James Arthur Anderson, PhD

James Arthur Anderson was born in Providence in 1955, and became acquainted with the work of H.P. Lovecraft in the 1970’s through the mass-market paperback editions. Originally a biology major, his interest in science fiction and horror led him to peruse and receive both a B.A. and an M.A. in English from Rhode Island College, and then a Ph.D. at the University of Rhode Island.  His dissertation, Out of the Shadows: A Structuralist Approach to Understanding the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, was only the second doctoral dissertation written about the gentleman from Providence.

Dr. Anderson is currently Professor of English at Johnson & Wales University’s North Miami Campus–he has been employed by the university since 1984 and transferred to sunny Florida in the year 2000.  During this time he has taught writing, literature, and science fiction.

A prolific author, Dr. Anderson has published critical studies of H.P. Lovecraft and other horror writers in Lovecraft Studies, Crypt of Cthulhu, Studies in Weird Fiction, Lovecraft: A Century Less a Dream, and others, and has written more general articles about horror for Fangoria, Gorezone, The Providence Journal, and  Connecticut Magazine.  He has made presentations on Lovecraft and horror at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, NecrinomiCon, and the Reading Stephen King Conference at the University of Maine.

Dr. Anderson has also published original “Lovecraftian” and horror/fantasy fiction in Eldrich Tales, Weird Tales 4, Swords Against Darkness V, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and The Tsathoggua Cycle: Fourteen Terror Tales of the Toad God, a Chaosium book edited by Robert M. Price. He is currently a practicing poet, and has published his non-horror poetry in a number of academic journals, including Aries (Texas Wesleyan University), Gulf Stream Magazine (Florida International University), The Chaffin Journal (Eastern Kentucky University), and Willard & Maple (Champlain College), to name just a few.  Most recently, he won second prize in Writer’s Digest’s annual poetry writing competition.

Dr. Anderson lives in south Florida with his wife Lynn, three spoiled cats, and two very spoiled horses.