Axel Howerton is the genre-hopping, punch-drunk author of the darkly funny Neo-hardboiled detective caper Hot Sinatra, a finalist for the 2014 Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel from the Crime Writers of Canada.
His other books include the “modern gothic fairytale” Furr, available from Tyche Books, and Con Morte, a dark noir fable of mafia justice, ghostly apparitions, and one unstable hitman who likes his coffee to exact specifications.
Axel is a longtime entertainment journalist, as a film critic, interviewer, news correspondent and former Senior Editor of The Den of Iniquity and EyeCraveDVD, and now as a staff writer for Eyecrave.net. He is the former Prairies Region Director of the Crime Writers of Canada, former Alberta chair of the Chiaroscuro Reading Series, and a member of the Calgary Crime Writers, The Kintsugi Poets, and the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association. He is the organizer behind Canada’s first, best, and longest running Noir At The Bar event – #NoirBarYYC. His short fiction has appeared in places like Big Pulp, Fires on the Plain, Dark Moon Digest, Steampunk Originals, Night Shade, Sleuth Magazine, “The Big Lebowski” compendium Lebowski 101, and numerous short story anthologies, including A Career Guide To Your Job In Hell, Tall Tales of the Weird West, and Knucklehead Noir. He has also been involved in the mentor program, and taught creative writing – specializing in genre – at the Alexandra Writers Centre, and as part of the When Words Collide writers festival. He has also appeared on numerous panels at various conferences and festivals, and abused both the virtual and old-timey airwaves as a guest on radio programs and podcasts over the last decade.
Axel is also the former publisher and managing editor of the award-winning Coffin Hop Press Ltd., and has been the editor and/or designer behind more than 20 books, including the charity anthology Death by Drive-In; the weird-fiction collections Tall Tales of the Weird West and It’s A Weird Winter Wonderland; the acclaimed all-female Canadian crime collection The Dame Was Trouble; Arthur Ellis Award nominees AB Negative and Baby, It’s Cold Outside; and won the Western Writers of America Golden Spur Award for Kill As You Go, by multiple award-winning crime author Therese Greenwood.
A former fighter and present-day hometown anti-hero, Axel spends most of his spare time in the ring, as a kids and beginners boxing coach, binge-shopping for vintage vinyl, or roaming the untamed prairies of Alberta with his two brilliant young sons and a wife that is way out of his league.
Visit Axel online at www.axelhow.com or seek him out on social media as #AxelHow
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