W.D. Gagliani is the author of the horror/crime thriller WOLF'S TRAP (reissued by Samhain Publishing in 2012), a past Bram Stoker Award nominee, as well as WOLF'S EDGE, and the upcoming WOLF'S CUT. The novella WOLF'S DEAL will be along in early 2013. See his website for other books in the Nick Lupo series of "North Woods Noirs."

Gagliani is also the author of many short stories published in various anthologies in the horror, dark fantasy, and thriller/crime fields. See the websites for a complete bibliography.

He has written book reviews, articles, and interviews that have been published (since 1986) in places such as THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, CHIZINE, CEMETERY DANCE, HORRORWORLD, PAPERBACK PARADE, CINEMA RETRO, HELLNOTES, FLESH & BLOOD, BOOKPAGE, BOOKLOVERS, THE SCREAM FACTORY, HORROR MAGAZINE, SF CHRONICLE, BARE BONES, and others. He has had nonfiction and craft articles published in several high-profile books, and in October 2011 THE WRITER magazine published his article on writing (what else?) werewolf epics.

His interests include old and new progressive rock, synthesizers, weapons, history (and alternate history, secret history, and steampunk), military history, movies, book reviewing, and plain old reading and writing. He is an Active member of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), the International Thriller Writers (ITW), and the Authors Guild. He lives and writes in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Find him on Facebook and Twitter.

The Right Music May Inspire…

By W.D. Gagliani On May 23 2013, 9:21 am

Writing the fifth Nick Lupo thriller (Wolf’s Cut) found me strangely in need of a certain kind of music. Of course, everyone who’s read a Lupo books knows my musical interests because, well, they’re Lupo’s too. Lupo prefers his rock progressive because I do. Sometimes you can assume that traits exhibited by a character are shared by his or her creator. Though you wouldn’t want to make a habit of it – after all, Thomas Harris probably isn’t a serial killer… but I bet he likes a good Chianti.

But for some reason much of my collection just didn’t feel right while I was working on extended portions of the novel. I went back to writing in silence, or whatever was playing on the loop at my Starbucks office. However, I missed music to write by. I started listening to my stand-bys again, the various Genesis-related offerings, the Alan Parsons Project, the Yes, Muse, neo-prog stuff such as Spock’s Beard, Marillion, Transatlantic, and so on. I loved all the music, but it didn’t seem right. I flailed about, looking for music that would inspire me somehow.

Read more…

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By W.D. Gagliani On Apr 9 2013, 8:28 am

Whenever I read a novel or see a movie that features a tragic hero, part of me jumps right to a certain critical mindset. The word cliché enters into my brain and takes up residence back there, where it can heckle and make a nuisance of itself with spitballs and fake coughing. And I try [...]

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By W.D. Gagliani On Feb 7 2013, 3:34 pm

I’m not one of those writers who can start writing the moment their fingers hit the keys, not stopping until the session is over, filling up real estate on the scrolling screen like an old Teletype machine spitting out wire news. I’m not one of those writers who plot the entire novel down to the [...]

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By W.D. Gagliani On Dec 20 2012, 3:43 pm

In the Dark Ages, hundreds of people were tried and executed for committing the crime of lycanthropy. Unfortunately, the accused were probably either mentally ill, sufferers of porphyria, rabies, or other diseases, or just victims of simple neighborly revenge for slights real and imagined. It was difficult to prove you weren’t a werewolf if you [...]

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By W.D. Gagliani On Nov 1 2012, 8:00 am

A Musical Halloween My Seasonal Listening Notes by W.D. Gagliani (Author of Wolf’s Trap and Wolf’s Edge) I was never a great Halloween participator, for reasons I’ll leave to my autobiography, but I’ve always been an avid “experiencer” – for lack of a better term – as well as observer. Writers usually make good observers, [...]

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