994) and the ''Grails'' series (1992–94). He has contributed fantasy short stories to numerous books and magazines, and his non-fiction includes ''Joltin' Joe DiMaggio'' (1999). Gilliam began as a sportswriter and worked as a publicist to Coach

Bear Bryant Paul William "Bear" Bryant (September 11, 1913 – January 26, 1983) was an American college football player and coach. He is considered by many to be one of the greatest college football coaches of all time, and best known as the head coach of ...

at the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, the Capstone, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of ...

. A veteran anthologist, he worked from his home in

Green Bay, Wisconsin Green Bay is a city in Brown County, Wisconsin, United States, and its county seat. It is located at the head of Green Bay (Lake Michigan), Green Bay (known locally as "the bay of Green Bay"), a sub-basin of Lake Michigan at the mouth of the F ...

. He devised the Movie Links online game in 1990, and it was played extensively on

GEnie GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was an online service provider, online service created by a General Electric business, GEIS (now GXS Inc., GXS), that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around ...

four years before the quite similar

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon or Bacon's Law is a parlor game where players challenge each other to choose an actor whom they connect to another actor via a film in which both actors appeared: this is repeated to try to find the shortest path that ...

game was promoted in 1994. Gilliam's game is much more difficult in that a player is required to find the shortest number of movies linking actors as diverse as, say,

Gloria Swanson Gloria Mae Josephine Swanson (March 27, 1899April 4, 1983) was an American actress. She first achieved fame acting in dozens of silent films in the 1920s and was nominated three times for the Academy Award for Best Actress, most famously for h ...

and

Chris Farley Christopher Crosby Farley (February 15, 1964 – December 18, 1997) was an American actor and comedian. He was a member of Chicago's Second City Theatre and later a cast member of the NBC sketch comedy show ''Saturday Night Live'' for fiv ...

rather than links to the same specific actor (a feat which can be memorized).

Awards

His story "Caroline and Caleb" was a Best Novella nominee in the 1993 Bram Stoker Awards, given annually by the

Horror Writers Association The Horror Writers Association (HWA) is a worldwide non-profit organization of professional writers and publishing professionals dedicated to promoting the interests of horror and dark fantasy writers. Overview HWA was formed in 1985 with ...

. His book "Grails: Quests, Visitations and Other Occurrences" was nominated for the World Fantasy Award—Anthology award in 1993.

Read

Gilliam, Richard. "Crone Woman Gandy" ''100 Wicked Little Witch Stories'' (Sterling, 1995)

References

External links

Bibliography: Richard GilliamBram Stoker Awards: Winners and NomineesWorld Fantasy Awards 1993Fantastic Fiction: Richard Gilliam
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gilliam, Richard American fantasy writers American short story writers Writers from Green Bay, Wisconsin Living people American male short story writers American male novelists Novelists from Wisconsin Year of birth missing (living people)