Wilson was raised in Charleston, Illinois, and attended Charleston High School, and joined the United States Navy upon graduation, where he served from 1977 to 1997.

He is an ordained minister in the Universal Light Church and a former president of the Horror Writer's Association. Wilson won the Bram Stoker Award for professional achievement in horror poetry.

His 1999 novel, This is My Blood (currently released as The Temptation of Blood), contains books of the fictional gospel of Judas Iscariot. This novel, which also features Mary Magdalene as a fallen angel cursed with a form of vampirism, oddly mirrors information recently translated in the coptic codex ascribed to Judas Iscariot. Both works feature Judas as being the best of the apostles -- the only one to fully understand Christ's teachings and lay down his own life for the salvation of all.

Novels

• The Path of the Meteor
• Star Trek: Voyager #12: Chrysalis (1997, ISBN 0-671-00150-7)
• The Grails Covenant Trilogy (1997-1998)
• To Sift Through the Bitter Ashes (1997, ISBN 1-56504-995-0)
• To Speak in Lifeless Tongues (1998, ISBN 1-56504-996-9)
• To Dream of Dreamers Lost (1998, ISBN 1-56504-997-7)
• This is My Blood (1999, ISBN 0-9658135-3-3)
• Roll Them Bones (Cemetery Dance Publications' Novella #12, 2003, ISBN 1-58767-068-2)
• Dark Ages: Lasombra (2003, ISBN 1-58846-820-8)
• Deep Blue (2004, ISBN 1-59414-142-8, hardcover; 2005, ISBN 1-4104-0228-2, paperback)
• The Temptation of Blood (2004, ISBN 1-930997-69-8)
• Exalted: Relic of the Dawn (2004, ISBN 1-58846-860-7)
• The Mote in Andrea's Eye (2005, Thompson-Gale / Fives Star)
• Ancient Eyes (2007, Bloodletting Press Signed Limited HC)
• Vintage Soul (2009 Thompson-Gale Five Star & Limited HC from Bad Moon Books)
• The Not Quite Right Reverend Cletus J. Diggs & the Currently Accepted Habits of Nature (2009 limited edition HC from Bad Moon Books)

Collections

• Spinning Webs and Telling Lies (Limited Trade Paperback 2002)
• The Subtle Ties That Bind (2002, Lone Wolf Publications CD Rom)
• Defining Moments (2007, Sarob Press Signed limited HC)

Short Stories and Poetry

• Poet Cabal: (one poem)
• The Essential World of Darkness: "Except You Go Through Shadow--Wraith"
• 100 Vicious Little Vampire Stories: "Just Another Saturday Night"
• Robert Bloch's Psychos: "Blameless (1998, ISBN 0-671-88598-7)
• The Best of Cemetery Dance, Volume I: "The Mole" (2000, ISBN 0-451-45804-4)
• Horrors! 365 Scary Stories: (seven short stories) (2001, ISBN 1-58663-240-X)
• The Gossamer Eye (2002, ISBN 1-892065-64-9, with Mark McLaughlin and Rain Graves) (winner of the 2003 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in the Poetry Collection category)
• All Hell Breaking Loose: "Burning Bridges" (2005, ISBN 0-7564-0289-1)
• New Tales of Terror: "Death Did Not Become Him" (2005, ISBN 0-345-45273-9, with Patricia Lee Macomber)
• Cthulhu's Heirs: New Cthulhu Mythos Fiction: "Of Dark Things and Midnight Planes" (1994, ISBN 1-56882-013-5)

His short stories have appeared in more than thirty anthologies, in magazines, and on websites.