Graham Joyce

British writer

Graham William Joyce (22 October 1954 – 9 September 2014) was a British writer of speculative fiction and the recipient of numerous awards, including the O. Henry Award and the World Fantasy Award, for both his novels and short stories.

He grew up in a small mining village just outside Coventry to a working class family. After receiving a BEd degree from Bishop Lonsdale College in 1977 (now University of Derby) and an M. A. degree from the University of Leicester in 1980, Joyce worked as a youth officer for the National Association of Youth Clubs until 1988. He subsequently quit his position and moved to the Greek islands of Lesbos and Crete to write his first novel, Dreamside. After selling Dreamside to Pan Books in 1991, Joyce moved back to England to pursue a career as a full time writer. He was awarded a PhD degree by publication at Nottingham Trent University, where he taught creative writing from 1996 until his death and was made a reader in creative writing. Graham Joyce lived in Leicester with his wife and their two children. Joyce was the regular first choice goalkeeper for the England Writers football team, appearing in international fixtures against Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Israel, Hungary, Turkey and Austrian Writers teams. He described his footballing experiences in his non fiction book Simple Goalkeeping Made Spectacular. He was a supporter of Coventry City FC and occasionally wrote pieces for fanzines. Joyce died on 9 September 2014. He had been diagnosed with lymphoma in 2013. Joyce's reaction to his cancer was to publish several essays on the "shocking clarity" the news had brought him on the subject of death. He said "your life is suddenly propelled along a remorseless narrative that has the structure of all great mythical journeys".

The short film Black Dust was released in 2012, produced by James Laws of Pretzel Films, scripted by Joyce and Laws. Currently, there are no feature length films based on Joyce's novels or shorts. However, the film rights to Dreamside, The Tooth Fairy, and Dark Sister have all been optioned, as have Do the Creepy Thing, The Silent Land and Some Kind of Fairy Tale.

Joyce co wrote song lyrics for French songwriter and composer Emilie Simon on her albums The Big Machine (2009) and Franky Knight (2011).

On 16 January 2009, the site Computer and Video Games reported that Graham Joyce had been hired by id Software to "help develop the storyline potential" of Doom 4; after Joyce died in 2014, Adam Gascoine was brought in as a replacement.

Adam Roberts stated "Graham Joyce's The Year of the Ladybird showed that he is one of the best writers of ghost stories we have."