Sean Wallace (born January 1, 1976) is an American science fiction, fantasy, and horror anthologist, editor, and publisher best known for founding the publishing house Prime Books and for co-editing three magazines, Clarkesworld Magazine, The Dark Magazine, and Fantasy Magazine. He has been nominated a number of times by both the Hugo Awards and the World Fantasy Awards, won three Hugo Awards and two World Fantasy Awards, and has served as a World Fantasy Award judge.
Career Wallace began publishing fiction in 1997, when he launched Cosmos Books, with Philip J. Harbottle, and released Fantasy Annual, a paperback magazine of British authors including E.C. Tubb, John Russell Fearn, and Sydney Bounds. In 1999, the Cosmos Books name was licensed to Wildside Press and output greatly increased, expanding with American and Australian authors. He also became a freelance editor for Wildside Press, working from Ohio.
In mid-2001, Wallace stepped in to assist an ailing company, Imaginary Worlds, though it soon went into bankruptcy. Wallace then launched Prime Books to publish a few of the orphaned books,Dziemianowicz, Stefan. "Prime Suspect", Publishers Weekly, p. 43, Reed Business Information, July 26, 2004. Retrieved March 30, 2010. including the award-winning City of Saints and Madmen, by Jeff VanderMeer. Later, in 2003, he licensed the company to Wildside Press, and moved from Ohio to Pennsylvania, as a full-time senior editor. In early 2009, Wallace reacquired Prime Books, and relaunched it as an independent publishing house in May that year.Wallace, Sean. Press Release: Acquisition of Prime Books. LiveJournal (official site). February 10, 2009. Retrieved April 10, 2009. Wallace was twice-nominated for a World Fantasy Award in 2003 and 2004 for editing Prime Books, in the Special Award: Non-Professional and Special Award: Professional categories."2003 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees ". World Fantasy Awards, World Fantasy Convention (WFC). Oct. 30–Nov. 2, 2003. Retrieved April 10, 2009."2004 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees ". World Fantasy Awards, WFC. October 28–31, 2004. Retrieved April 10, 2009.
Around this time, he felt that there was a lack of short fiction available in the literary fantasy genre and to cater to this, he launched Fantasy Magazine in 2005, at the World Fantasy Convention in Wisconsin.Foster, Eugie. , The Fix, TTA Press, April 7, 2008. Retrieved March 30, 2010. During 2006 his first nationally distributed book, Horror: The Best of the Year was released, and he took on a co-editing job with Nick Mamatas, with Clarkesworld Magazine.About us: Staff, Clarkesworld Magazine, Wyrm Publishing. Retrieved September 7, 2008. That same year, he won the World Fantasy Award in the Special Award: Professional"2006 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees " World Fantasy Awards, WFC. November 2–5, 2006. Retrieved September 7, 2008. category for editing Prime Books. In 2009, his work for Clarkesworld gained recognition with Hugo Award"2009 Hugo Awards ". Hugo Awards, World Science Fiction Society (WSFS). August 6–10, 2009. Retrieved April 10, 2009. and World Fantasy Award nominations."2009 World Fantasy Award Winners and Nominees ". World Fantasy Awards, WFC. Oct. 29–Nov. 1, 2009. Retrieved 15 October 2009. In 2010 and 2011, those efforts were rewarded with back-to-back Hugo Awards. Wallace and the rest of the Clarkesworld team also received World Fantasy Award nominations in 2010, 2012, and 2014. In 2011 he served as a World Fantasy Awards judge and in the same year he launched the World SF Travel Fund with Lavie Tidhar. In 2013 Clarkesworld Magazine and its staff won the Hugo Award a third time, Locus Magazine website. and in 2014 the magazine won its first World Fantasy Award.
Other genre/nongenre efforts Wallace has been involved with include the relaunch and management of WSFA Press; co-founding the Shirley Jackson Awards; managing the SFWA Book Depot at the Nebula Awards conference; and co-administrating the ELFF (Elementary Librarian Family and Friends) facebook group.
He lives in Germantown, Maryland with his wife, Jennifer, and their two children, Cordelia and Nathan.About us: Staff, The Dark Magazine, Prime Books. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
Prime Books
Prime Books, founded by Wallace in 2001, is an American independent publishing house. It publishes in a mix of literary and commercial anthologies, collections, novels, and previously published two magazines: Fantasy Magazine and Lightspeed Magazine (both sold November 2011).
Its authors and editors include:
John Joseph Adams KJ Bishop Philip K. Dick Theodora Goss Rich Horton Nick Mamatas Sarah Monette Richard Parks Holly Phillips Tim Pratt Ekaterina Sedia Catherynne M. Valente Jeff VanderMeer
Works The Mammoth Book series The Mammoth Book of Steampunk (2012) The Mammoth Book of Steampunk Adventures (2014) The Mammoth Book of Warriors and Wizardry (2014) The Mammoth Book of Dieselpunk (2015) The Mammoth Book of Kaiju (2016)
The Realms/Clarkesworld series Realms: The First Year of Clarkesworld Magazine (2008), with Neil Clarke and Nick Mamatas Realms: The Second Year of Clarkesworld Magazine (2010), with Neil Clarke and Nick Mamatas Clarkesworld: Year Three (2013), with Neil Clarke and Nick Mamatas Clarkesworld: Year Four (2013), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Five (2013), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Six (2014), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Seven (2015), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Eight (2016), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Nine, Volume One (2018), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Nine, Volume Two (2018), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Ten, Volume One (2019), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Ten, Volume Two (2019), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Eleven, Volume One (2019), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Eleven, Volume Two (2019), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Twelve, Volume One (2021), with Neil Clarke Clarkesworld: Year Twelve, Volume Two (2021), with Neil Clarke
Other anthologies Bandersnatch (2007), with Paul Tremblay Best New Fantasy (2006) Fantasy (2007), with Paul Tremblay Fantasy Annual 3 (1999), with Philip J. Harbottle Fantasy Annual 4 (2000), with Philip J. Harbottle Fantasy Annual 5 (2003), with Philip J. Harbottle Horror: The Best of the Year (2006), with John Betancourt Japanese Dreams (2009) People of the Book: A Decade of Jewish Science Fiction and Fantasy (2011), with Rachel Swirsky Phantom (2009), with Paul Tremblay Robots: Recent A.I. (2012), with Rich Horton Strange Pleasures (2006) War & Space: Recent Combat (2012), with Rich Horton Weird Tales: The Twenty-First Century (2007), with Stephen H. Segal
Other works Eric Frank Russell: Our Sentinel in Space : A Working Bibliography: 3rd Revised Edition (1999), with Phil Stephensen-Payne The Tall Adventurer: The Works of E.C. Tubb (1997), with Philip J. Harbottle The SFWA Bulletin Index, 1965-2017 (2018), with Michael Capobianco and Erin M. Hartshorn The Graphic Novels / Manga / Comic Strips / Comics Master List, Grades K through 5 (2019-), with Jennifer Wallace Google Slide.
Magazines edited Il Buio (Italian edition of The Dark), with Silvia Moreno-Garcia and Lorenzo Crescentini (September 2018 – 2019); 7 issues, along with an omnibus, Il Buio, Anno 1 (2019) Clarkesworld Magazine, with Nick Mamatas (October 2006-July 2008); with Neil Clarke (August 2008-current); 220 issues The Dark Magazine, with Jack Fisher (October 2013-April 2016), 11 issues; solely (May 2016-December 2016), 8 issues; with Silvia Moreno-Garcia (January 2017-December 2020), 48 issues; solely (January 2021-June 2022), 18 issues; with Clara Madrigano, (July 2022-June 2023), 12 issues; solely (July 2022-January 2025): total: 116 issues Fantasy Magazine (2005); with Paul Tremblay (2006-2007); with Cat Rambo (2007-2011); 47 issues Podcastle (November 2009), guest editor; 1 issue Thaumatrope (August 2009), guest editor; 1 issue Underworlds: The Magazine of Noir and Dark Suspense (2004); 1 issue
Journals edited Fantasy Annual, with Philip J. Harbottle (1997-1998), 2 volumes Jabberwocky (2006-2007), 3 issues; with Erzebet YellowBoy (2009-2011), 6 issues
Essays and articles "Publishing in the Future: The Potential and Reality of POD" in Locus, March 10, 2004
References
Further reading Morgan, Cheryl. "Interview: Sean Wallace, Prime Books". Emerald City, Iss. 102, February, 2004 Tan, Charles. "Feature: Interview with Sean Wallace". Bibliophile Stalker, April 15, 2008
External links Prime Books Sean Wallace's blog