Shane Jiraiya Cummings | |
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![]() Cummings in 2014 | |
Born | Sydney, Australia | 24 April 1974
Occupation | Writer editor |
Period | 2003 to present |
Genre | Horror fiction Fantasy Speculative fiction |
Literary movement | Dark fiction[1][2] |
Website | |
jiraiya |
Shane Jiraiya Cummings (born 24 April 1974) is an Australian horror and fantasy author and editor. He lives in Sydney. Cummings is best known as a short story writer. He has had more than 100 short stories published in Australia, New Zealand, North America, Europe, and Asia.[3] As of 2015, he has written 12 books and edited 10 genre fiction magazines and anthologies, including the bestselling Rage Against the Night.[4][5]
Born in Sydney, Australia as Shane Cummings, he has used "Jiraiya" as his part of his legal name since his Iga-ryu Ninjutsu and Sports Chanbara sensei Kazuo "Crando" Saito bestowed the name to him in the early 1990s when he attained his black belt in Ninjutsu.[6][7]
He lived for many years in Perth, Western Australia and Wellington, New Zealand, before returning to Sydney in 2015.[8]
Cummings graduated from Whitireia New Zealand's Creative Writing programme with a Bachelor of Applied Arts (Creative Writing) in 2014.[8]
In 2004, Cummings co-founded Australian independent publisher Brimstone Press and Shadowed Realms online magazine.[9] In 2005, Cummings founded HorrorScope: The Australian Dark Fiction Blog, a news and review blog. He has edited the fiction anthologies Rage Against the Night, Shadow Box, Black Box, Robots and Time, and Australian Dark Fantasy & Horror 2006 edition,[9][10] and the co-edited the magazines Shadowed Realms, Midnight Echo (issue 2) and Black: Australian Dark Culture.[11]
Cummings is a member of the Australian Horror Writers Association, the Horror Writers Association (US), and a graduate of the Clarion South writers workshop (2005).[12][13][14]
Cummings has won two Ditmar Awards (for HorrorScope in 2005 and 2006),[15] and in 2015, he won the Australian Shadows Award - Paul Haines Award for Long Fiction - for his novella Dreams of Destruction.[16][17] He has been nominated for more than twenty other genre awards for his writing and editing, including Spain's Premio Ignotus.[18][19][20][21][22]
In 2007, Cummings was the Convenor of the Horror judging panel in the Aurealis Awards.[23] He was a judge for the Australian Shadows Awards in 2007 and 2008. Cummings continued on with the Australian Shadows Award as Director in 2009 and 2010.[24]
Shane Jiraiya Cummings served as Vice President of the Australian Horror Writers Association from 2008 to 2010 .[25]
Cummings self-published seven e-books simultaneously in January 2011.[26]