James Daniel Lowder (born January 2, 1963 in Quincy, Massachusetts) is an American author and editor, working most often within the fantasy, dark fantasy, and horror genres.
His earliest novels were part of the Forgotten Realms and Ravenloft shared universe book lines, but beginning in the late 1990s he turned his attention more often to creator-owned projects. Some of his short stories have been cited in the honorable mention list of the annual Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. He was an Origins Award finalist in the Best Short Fiction category for his 2003 novella, "The Night Chicago Died", a story that featured the debut of his mystery man character, The Corpse. His novels have been translated into more than ten languages.
As an editor, Lowder directed several best-selling book lines for TSR, Inc. in the early 1990s. He has subsequently served as executive editor for Green Knight Publishing's line of Arthurian fiction ... the Pendragon fiction series ... and as a consulting editor for CDS Books on their City of Heroes novels. Lowder has edited more than a dozen anthologies, with subjects ranging from King Arthur to superheroes to zombies. He has won several Origins Awards and an ENnie Award, and been shortlisted for an International Horror Guild Award for these projects. Though many of these anthologies have been published in connection with role-playing game product lines, they often contain only creator-copyrighted stories. This makes them unusual, as game publishers frequently insist on work for hire contracts for such projects.
Lowder also works in comic books. He has penned scripts for several companies, including DC, Devil's Due, and Desperado. His short work "Lost Loves", from the Moonstone Monsters: Demons anthology, was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award in 2004 for Best Illustrated Narrative. He contributed as a writer and consulting editor to the Worlds of Dungeons & Dragons comic book series, published by Devil's Due. He became the editor for the monthly series Hack/Slash with issue #25 and continued with the series when it moved from Devil's Due to Image.
Lowder's critical essays and film and book reviews have appeared in such publications as Amazing Stories and Polyhedron, the latter of which featured his long-running video review column "Into the Dark" from 1991 to 1994. He has written support material for various role-playing games, including Dungeons & Dragons and Call of Cthulhu.
