Melanie Tem

{{short description|American novelist}} {{Infobox person | name = Melanie Tem | birth_name = Melanie Kubachko | birth_date = {{birth date|1949|4|11}} | death_date = {{death date and age|2015|2|9|1949|4|11}} | image = File:Steve Rasnic Tem and wife Melanie, 1992.jpg | caption = Tem and her husband Steve in 1992 | education = Allegheny College (BA)<br>University of Denver (MSW) | spouse = Steve Rasnic Tem | children = 4 | occupation = Author, social worker }}

'''Melanie Tem''' (née '''Kubachko'''; April 11, 1949 – February 9, 2015) was an American horror and dark fantasy author, and social worker.

== Early life and education == Melanie Kubachko grew up in Saegertown, Pennsylvania. She attended Allegheny College as an undergraduate, and earned her master's in social work at the University of Denver in Colorado.<ref>{{Cite web |last=admin |date=2015-02-09 |title=Melanie Tem (1949-2015) |url=https://locusmag.com/2015/02/melanie-tem-1949-2015/ |access-date=2023-01-14 |website=Locus Online |language=en-US}}</ref>

== Career ==

Tem also mentored students through critiquing and private workshops.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://odysseyworkshop.wordpress.com/tag/melanie-tem/ | title=Melanie tem – Odyssey Workshop| date=10 May 2015}}</ref> When Tem wasn't writing, she worked as a social worker and administrator with the elderly, disabled, and children.<ref name="auto3">{{Cite web |title=Melanie Tem Interview |url=http://www.m-s-tem.com/tems/blog1.php/melanie-tem-interview |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221043407/http://www.m-s-tem.com/tems/blog1.php/melanie-tem-interview |archive-date=2018-12-21 |access-date=2017-11-14}}</ref>

Melanie and her husband have collaborated on several novels such as ''Daughters'' (2001), and ''The Man on the Ceiling'' (2008). On collaborating with her husband, Melanie stated, “Steve and I have been each other’s first editor for more than thirty-four years now. Nothing leaves the house until the other has read and commented on it”.<ref name="auto3"/>

=== Inspiration === Tem has been featured in numerous essays and anthologies.<ref name="auto3" /><ref>{{Cite journal | doi=10.1111/j.1540-5931.2008.00492.x|title = The Decline of the Literary Horror Market in the 1990s and Dell's Abyss Series| journal=The Journal of Popular Culture| volume=41| pages=56–70|year = 2008|last1 = Hantke|first1 = Steffen}}</ref> Tem said that she prefers the term "dark fantasy" instead of being described as a horror author because she wants to disturb people, not scare them.<ref name="auto3" /> Tem also has a theme of transformation in her writings. In a 1993 interview with Cemetery Dance Publications, Tem elaborated on this stating “one of the things that interests me is how dark, disturbing experiences in our lives can transform us for the better, how we can come through those things . . . I like the idea of how we confront things”.<ref name="auto3" /> Tem often used traditional horror and supernatural motifs to express psychological truth (i.e. using a werewolf to symbolize anger).<ref name="auto3" /> Tem found inspiration working as a social worker and has explained how it has impacted her writing.<ref name="auto3" /> When connecting her writing and social work, Tem said, “I went into social work probably for one of the same reasons why I write. And that is, again, to try to understand somebody whose life experience I don't have. Another is that social work brings one into contact with all kinds of stories that can be told. I have never written whole cloth about a particular client, but very often I will come into contact with someone, and something in my mind will say, "'There's a story in that'".<ref name="auto3" />

The grieving process following the passing of her son inspired Melanie Tem’s short story, ''Lightning Rod''.<ref name="auto3"/> Tem described the writing process for ''Lightning Rod'' as therapeutic and how she felt the responsibility to protect her family from “feeling the pain”.<ref name="auto3"/>

=== Oral storytelling === In addition to her short stories and novels, Tem also performed oral storytelling.<ref name="auto2">{{Cite web | url=http://www.m-s-tem.com/tems/blog1.php/home | title=Recent News}}</ref> Tem began her storytelling with a small memory then improvised the remainder of the story.<ref name="auto2" />

In one of her stories, ''Come Live with Me'', Tem tells the story of her relationship with her father growing up and into her adult life. As a child, she describes her father as a “guarded man” and “distant”.<ref name="auto">{{Cite web | url=https://m-s-tem.bandcamp.com/releases | title=Four Stories by Melanie Tem, by Melanie Tem}}</ref> In her story, Tem explains how her father would correct her voice, pronunciation, and speaking, and as a child. Tem then moves into the end of her father's life where he begins to lose his memory. Tem and her father would use poetry to bond. Her father would repeat the line, “Come live with me and be my love,” referencing Christopher Marlowe’s poem, the Passionate Shepherd to His Love. In addition to her father’s memory loss, his speech begins to fail. Tem finds herself having to correct her father’s pronunciation, just as he did to her as a child.

Melanie Tem’s oral story ''Cousins'' tells the story of the competitive nature that her and her cousin, Claudette, encountered with each other while growing up. Tem and Claudette’s tensions first started when Claudette claims that Tem’s mother “stole her name” from her family and often teased Melanie growing up.<ref name="auto" /> Tem describes a photo of the two as children coloring with both of their tongues sticking out indicating their concentration, which Tem referred to as a “family trait”.<ref name="auto" /> Tem continues with a story of a road trip to Quebec, Canada where they talk about their family history that they cannot agree on. On this trip, Melanie and Claudette run into a bachelor's party where Tem loses Claudette and doesn't find her until late at night back at their hotel. Claudette explains that she ran into a street artist, despite Melanie not remembering any street artists in the area. The street artist inspires Claudette to become an artist and Melanie visits her at an art festival years later. Tem recalls an awkward conversation between her and Claudette asking her why she always made fun of her as a child. She ends the story quoting her cousin saying, “I wasn’t making fun of you. I wanted to be you…you're my hero”.<ref name="auto" />

=== "Dhost" (2007) === The short story "Dhost" exemplifies Tem's identification as a dark fantasy writer instead of horror. Tem got the inspiration for the title from the idea of a child mispronouncing the word “ghost”.<ref>{{Cite web | url=http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-melanie-tem/ | title=Author Spotlight: Melanie Tem| date=2013-11-20}}</ref>

== Reception == Well-known horror author, Stephen King, described her work as “spectacular, far better than anything by new writers in the hardcover field”.<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web | url=https://www.fantasticfiction.com/t/melanie-tem/ | title=Melanie Tem}}</ref> On Tem's novel ''Prodigal''(1991), Dan Simmons applauded it saying, “Melanie Tem may be the literary successor to Shirley Jackson”.<ref name="auto1"/> Edward Bryant described ''Prodigal'' as being written “surely and precisely” and compared it to Stephen King's ''Pet Sematary'' but she "digs even deeper into the disturbing, layered, complex, collective psyche of a family in deep trouble”.<ref name="auto1"/> "Dhost"(2007) has been praised because ” small twists of this short story can trace a parallel to distant parent figures, to the loss of self in search and yearn for another. It is penned to be as bittersweet as it is eerie”.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/32715262-dhost | title=At Ease with the Dead}}</ref>

== Personal life == Tem met her husband, Steve Rasnic, at a writer's workshop and they were married for 35 years they had 4 children .<ref>{{Cite web |date=2015-02-09 |title=Melanie Tem (1949-2015) |url=http://locusmag.com/2015/02/melanie-tem-1949-2015/}}</ref><ref name="auto3" /> She developed breast cancer in 1997. In 2013, it recurred, and metastasized to her bones, bone marrow, and organs. She died at age 65 on February 9, 2015.<ref>{{cite news |date=February 9, 2015 |title=Melanie Tem (1949–2015) |publisher=locusmag.com |url=http://www.locusmag.com/News/2015/02/melanie-tem-1949-2015 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20151221234136/http://www.locusmag.com/News/2015/02/melanie-tem-1949-2015/ |archivedate=December 21, 2015}}</ref>

==Bibliography== ===Novels=== * ''Prodigal'' (1991) * ''Blood Moon'' (1992) * ''Wilding'' (1992) * ''Making Love'' (1993) (with Nancy Holder) * ''Revenant'' (1994) * ''Desmodus'' (1995) * ''Witch-Light'' (1996) (with Nancy Holder) * ''The Tides'' (1996) * ''Black River'' (1997) * ''Daughters'' (2001) (with Steve Rasnic Tem) * ''Slain in the Spirit'' (2002) * ''The Deceiver'' (2003) * ''The Man on the Ceiling'' (2008) (with Steve Rasnic Tem) * ''What You Remember I Did'' (2011) (with Janet Berliner) * ''The Yellow Wood'' (2015)

===Collections=== * ''Daddy's Side'' (1991) * ''Beautiful Stranger'' (1992) (with Steve Rasnic Tem) * ''The Ice Downstream: A Short Story Collection'' (2001) * ''In Concert'' (2010) (with Steve Rasnic Tem) * ''The Devil's Coattails: More Dispatches From the Dark Frontier'' (2011)

===Short stories=== * "Aspen Graffiti" (1988) * "The Better Half" (1989) * "Lightning Rod" (1990) * "The Co-Op" (1990) * "Daddy's Sid" (1991) * "Fry Day" (1991) * "Trail of Crumbs" (1992) * "Jenny" (1993) * "The Changelings" (1993) * "Half Grandma" (1995) * "Wife of Fifty Years" (1995) * "Pandorette's Mother" (1996) * "Aunt Libby's Grave" (1997) * "Hagoday" (1998) * "The Lonely Gorilla" (1999) * "Alicia" (2000) * "Piano Bar Blues" (2001) * "Visits" (2004) * "Dhost" (2007) * "Monster" (2008) * "The Shoes" (2010) * "Corn Teeth" (2011) * "Dahlias" (2012) * "Timbrel and Pipe" (2014)

=== Anthologies featuring Melanie Tem === <ref name="auto1"/> *''Skin of the Soul'' (1990) *''Best New Horror 2'' (1991) *''Dark Voices 3'' (1991) *''The Mammoth Book of Vampires'' (1992) *The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Fifth Annual Collection (1992) *''Dark Voices 5'' (1992) *''Nursery Crimes'' (1993) *The Best of Whispers (1994) *Little Deaths (1994) *''Love in Vein'' (1994) *''Peter S Beagle's Immortal Unicorn 2'' (1995) *''The Best New Horror 5'' (1995) *''Xanadu 3'' (1995) *''Splatterpunks II'' (1995) *''Great Writers and Kids Write Spooky Stories'' (1995) *''Desire Burn'' (1995) *''Peter S Beagle's Immortal Unicorn'' (1995) *''Sisters of the Night'' (1995) *''100 Tiny Tales of Terror'' (1996) *''Dark Terrors 3'' (1997) *''Going Postal'' (1998) *''In the Shadow of the Gargoyle'' (1998) *''100 Twisted Little Tales of Torment'' (1998) *''Silver Birch, Blood Moon'' (1999) *''Isaac Asimov's Mother's Day'' (2000) *''Dark Terrors 5'' (2000)

==Awards== ''Prodigal'' * Bram Stoker Award for First Novel<ref name="stoker">{{cite web |title=Tem, Melanie |url=https://www.thebramstokerawards.com/first-novel/tem-melanie/ |publisher=Bram Stoker Awards |access-date=24 September 2025}}</ref>

''The Man on the Ceiling'' (with Steve Rasnic Tem) * Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction<ref name="stoker" /> * World Fantasy Award for Best Novella<ref>{{cite web |title=Winners |url=https://worldfantasy.org/awards/winners/ |publisher=World Fantasy Awards |access-date=24 September 2025}}</ref> * International Horror Guild Award for Best Long Story * British Fantasy Award – ''Icarus Award'' (1992)<ref>{{cite web |title=BFA Winners |url=https://britishfantasysociety.org/about-the-bfs/the-british-fantasy-awards/bfa-winners/ |publisher=British Fantasy Awards |access-date=24 September 2025}}</ref>

''Imagination Box'' (multimedia CD) * Bram Stoker Award for Best Alternative Forms<ref name="stoker" />

==See also== * List of horror fiction authors

==References== {{reflist}}

==External links== * [https://web.archive.org/web/20121128065309/http://www.m-s-tem.com/ Steve Rasnic Tem & Melanie Tem Official Website] * [http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/t/melanie-tem/ Bibliography] * {{ISFDB name|id=Melanie_Tem|name=Melanie Tem}}

{{World Fantasy Award Best Novella 2000–2009}} {{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tem, Melanie}} Category:1949 births Category:2015 deaths Category:20th-century American novelists Category:21st-century American novelists Category:20th-century American women novelists Category:21st-century American women novelists Category:American fantasy writers Category:American horror writers Category:American women horror writers Category:American women science fiction and fantasy writers Category:World Fantasy Award–winning writers Category:People from Crawford County, Pennsylvania Category:Deaths from breast cancer Category:Place of death missing Category:Allegheny College alumni Category:University of Denver alumni Category:Writers from Pennsylvania Category:Novelists from Pennsylvania