Gary Braver

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Gary Braver is the pen name of Gary Goshgarian, a science fiction and thriller novelist and professor of English Literature at Northeastern University, Boston.

Contents 1 As an Author 2 As a Teacher 3 References 4 External links

[edit] As an Author

Braver is the editor of the short fiction anthology Horrorscape (1993), as well as the author of six novels, including Atlantis Fire (1980), Rough Beast (1995), and The Stone Circle (1997), all published under his real name, and Elixir (2000), Gray Matter (2004), and Flashback (2005), all published under his nom de plume. Flashback won the 2006 Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction Honors from the Massachusetts Center for the Book.^[1]

Braver's next novel, Skin Deep, will be released in 2008.^[2] His previous work has dealt with subject matter as diverse as cutting-edge biotechnology, a la Michael Crichton, and the dark and sometimes sinister history of the Massachusetts and New England areas, a la H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King.

[edit] As a Teacher

To his students, Gary Braver is known as Gary Goshgarian, and has a reputation as an affable and wryly humorous teacher with an encyclopedic knowledge of science fiction, horror fiction, and other popular fictional genres. His dedication to these genres sets him in contrast to those teachers, more prevalent in universities today, who tend to advance an appreciation of high-minded literary fiction to the exclusion and even denigration of other kinds of texts.

• At the beginning of a semester to a course in Science Fiction Literature he came to class and said: "This is the class for Medieval Romanian Church History, right?" And when a student arrived late to the first class of semester for a course in Horror Fiction, he said: "You're here for Advanced Astrophysics 101, right?"

• When giving the synopsis of a book where the main character wakes up after sleeping for one hundred years, he added as an aside: "Boy, I sure hope he brushed his teeth!"

• When discussing an historical figure whose testicles had been eaten by pigs, he left the class in stitches after he quipped, "It gives new meaning to the phrase 'hog wild.'"

• When talking about assisted suicide: "What is euthanasia, besides Chinese children of course?"

[edit] References

1. ^ 2006 Massachusetts Book Award list of winners.
2. ^ Braver, Gary. Official Site: 2007.

[edit] External links

• Official Site at www.garybraver.com.
• Faculty Profile at Northeastern University website.
• Reading and Discussion Guide for Flashback produced by the Massachusetts Centre for the Book.
• Review of Flashback by Robert O'Hara at the Book Reporter website.
• Review of Gray Matter by Robert O'Hara at the Book Reporter website.
• Excerpt from Gray Matter in the journal Transformations.
• Interview and biography by Joan Killough-Miller in the journal Transformations.
• Interview regarding Gray Matter at the Book Reporter website.
• Interview regarding Elixir, formerly at the website of the zine Wigglefish. The zine is now defunct, but the interview has been archived at Braver's official site.