Contact: jbaltisberger @ gmail.com
John is currently scheduling his 2025/2026 calendar and is available for events, speaking engagements, anthologies, collabs, and forewords. He is unavailable for blurbs and unsolicited manuscripts at this time.
“[Baltisberger] is genuinely the backbone of modern Jewish horror”
Jewish Horror Review
“Baltisberger is the new standard in epic horror poetry and rivals anything like it in classic horror literature. This is not dark prose, it is evocative, graphic verse.”
Lisa Lee Tone, bibliophilia templum
“Adapting unnatural ideas into a twisted mass of contorted images is an obvious strength of Baltisberger. His ingredients of bile, bone and viscera make up a recipe specifically geared towards a baked gore platter served on each and every page.”
Mike Rankin, Horror Bookworm Reviews
“Baltisberger shows himself to be an occultic iconoclast counterpart to Lin-Manuel Miranda: he overturns icons, constructs a a rich mythology from the rubble of that which has been torn down, and conveys it all with pulsing, infectiously inventive trash-talk.”
Doris V. Sutherland, Attack of the Six-Foot Tranny
“Baltisberger’s command of language, rhythm, and structure is phenomenal. Many of [his book’s] sections rage off the page, passionate and fervored.”
Christine Morgan, Splatterpunk Award-Winning Author of Lakehouse Infernal & Trench Mouth
John Baltisberger is an award-winning author of speculative and genre fiction that often focuses on Jewish Elements. Through his writing, he has explored themes of mysticism, faith, sin, and personal responsibility.
Known for his bizarre blend of Jewish mysticism and splatter, his work has spanned extreme horror, urban fantasy, science fiction, cosmic horror, epic verse, and non-fiction.
Beyond his writing career, John is the Publishing Editor of Madness Heart Press, a press focused on transgressive and experimental horror. He also runs the Jewish Speculative Fiction press Aggadah Try It, and the game company Madness Heart Games, where he works as the Creative Director. He lives in Austin, TX with his wife and his daughter.
Awards:
- Best Collection – Wonderland Awards 2024 (All I Want is To Take Shrooms and Listen to the Color of Nazi Screams)
- Judges Spotlight – Ennies, 2024 (Obscure)
- Best Game Mechanics – Wandies 2023 (Odd Gobs)
- Bronze Medal – Godless 666 Awards 2023 (Abhorrent Faith)
- Gold Medal – Godless 666 Awards 2022 (Unclean Verses Cantos I & II)
- Silver Medal – Godless 666 Awards 2022 (The Crimes and Passions of John Stabberger Season 1)
- Best Editor – Critter Annual Reader’s Poll 2019 (Madness Heart Press)
Nominations:
- Poetry Full Book – Science Fiction Poetry Association, Elgin Awards 2019 (Configuration Discordant)
- Best Novella – Horror Author’s Guild 2021 (Abhorrent Siren)
- Best Collection – Splatterpunk Awards 2021 (War of Dictates)
