A short life of the author
Gemma Files (b. 11 September 1968) was born in London, England, and raised in Toronto. She studied film at Ryerson University and has taught screenwriting and Canadian film history.
Life and Career
Files began as a short story writer, winning the International Horror Guild Award for Best Short Fiction. Her story collection Kissing Carrion (2003) established her as a distinctive voice in horror.
The Hexslinger trilogy — A Book of Tongues (2010), A Rope of Thorns (2011), A Tree of Bones (2012) — follows two former Confederate soldiers, the sorcerer Asher Rook and the gunslinger Chess Pargeter, through a queer love story that summons Aztec gods and threatens to tear reality apart. The series is a genre-defying hybrid of weird western, cosmic horror, and dark romance.
Experimental Film (2015) — about a film journalist who discovers a mysterious early silent film connected to Slavic mythology — won the Shirley Jackson Award.
Major Works and Themes
Files writes about queerness, religion, mythology, and cosmic horror. Her work is intellectually dense, formally ambitious, and emotionally uncompromising.
Key Works
- A Book of Tongues (2010)
- Experimental Film (2015) — Shirley Jackson Award
Collecting Files
ChiZine Publications editions bring $20–$40. Files signs at Canadian horror and genre conventions.