Joe R. Lansdale is the author of fifty novels and more than three hundred short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites.
His work has been collected in at least thirty short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies.
Lansdale has received the Edgar Award, eleven Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others.
His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film his ownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television.
He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, and The Drive-In.
He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame.
Lansdale began donating his literary papers to the Southwestern Writers Collection/The Wittliff Collections in 1992. This extensive collection houses numerous large boxes of material, along with many rare books and other publications.
He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog and cats.