ABOUT MARISSA
(long version)
Marissa van Uden is an editor, a writer, and a semi-feral woodswitch who befriends all the animals. She grew up in Aotearoa-New Zealand, spent many years in Munich, Berlin and Los Angeles, and now lives in rural Vermont, in a cabin in the woods. She loves wild nature, Weird horror, and salty licorice. Her fiction has been published in Dark Matter Magazine (2022), Zero Dark Thirty (Dark Matter Ink, 2022), the Los Suelos anthology (Surface Dwellers, 2022), and Vastarien (2023). She is an anthologist (editor of Strange Libations: Dark Cocktails and the forthcoming Strange Machines: Dark Manuals (Apex Books) and The Off-Season: An Anthology of Coastal New Weird (Dark Matter Ink). She’s also an acquisitions editor for Dark Matter Ink and head of acquisitions at Apex Books, and an active member of the Horror Writer’s Association and Editorial Freelancer’s Association.
Her manuscript editing credits include award winners, Amazon #1 bestsellers, and National Geographic books. She has line edited horror books such as Brian Keene’s Curse of the Bastards (Apex Books); CS Humble’s That Light Sublime trilogy & the Black Wells series (Cemetary Dance); Rootwork by Tracy Cross (Dark Hart Books), Mosaic by Catherine McCarthy (Dark Hart Books), Our Love Will Devour Us by R.L. Meza (Dark Matter Ink).
She was a developmental and/or line editor for Alys Arden’s The Casquette Girls (an Amazon #1 bestseller, Starred by Publishers Weekly, and picked up in two-book deal by Skyscape Publishing) and The Romeo Catchers (Nominated for Best Young Adult Protagonist in the 2017 RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards); Ciara Ballintyne’s In The Company of the Dead (winner of Pinnacle Awards Best Fantasy Novel); Megan Crewe’s A Mortal Song (Amazon Kindle #1 Bestseller) and A Ruthless Magic; D Robert Pease’s Shadow Swarm (Winner of Mom’s Choice Awards Gold Medal in Fantasy & Science Fiction), D.A. Godwins Guardian’s Prophecy Series; and Debra Goelz’s Mermaids and the Vampires Who Love Them (winner of the Watty award in 2014, picked up by Hatchette Audiobooks and adapted into an interactive mobile game).
Creatives who inspire her include Philip K Dick, Jeff VanderMeer, Karin Tidbeck, James Tiptree Jr., Octavia Butler, Cordwainer Smith, David Lynch, China Miéville, JG Ballard, Robert Aickman, Algernon Blackwood, William Hope Hodgson, Leonora Carrington, Carl Sagan, Jim Henson, and everyone who wrote and designed the The Last of Us videogames.
PODCASTS & BOOK REVIEWS
Marissa reviews novels, nonfiction, short stories and (coming soon) science fiction/fantasy narrative-based video games. She joins fellow dickheads Jesse Willis and Paul Weimar — sometimes with very special guests — at the SFF Audio podcast to review all of PKD’s works in roughly the order he wrote them, and to talk about Things in speculative fiction.
- The Dickheads Podcast: Dick Adjacent #12 – Dune – with Marissa van Uden & Michael Moore
- The Genre Hustle Professional Editing with Marissa VU
- SFF Audio #449 “Dagon” by HP Lovecraft (with Paul Weimar & voice actor / audiobook narrator Oliver Wyman).
- SFF Audio #446 “The Night Flier” by Stephen King (with Paul Weimar & Scott Danielson)
- SFF Audio #429 In the Mountains of Madness: The Life and Afterlife of HP Lovecraft by W. Scott Poole (with Jim Moon & Wayne June!)
- SFF Audio #425 “The Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang + movie adaptation Arrival (with Paul Weimar & Maissa Bessada)
- SFF Audio #422 The Running Man by Stephen King + The Prize of Peril by Robert Sheckly (with Paul Weimar & Scott Danielson)
- SFF Audio #419 A Podcast About Podcasts! (with Paul Weimar & Bryan Alexander)
- SFF Audio #412 Rite of Passage by Alexi Panshin (with Paul Weimar, Bryan Alexander & Maissa Bessada)
- SFF Audio #404 The Call of Cthulu by HP Lovecraft (with Paul Weimar, Mr Jim Moon, Bryan Alexander & Wayne June)
- SFF Audio #396 “The Thing on the Doorstep” by HP Lovecraft (with Paul Weimar and Wayne June)
- SFF Audio #363 The Puppetmasters by Robert A Heinlein (with Paul Weimar)
- SFF Audio #356 The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester (with Paul Weimar)
- SFF Audio #250 “Scanners Live in Vain” by Cordwainer Smith (with Tamahome and J.J. Campanella)
- METHULESAH’S CHILDREN by Robert A Heinlein, read by MacLeod Andrews (Brilliance Audio)
- OZ REIMAGINED performed by Tanya Eby and Nick Podehl (Brilliance Audio)
- BREAKDOWN by Katherine Amt Hanna, read by Ralph Lister (Brilliance Audio)
- ATTEMPTING NORMAL by Marc Maron, read by Marc Maron (Random House Audio)
- WORLD UNTIL YESTERDAY by Jared Diamond, read by Jay Snyder (Penguin Audio)
- MATILDA by Roald Dahl, read by Kate Winslet (Penguin Audio)
- THE BFG by Roald Dahl, read by David Walliams (Penguin Audio)
- THE WITCHES by Roald Dahl,read by Miranda Richardson (Penguin Audio)
- BOY by Roald Dahl (autobiography) read by Dan Stevens (Penguin Audio)
Other writing/guest spots
- Interview at Phantom Owl blog
- SF Signal MindMeld: Must-Hear Audiobooks and Audio Fiction
- SF Signal MindMeld: The Best Book Openings
- #453: “The Hood Maker” (with Evan Lampe of 100 Pages at a Time podcast & Bryan Alexander)
- #451: PUTTERING ABOUT IN A SMALL LAND
- #443: UBIK
- #437: “The Turning Wheel” (with Mr Jim Moon of Hypnogoria Podcast & Mirko Stauch)
- #432: COUNTER CLOCK WORLD (with the voice of HP Lovecraft & Darkest Dungeon Wayne June!)
- #421: “We Can Build You”
- #411 THE CHROMIUM FENCE (with Maissa Bessada & Bryan Alexander))
- #406 OUR FRIENDS FROM FROLIX 8
- #402 THE MAZE OF DEATH
- #400 “Faith of Our Fathers” (with the voice of HP Lovecraft & Darkest Dungeon Wayne June!)
- #391 SECOND VARIETY
- #389 Short story: “The Zap Gun”
- #386 NICK AND THE GLIMMUNG and THE GALACTIC POT HEALER
- #380 THE THREE STIGMATA OF PALMER EDRITCH
- #378 THE PENULTIMATE TRUTH
- #371 CLANS OF THE ALPHANE MOON
- #370 THE CRACK IN SPACE
- #362 THE GAME PLAYERS OF TITAN
- #358 THE SIMULACRA
- #353 DR BLOODMONEY
- #347 THE MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE
- #346 THE MAN WHO JAPED
- #344 NOW WAIT FOR LAST YEAR
- #339 VULCAN’S HAMMER
- #330 DR FUTURITY
- #321 SOLAR LOTTERY
- #320 THE COSMIC PUPPETS
- #310 EYE IN THE SKY
- #304 TIME OUT OF JOINT
- #291 MARTAIN TIME SLIP
Plus a crossover guest appearance on The Skiffy & Fanty Show with Shaun Duke and Paul Weimar to talk BLADERUNNER 2049.
PKD audiobook reviews at SFF Audio.com
- A MAZE OF DEATH by Philip K Dick, read by Benjamin L. Darcie (Brilliance Audio)
- THE WORLD JONES MADE by Philip K Dick, read by Christopher Lane (Brilliance Audio)
- MARTAIN TIME SLIP read by Jeff Cummings (Brilliance Audio)
- PUTTERING ABOUT IN A SMALL LAND by Philip K Dick (Brilliance Audio)