E. R. BILLS

E. R. Bills is an award-winning author and freelance journalist. His nonfiction works include Texas Obscurities: Stories of the Peculiar, Exceptional and Nefarious (The History Press 2013), The 1910 Slocum Massacre: An Act of Genocide in East Texas (The History Press 2014), Black Holocaust: The Paris Horror and a Legacy of Texas Terror (Eakin Press 2015), Texas Far and Wide: The Tornado with Eyes, Gettysburg’s Last Casualty, the Celestial Skipping Stone and Other Tales (The History Press 2017), 100 Things to Do in Texas Before You Die (Reedy Press 2018), The San Marcos 10: An Anti-War Protest in Texas (The History Press 2019), Ghosts of Slocum (2020--co-authored with descendant of Slocum Massacre victims, Constance Hollie-Jawaid), Texas Oblivion: Mysterious Disappearances, Escapes and Cover-Ups (The History Press 2021), 100 Things to Do in Texas Before You Die, 2nd edition (Reedy Press, 2022), and Tell-Tale Texas: Investigations in Infamous History (The History Press 2023). His fiction work includes The Halloween in Me (Fawkes Press 2024), and he is the executive editor of the annual Road Kill: Texas Horror by Texas Writers (HellBound Books 2016- ), which is now accepting submissions for Vol 10, and was the first anthology of Texas horror writing (including tales from Joe. R. Lansdale, Katherine Anne Porter, Stephen Graham Jones, Robert E. Howard, O. Henry, Kathleen Kent, Madison Estes, Jeremy Hepler, Bret McCormick, etc.).
Bills has also written for the Austin American-Statesman, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas Co-Op Power magazine, Fort Worth Magazine and Fort Worth Weekly.
Regarding his nonfiction efforts, Kirkus Reviews has said that Bills’ work “harkens back to an earlier, pulpier era of paperback true crime” and the Journal of Southern History has emphasized that his research and accounts are “accessible to both scholarly and general audiences.” Texas Books in Review has called Bills “A voice for the forgotten.”
Of his speculative fiction, Kirkus Reviews has described Bills’ work as “first-rate, thinking person’s horror writing,” and his efforts have been likened to those of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson. His nonfiction has gotten him described as a cross between Ida B. Wells and Hunter S. Thompson and mentioned by Texas Monthly as part of a new generation of writers and scholars engaged in “The Battle to Rewrite Texas History.”
Bills currently resides in North Texas and is under contract for 100 Things to Do in the Big Bend Before You Die (Reedy Press 2025) and a seventh title with The History Press.
APPEARANCES
AUTOGRAPHS
BOOKS
For appearances, autographed (or dedicated) copies of books, etc., please email me at erbillsthinks@gmail.com. For selection of titles to purchase, try https://bookshop.org/lists/books-by-e-r-bills/
Thanks for reaching out. Keep reading!
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E. R.