Vince A. Liaguno is a contemporary American horror writer and editor/anthologist, feature magazine writer, and poet.

Early Life

Liaguno was born in Easton, Pennsylvania, the adopted son of Vincent Liaguno (1938-2021) and Theresa Rose (Danko) Liaguno (1945-2015). He was raised as an only child in the suburban New Jersey towns of Edison and Hillsborough, where he received a parochial school education through high school. After moving to the Long Island region of New York at age 20, he began his career in healthcare and eventually attended St. Joseph’s University in Patchogue, New York, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Healthcare Administration. He pursued licensure as a nursing home administrator and is dually licensed to practice as such in both New York and Michigan.

Liaguno recalled childhood summers spent reading under a tree in his backyard—first devouring the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mysteries before moving on to Agatha Christie as he entered adolescence. He cites Christie, Peter Straub, and Jack Ketchum as his formative literary influences..^[1][2]

Liaguno has credited his late father for the development of his love for horror, citing weekend trips to the movie theater as fostering a lifelong appreciation of the genre. He has cited a longstanding affection for the slasher film subgenre, in particular, and has frequently noted what he saw as a parallel between that genre and the coming out process for LGBTQ persons:

“I can remember sitting in a dark movie theater with my dad as a pre-teen, then teenager, feeling myself relate to the Final Girl in any number of slasher films. I could immediately empathize with Laurie Strode or Alice Hardy or Nancy Thompson—the idea of not fitting in, of somehow being abnormal for not liking many of the things that the other kids did. I related to the slasher heroine’s angst. Horror helped me recognize my own otherness and helped me build defenses around it. Audiences knew that it was only a matter of time before Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees or Freddy Krueger would come for the Final Girl. I knew, as a gay adolescent, that it was only a matter of time before someone recognized me for who I really was. Attack or hurt or harm in some variation was an eventuality. But, like the Final Girls of the slasher genre, I also knew—probably more on an intrinsic level—that there was strength in truth and confronting whatever those who hated me for what made me different lobbed at me.  Yes, the battle would be bloody—but I’d persevere and survive.”^[3]

Writing career

iaguno began his professional writing career in the early 2000’s with an article profiling the life, career, and death of 80s pop singer, Laura Branigan, for Autograph Collector Magazine in May 2005. That led to his three-year tenure at the magazine as a feature writer of more than 20 interviews and profile pieces focused on celebrities from the realms of film, television, music, and literature. His subjects included Jamie Lee Curtis, Meg Tilly, Janet Leigh, Stephen King, Julianne Moore, Isabella Rossellini, Cyndi Lauper, Teri Nunn of Berlin, Martha Davis of The Motels, Johnathan Schaech, Michael Bergin, and Marcia Cross, among others.

In 2006, Liaguno published his first novel, The Literary Six^[4], through Outskirts Press. Conceived as an homage to the slasher films of his youth, the novel went on to win an IPPY Award (Silver) in the horror category^[5] and was named a finalist in ForeWord Magazine’s 2006 Book of the Year Awards in the Gay/Lesbian Fiction category^[6]. The novel garnered the interest of Daniel Farrands, director of Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers, briefly in 2007.

In 2007, Liaguno founded and launched Dark Scribe Press, a small press whose mission included publishing works of queer horror. The press published a total of five works—including works by Lee Thomas, Christopher Conlon, and Chad Helder—before folding quietly in 2012. Concurrently, he launched Dark Scribe Magazine, a virtual magazine committed to promoting “dark genre works” of horror, suspense, and thrillers from presses of all sizes, and remains its editor-in-chief. Since its inception, Liaguno has conducted more than three dozen interviews and more than 90 book reviews.

Liaguno’s work as an anthologist began with the 2008 publication of Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet^[7], an anthology of queer horror fiction co-edited with Chad Helder. The collection, which featured original short stories by Lee Thomas, Jameson Currier, Sarah Langan, and Kealan Patrick Burke, and 14 other contributors, won the Bram Stoker Award® for Superior Achievement in an Anthology^[8] at the 2009 Bram Stoker Awards banquet in Burbank, California. Liaguno and Helder were both on hand to receive the award. Liaguno went on to edit Butcher Knives & Body Counts: Essays on the Formula^[9], Frights and Fun of the Slasher Film (Dark Scribe Press, 2011); Unspeakable Horror 2: Abominations of Desire (Evil Jester Press, 2017)^[10], and Other Terrors: An Inclusive Anthology (William Morrow Paperbacks, 2022) with Rena Mason^[11]. The latter received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly^[12], Kirkus^[13], and Booklist^[14] and was named a finalist in the 2022 Shirley Jackson Awards in the Edited Anthology category^[15]. In June of 2023, a third volume in the Unspeakable Horror series—this one subtitled Dark Rainbow Rising—was published by Crystal Lake Publishing.^[16]

Liaguno’s work also includes short story and poetry contributions to anthologies and genre publications, as well as non-fiction essays and interviews for Lambda Literary Review, Horror Homeroom, Ginger Nuts of Horror, and several anthologies^[17]

He is a member—and former Secretary and member of the Board of Trustees—of the Horror Writers Association (HWA), International Thriller Writers (ITW), and the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC). In 2009, Liaguno was awarded The Richard Laymon President’s Award^[18], which is presented annually by the HWA to “a volunteer who has served HWA in an especially exemplary manner and has shown extraordinary dedication to the organization.”^[19]