In Laymon's Terms

John Urbancik

CAME LATE TO the game. I first met Dick (albeit, briefly) in Atlanta in ’99. He struck me as obscenely normal, not at all what a Horror Writer should be. Indeed, in the first moment it became apparent that the man with whom I spoke was supernaturally kind and passionate about what he loved (the horror genre inclusive).

Shortly after that, I read my first Laymon novel. Where was I hiding all the years before that? No clue. But I’d been freed, and slowly began to play the job of Catch Up.

I was part of a group he labeled The Future of Horror. It was a catch-all, meant to encompass almost everyone in the room. Might have been Denver this time. The title wasn’t meant for me, or for any of my friends (Dick’s friends), but for everyone—even those not fortunate enough to be there. Strange, that. But he wasn’t passing anything on, or revealing some hidden secret. Rather, he was expressing his own state of fandom, his belief in the genre—the emotion and vitality—and, as concisely as possible, challenging everyone in the room, at that hotel, and in the field, to fulfill his proclamation.