Gemma Files

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title: "Gemma Files" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1968-births", "living-people", "canadian-horror-writers", "cthulhu-mythos-writers", "toronto-metropolitan-university-alumni", "canadian-people-of-australian-descent", "20th-century-canadian-women-writers", "canadian-women-horror-writers", "21st-century-canadian-women-novelists", "20th-century-canadian-short-story-writers", "21st-century-canadian-short-story-writers", "writers-from-london", "21st-century-canadian-novelists", "canadian-women-short-story-writers", "novelists-from-toronto", "english-emigrants-to-canada", "canadian-women-film-critics", "canadian-film-critics"] description: "Canadian horror writer, journalist, and film critic" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemma_Files" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Canadian horror writer, journalist, and film critic ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox writer "]

Field	Value
name	Gemma Files
image	Gemma Files at Readercon.jpg
caption	Files at Readercon in 2016, holding her Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel
birth_date
birth_place	London, England
occupation	Writer
language	English
alma_mater	Ryerson Polytechnic University
genre	Horror
awards	International Horror Guild Award
Shirley Jackson Award
Sunburst Award
years_active	1993 present
::

| name = Gemma Files | image = Gemma Files at Readercon.jpg | caption = Files at Readercon in 2016, holding her Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel | birth_date = | birth_place = London, England | occupation = Writer | language = English | alma_mater = Ryerson Polytechnic University | genre = Horror | subject = | notableworks = | influences = | influenced = | awards = International Horror Guild Award Shirley Jackson Award Sunburst Award | website = | years_active = 1993 present

Gemma Files is a Canadian horror writer, journalist, and film critic. Her short story, "The Emperor's Old Bones", won the International Horror Guild Award for Best Short Story of 1999. Five of her short stories were adapted for the television series The Hunger.

Biography

Gemma Files was born in 1968 in London to the actors Elva Mai Hoover and Gary Files. Her family relocated to Toronto in 1969. Files graduated from Ryerson Polytechnic University in 1991 with a degree in journalism. She published her first horror fiction, "Fly-by-Night" in 1993. Various freelance assignments eventually led to a continuing position with entertainment periodical Eye Weekly, where she wrote about the horror genre, independent films and Canadian cinema. She was listed by Cameron Bailey of NOW as one of the Top 10 Coolest People in Canadian Cinema for 1996.

In 2000 her award-winning story "The Emperor's Old Bones" was reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Thirteenth Annual Collection (ed. Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow). In 2010 her Shirley Jackson Award-nominated novelette "each thing i show you is a piece of my death" was reprinted in The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Two (ed. Ellen Datlow). Her short story "The Jacaranda Smile" was also a 2009 Shirley Jackson Award finalist.

Her first novel, A Book of Tongues, won the 2010 Black Quill Award for "Best Small Press Chill" from Dark Scribe Magazine; it was followed by the sequels A Rope of Thorns (2011) and A Tree of Bones (2012), together comprising her The Hexslinger series. A Rope of Thorns was considered a "powerful sequel" to A Book of Tongues by Publishers Weekly.

Her book We Will All Go Down Together (about a coven of witches and changelings) was given a favorable review by NPR.

Her novel Experimental Film (2015) won the Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel and the Sunburst Award for Best Canadian Speculative Fiction (Novel) in 2016.

Files married science fiction and fantasy author Stephen J. Barringer (with whom she co-wrote "'each thing i show you is a piece of my death"") in 2002. They have one child.

Bibliography

''The'' ''Hexslinger'' series

Novels

Collections

Poetry

References

References

1. (4 December 2011). "Gemma Files: The Sex and Death Show".
2. "2009 Shirley Jackson Awards Winners".
3. (25 April 2011). "A Rope of Thorns". Publishers Weekly.
4. Heller, Jason. (26 November 2014). "North-Of-The-Border Horror In 'Go Down Together'". NPR.
5. Langan, John. (2016-07-13). "John Langan reviews Gemma Files".
6. Allan, Nina. (2016-03-16). "Experimental Film by Gemma Files".
7. (2022-03-25). "The Past Comes Back to Haunt a Movie Scholar in Experimental Film".
8. Wallace, Kali. (2022-01-31). "The Best Niche Genre? Creepy Books About Fcked Up Films That Fck People Up".
9. Westenfeld, Adrienne. (2021-10-12). "10 Books About Ghosts That'll Scare the Sh*t Out of You—and Make You Smarter".
10. McRobert, Neil. (2022-05-09). "The 50 Best Horror Books of All Time Will Scare You Sh*tless".
11. Centorcelli, Kristin. (2016-02-10). "Five Questions With Gemma Files, Author of EXPERIMENTAL FILM".
12. MacLeod, Selene. (15 February 2021). "Quick Six Questions With Gemma Files".

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