About the Author

Sam Weller is two-time Bram Stoker Award winning writer and the authorized biographer of the legendary Ray Bradbury. Weller's book, The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller and winner of the 2005 Society of Midland Authors Awards for "Best Biography." The companion book, Listen the Echoes: The Ray Bradbury Interviews, was published by Hat & Beard Press in 2017. Weller has written for The Paris Review, NPR's All Things Considered, Slate, Huffington Post, and many others. He has given over 400 presentations around the world on the life and legacy of Ray Bradbury and on the mystery of the creative process.

Reviews

Weller (The Bradbury Chronicles: The Life of Ray Bradbury) delights with this debut collection of 20 weird and whimsical horror stories. Weller expertly balances overt scares with subtle introspection. The atmospheric detail and steadily maintained tension make this collection a page-turner.
--Publisher's Weekly
"It's no surprise that Sam Weller, a renowned scholar of Ray Bradbury, would be such a beautiful storyteller in his own right. What IS a thrill is the depth and breadth of Dark Black's tales--some of which deserve to be read aloud, crackling-campfire style; others meant to be savored slowly and quite gloriously alone. By turns haunting, mysterious, wickedly funny and deeply insightful, Dark Black is a truly mood-flipping, mind-tripping collection.
--Gillian Flynn, New York Times #1 bestselling author of Gone Girl
Reading Dark Black is like watching a night snowfall gather over a small-town street lamp: it's gentle, gorgeous, haunting, and often eerie. But there are things hiding in the dark too--and Weller knows just when to unleash them.
--Daniel Kraus, co-author (with Guillermo del Toro) of The Shape of WaterWith this collection, Weller is making an argument that he's more than Bradbury's chronicler. Weller is arguing he's Bradbury's literary heir. By sheer story quality alone, Weller makes a good damn argument.
--Newcity
Haunted and haunting, these are stories of a past long gone and yet still with us. Stories of windswept plains towns, of a lost country, full of nostalgia and dread, romance and horror. At times, Weller plays with form (the experimental essay, the rock-band profile) to tell classic tales in new ways--while in other pieces he gives us the goods straight-up. And he has a knack for the mysterious and lyrical ending, coming sooner than you expected, catching you off-guard and wanting more.
--Charles Yu, author of Interior Chinatown The collection spans the genres of horror, Weird fiction, and the Gothic, as well as the spectrum of human emotion. They're at once funny, chilling, sad, and sometimes downright nightmarish. And all of them are terrifically, terrifyingly, great.
--Chicago Review of Books