VI: Short Bio

Shelly Blake-Plock is a writer. A preoccupation with what characters do (and what compels them to do it) animates both his fiction, which runs toward literary horror, and his applied research into the intersection of human experience and machine-readability. Both have an uncanny quality on the page.

His early work was known for blurring verse and prose and resisting linear narrative. His quinquagenarian output has grown more grounded in storytelling and character dynamics, typically taking the form of ensemble-driven horror in which friends, communities, and occasional figures of mythic resonance find themselves in over their heads.

His poetry has appeared in The Dudley Review, Windless Orchard, and The Wisconsin Review, and he served as an editor of the multilingual poetry review Annetna Nepo. He has published experimental libretti for improvised music (Umlaut Records / Fall Records) and continues to write on data architecture. He lives in Maryland.