Home > A Brief History of Cemetery Dance

It all starts in the Summer of 1988.

Richard Chizmar, in his final year at the University of Maryland's College of Journalism, sits down one afternoon and composes a page of "Writer's Guidelines" for his new horror magazine, Cemetery Dance. Chizmar is a long-time fan of the genre and is looking to publish a modest, underground magazine -- no more than twice a year -- featuring the type of dark fiction he personally favors...horror blended with a strong dose of mystery and suspense and wonder. The kind you used to see on television on The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, the kind you could find deep in most bookstore's Horror sections, but usually far, far away from the Bestseller Lists...

Named after one of Chizmar's own published short stories, Cemetery Dance quickly makes a name for itself in the horror field. Even before the first issue is published, in fact. "We were pretty serious from the very beginning," Chizmar comments. "We did a lot of advance advertising and publicity, in magazines like Twilight Zone and The Horror Show, a lot of horror-related newsletters, and practically anywhere else we could afford an ad. And it really paid off; by the time the first issue was published, people knew exactly what Cemetery Dance was."

The Premiere Issue hits the stands in December 1988. A haunting, black-and-white cover drawn by Chizmar's college roommate, forty-eight poorly-designed pages of horror and suspense. But it's a nice mix -- short stories, interviews, news, reviews. Familiar names like Bentley Little, David Silva, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Barry Hoffman. 1,000 copies printed and about half sold. It's not a bad start. A nice hobby, Chizmar thinks...

Six months later, Issue #2 hits the stands. Another black-and-white cover. 60 pages this time. Packed with plenty of good horror. The reviews are good. A few more copies are printed of this issue and a handful sell to the comics distributors.

Then it's December 1989 and Issue #3 arrives with a two-color cover and contributions from some of the more popular authors in the genre -- Richard Christian Matheson, David Schow, and Ray Garton. The interior page design is sharper now, cleaner, produced on a high-quality laser printer. And something else... Cemetery Dance is slowly but surely developing an audience... a genuine readership. People are liking what they see and asking for more...

So, beginning with issue #4, Chizmar announces a more ambitious publication schedule -- four issues per year now. He figures: why not? He's recently graduated from college and has turned his full-time attention to the magazine and his own fiction writing. So, he thinks, this is a good time to try this. Plus the two best magazines in the genre -- Twilight Zone and The Horror Show -- have recently closed shop, leaving a gaping hole in the reading diets of most horror addicts.

By issue #5, Cemetery Dance is operating at near full speed. Slick, full-color covers, each issue at least 100 pages, paid advertising, distribution into the bookstore chains as well as the comic shops. And better content all the time. More and more people are paying attention to the magazine...

Within a few more issues, the circulation is closing in on 10,000 copies.

Each issue now features a cross-section of fiction, articles, interviews, news and reviews.

A short time later, Stephen King sends in an original, never-before-published short story entitled "Chattery Teeth". Says he would love to see it in the pages of Cemetery Dance! The story appears in issue #14 and even more new readers discover the magazine.

The years pass. New issues keep coming... And coming... And the rest is history...

So what about all the books? Where did they come from?

Well, from the same place Cemetery Dance magazine did, of course...

The book imprint makes an auspicious debut in 1992 -- around the time of Cemetery Dance issue #12 -- with the publication of an amazing short story collection entitled Prisoners and Other Stories by long-time Cemetery Dance favorite Ed Gorman. The collection (much like the magazine) features all types of dark fiction -- crime, suspense, mystery, horror. It's all there. Prisoners also features a great Afterword by Dean Koontz, and receives wonderful reviews. And, even better, it sells...

"The book imprint came about for pretty much the same reason the magazine did four years earlier," Chizmar explains. "I saw an opportunity to put some of my favorite authors in hardcover and the temptation was too much to resist. I didn't know much at all about specialty book publishing at the time, but I knew some of the folks who were doing it and asked a lot of questions and did my homework. Plus I knew we had an active readership thru the magazine, an audience who was hungry for more quality work. Cemetery Dance, the magazine, was a built-in customer base for us and a huge advantage. These folks already knew us and trusted us -- and they supported us from the very beginning."

During the first couple years, Cemetery Dance publishes two to three hardcovers a year. They start slow... just like they did with the magazine. They're learning the distribution system, marketing strategy, which authors will sell to which markets, how to actually design the type of books they want to publish. "Trust me, it was a lot of work. The book business couldn't be any more different than the magazine industry. We were really flying by the seat of our pants," Chizmar adds.

As the first few years pass, they gain more experience and also more confidence. Soon they're publishing an average of a half-dozen hardcover titles annually. They eventually hire a firm to design their dust jackets, they start receiving reviews and notices in the larger trade publications such as Publishers Weekly and Booklist, selling to the library markets. And more and more book collectors are searching for each new title from Cemetery Dance.

Shortly after, best-selling author Dean Koontz puts them on the specialty publishing map, asking them to produce a limited edition of his short story collection, Strange Highways. The book is a major success, and is the first of four Koontz limited editions to be published by Cemetery Dance over the years.

Before you know it, Cemetery Dance has published more than two dozen hardcover titles. They have a backlist! All types of fiction, of course. From all types of writers. One year they publish a book from a best-selling author, and the next year, a first novel from a new but talented writer. Both books sell out almost instantly.

It isn't very long before Cemetery Dance Publications is publishing more than 10 titles per year.

Their list of authors is a "Who's-Who" of the genre -- Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, and dozens of others.

Print runs increase.

Some folks in the industry don't even consider them a specialty press anymore.

The years pass...and before you know it there are well over 100 hardcover titles from the Cemetery Dance imprint...

With hundreds more to come!