Joe McKinney (1968-2021)

Author and editor Joe McKinney, 52, died in his sleep July 13, 2021 in San Antonio TX. McKinney wrote horror, crime, and SF.

Joe Clayton McKinney was born September 22, 1968 in Cambridge MA, and was a longtime member of the San Antonio Police Department, where he served as a homicide detective, patrol supervisor, and disaster mitigation specialist.

He was best known for the Dead World series: debut novel Dead City (2006), Apocalypse of the Dead (2010), Bram Stoker Award winner Flesh Eaters (2011), and Mutated (2012). The Deadlands series is Plague of the Undead (2014) and The Dead Won’t Die (2015). The Retreat books, written with Craig DiLouie & Stephen Knight, are Pandemic (2013), Slaughterhouse (2014), Die Laughing (2015), and Alamo (2016). Other novels of genre interest include Quarantined (2009), The Red Empire (2011), Inheritance (2012), Crooked House (2012), and The Savage Dead (2013).

Stories “Bury My Heart at Marvin Gardens” (2012) and “Lost and Found” (2014) were Stoker Awards finalists. Some of his short work was collected in The Red Empire and Other Stories (2012), Stoker Award winner Dog Days (2014), and Speculations (2018). He co-edited Dead Set: A Zombie Anthology (2010, with Michelle McCrary) and The Forsaken: Stories of Abandoned Places (2017, with Mark Onspaugh).

McKinney was active in the Horror Writers Association, including service as an officer. A frequent guest at regional Texas literary conventions, he was toastmaster at ArmadilloCon in 2016. He is survived by his wife and two daughters.

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