JONATHAN MABERRY is a New York Times best-seller and Audible #1 bestseller, 5-time Bram Stoker Award-winner, 4-time Scribe Award-winner, Inkpot winner, anthology editor, comic book writer, executive producer, magazine feature writer, playwright, and writing teacher/lecturer. He is the editor of WEIRD TALES Magazine and president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers. He was named one of the Today’s Top Ten Horror Writers. His books have been sold to more than thirty countries. He writes in several genres including thriller, horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, and mystery; and he writes for adults, middle grade, and young adult.
Jonathan is the creator, editor and co-author of V-WARS, a shared-world vampire anthology from IDW Publishing that was adapted into a NETFLIX series starring Ian Somerhalder (LOST, VAMPIRE DIARIES).
His young adult fiction includes ROT & RUIN (2011; was named in Booklist’s Ten Best Horror Novels for Young Adults, an American Library Association Top Pick, a Bram Stoker and Pennsylvania Keystone to Reading winner; winner of several state Teen Book Awards including the Cricket, Nutmeg and MASL; winner of the Cybils Award, the Eva Perry Mock Printz medal, Dead Letter Best Novel Award, and four Melinda Awards); DUST & DECAY (winner of the 2011 Bram Stoker Award; FLESH & BONE (winner of the Bram Stoker Award; 2012; and FIRE & ASH (August 2013). BROKEN LANDS, the first of a new spin-off series, debuted in 2018 and was followed by LOST ROADS in fall 2020.
ROT & RUIN is in development for film by ALCON ENTERTAINMENT and was adapted as a WEBTOON (a serialized comic formatted for cell phones), becoming their #1 horror comic.
His novels include the enormously popular Joe Ledger series from St. Martin’s Griffin. The series launched with PATIENT ZERO (2009), and continues on, with (so far) twelve other novels, two anthologies and five short story collections, and more on the way.
Jonathan’s middle grade novel, THE NIGHTSIDERS BOOK 1: THE ORPHAN ARMY (Simon & Schuster) was named one the 100 Best Books for Children 2015.
His standalone novels include MARS ONE, GLIMPSE, INK, GHOSTWALKERS (based on the DEADLANDS role-playing game), X-FILES ORIGINS: DEVIL’S ADVOCATE, and THE WOLFMAN –winner of the Scribe Award for Best Movie Adaptation
His horror novels include The Pine Deep Trilogy from Pinnacle Books (GHOST ROAD BLUES, 2006, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and named one of the 25 Best Horror Novels of the New Millennium; DEAD MAN’S SONG, 2007; and BAD MOON RISING, 2008; as well as DEAD OF NIGHT, and its sequels, FALL OF NIGHT, DARK OF NIGHT, and STILL OF NIGHT.
His epic fantasy trilogy, KAGEN THE DAMNED debuted in 2022, with endorsements by Michael Moorcock, James Rollins, Kevin J. Anderson, Robin Hobb, Seanan McGuire and other bestsellers. The series continued with SON OF THE POISON ROSE and will conclude with THE DRAGON IN WINTER in summer 2024.
Jonathan is co-author (with Weston Ochse) for THE SLEEPERS WAR: ALPHA WAVE novel, a new series of military science fiction novels that launched in late 2023. Since Ochse’s passing in late 2023, Maberry will continue the series alone.
In May 2024, Jonathan will also be launching a new series of science fiction horror novels, NECROTEK, for the newly established Weird Tales Presents imprint of Blackstone Publishing. That book will be the first work published by the imprint.
He is also the editor of many anthologies, including three THE X-FILES anthologies; the dark fantasy anthology series, OUT OF TUNE Vols I and II; SCARY OUT THERE, an anthology of horror for teens; and the anthologies ALIENS: BUG HUNT, NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD (with George Romero), JOE LEDGER UNSTOPPABLE (with Bryan Thomas Schmidt); two volumes of mysteries: ALTERNATE SHERLOCKS and THE GAME’S AFOOT (with Michael Ventrella); and ALIENS V PREDATOR: ULTIMATE PREY (with Bryan Thomas Schmidt); as well as the upcoming THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNCANNY: Tales of a Very Weird Wes, JOE LEDGER: UNBREAKABLE, DOUBLE TROUBLE (with Keith R.A. DeCandido), and WEIRD TALES: 100 YEARS OF WEIRD. His middle-grade anthology DON’T TURN OUT THE LIGHTS, the official tribute to SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK (winner of the of the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection Award).
Jonathan was an expert on the History Channel documentary series, ZOMBIES: A Living History and TRUE MONSTERS. And he was participated in the commentary track for NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: REANIMATED.
His many nonfiction works include VAMPIRE UNIVERSE (Citadel Press, 2006); THE CRYPTOPEDIA (Citadel, 2007 –winner of the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in Nonfiction; co-authored by David F. Kramer); ZOMBIE CSU: The Forensics of the Living Dead (Winner of the Hinzman and Black Quill Awards and finalist for a Stoker Award; 2008); THEY BITE! (2009 co-authored by David F. Kramer); WANTED UNDEAD OR ALIVE (2010; Bram Stoker finalist; co-authored by Janice Gable Bashman); THE VAMPIRE SLAYERS FIELD GUIDE TO THE UNDEAD (2001, written under the pen name of Shane MacDougall); ULTIMATE JUJUTSU (Strider Nolan, 2001); ULTIMATE SPARRING (Strider Nolan, 2000); JUDO AND YOU (Kendall Hunt 1991); and many others.
He writes a variety of projects for various top comic book companies. His work for Marvel Comics included CAPTAIN AMERICA: HAIL HYDRA, BLACK PANTHER: POWER (which formed many plot elements for the 2022 movie BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER), DOOMWAR, WOLVERINE: FLIES TO A SPIDER, PUNISHER: NAKED KILLS, the NY Times bestselling MARVEL ZOMBIES RETURN; as well as his own franchise within Marvel –MARVEL UNIVERSE vs THE PUNISHER, MARVEL UNIVERSE vs WOLVERINE and MARVEL UNIVERSE vs THE AVENGERS. Other comics include the vampire miniseries BAD BLOOD for Dark Horse, which won the Bram Stoker Award for Best Graphic Novel in 2015; V-WARS and ROT & RUIN for IDW based on his bestselling novels; GODZILLA VS CTHULHU, ROAD OF THE DEAD: HIGHWAY TO HELL, a prequel to the last zombie movie script by George A. Romero, writer/director of NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD; and PANDEMICA, a bioterrorism thriller about ethnic genocide. He’s contributed shorter comic scripts to KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER; EVIL JESTER COMICS; and GRAVE CONDITIONS. Jonathan is now working on a graphic novel for Crystal Lake based on his Joe Ledger character.
Jonathan is a prolific short story writer and has sold more than 150 stories in a variety of genres including horror, thriller, dark fantasy, epic fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction, mystery, and western. A number of those stories were licensed media tie-in works set int the worlds of The Wizard of Oz, Aliens, Predator, True Blood/Sookie Stackhouse, Hellboy, John Carter of Mars, Sherlock Holmes, Diable IV, Planet of the Apes, and others.
Prior to becoming a novelist, Jonathan sold more than 1,200 feature articles and 3,000 columns; as well as greeting cards, college textbooks, song lyrics, poetry, technical manuals, and two plays: Tales from the Fire Zone and Boundary Street.
Jonathan is a lifelong martial arts practitioner and holds an 8th degree black belt in jujutsu. In 2004 he was inducted into the Action Karate International Martial Arts Hall of Fame and a year later was inducted into the World Head of Family Sokeship Council International Hall of Fame. He worked as a bodyguard in the entertainment industry, a bouncer, and an Expert Witness for the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office for murder cases involving martial arts. He taught Martial Arts History, Women’s Self-Defense, and Jujutsu for more than a decade at Temple University. He retired from teaching martial arts in 2012.
In the early 2000s, Jonathan was executive director of the Writers Room of Bucks County and later The Writers Corner in Doylestown, PA. In 2000, Jonathan created the Writers Coffeehouse, a free three-hour open-agenda networking and discussion session for writers of all genres and levels of skill in multiple locations around the country each month. Jonathan has opened Writers Coffeehouses in Willow Grove, PA, Philadelphia, Asheville, NC, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, and elsewhere. During Covid he switched to holding these online and he hosts this on the first Sunday of every month, though is now back to doing these events live.
In February 2016, the Canyon Crest Academy Writers Conference, the first free teen writers con in the country, named an award named after him and became the first recipient of The Jonathan Maberry Inspiring Teens Award. Each year that award is given to a writer or teacher whose work with teens is exceptional.
Jonathan and his wife, Sara Jo, to whom he dedicates all of his published works, and their dog, Rosie, live in San Diego, California.
Visit his website/blog and sign up for his free newsletter at www.jonathanmaberry.com
www.facebook.com/jonathanmaberry, @jonathanmaberry (on Instagram, Threads and X). He can also be found on LinkedIn.