Douglas Lain

Last Login 05/21/12

• Portland, OR
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Douglas Lain is the author of dozens of short stories and two novels. His work has regularly appeared in nationally distributed literary magazines and journals such as Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet and Amazing Stories since 1999, and his first book “Last Week’s Apocalypse” was a collection of these stories published by Night Shade Books. His first novel, entitled “Billy Moon: 1968,” tells the story of Christopher Robin Milne’s fictional involvement with the French general strike in May of 1968, and is due out from Tor Books in 2011. His second novel, entitled “the Brainwash Brand,” is currently under option at Tor.

Since 1991 Lain has been involved with various activist and liberatory projects. He is a member of the radical nonprofit Education Without Borders, a former participant in the Portland Peaceful Response Coalition that formed after the attacks of September 11th, 2001, and an organizer of protests against the Patriot Act and against the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. He has also been an organizer of events and fundraisers for literary and political organizations such as Books not Bombs and Veterans for Peace. His overtly political writings have been featured in ‘zines and journals such as Magnitizdat (a journal of illegal writing), the Portland Alliance, and Flytrap.

Lain is also the editor of the ‘zine “Diet Soap,” which Stephanie Holmes of the Xerography Debt described as “the equivalent of reading the well-written diary of the paranoid neurotic you have a raging crush on.” Lain is also the host of a weekly podcast with the same title as his ‘zine. On its 46th episode the Diet Soap podcast typically has well over a thousand listeners every week, and has featured conversations with Penelope Rosemont of the Chicago Surrealist group, the journalist David Lindorf, the novelist Geoff Nicholson, the anarchist philosopher Takis Fotopoulos, and many others. Douglas is also a frequent guest on a variety of other podcasts including the C-Realm, the Next Step, Frank Aragona’s Agroinnovations podcast, and others.

Lain’s metafictional and autobiographical short story “A Coffee Cup/Alien Invasion Story” was reprinted in Richard Horton’s Science Fiction Best of the Year anthology in 2006, and Lain was nominated for the Elliot Fintushel Short Story Award in 2003 and 2004, but lost to Elliot Fintushel both times. He has also been nominated or shortlisted for the Nebula, the Fountain Award, the Locus Award, and strangely enough the MTV Music Video award for best choreography.