Poppy Z. Brite

Poppy Z. Brite (born Melissa Ann Brite on May 25, 1967) is an American author born in New Orleans. Early in her career, she was best known for writing gothic and horror novels and short stories. Her trademarks have included using gay men as main characters, graphic sexual descriptions in the works, and an often wry treatment of gruesome events. Some of her better known novels are Lost Souls, Drawing Blood, and Exquisite Corpse; she has also released short fiction collections: Swamp Foetus, Are You Loathsome Tonight?, and The Devil You Know. She has also written a biography about Courtney Love.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s she has largely moved away from horror fiction while still writing about gay characters. Her critically acclaimed novels Liquor and Prime are dark comedies set in the New Orleans restaurant world. Her short novel The Value of X and several stories in her most recent collection The Devil You Know revisit the characters from Liquor and chronicle the lives of the Stubbs family, a Catholic clan whose roots are sunk deep in the traditional culture of New Orleans.

Born a biological female, Brite has written and talked much about her gender dysphoria/gender identity issues. She claims to identify as male more than female but makes no attempt to dress or appear male.