Award-winning Portland writer Todd Grimson dies

Published 5:00 am Monday, February 17, 2025

Award-winning Portland writer Todd Grimson died on Thursday, Jan. 30, at the age of 73.

The cause of death was not immediately released.

Grimson won the Oregon Book Award for his first novel “Within Normal Limits” in 1988. His critically acclaimed 2011 novel “Brand New Cherry Flavor” was turned into a popular limited Netflix series in 2021. It was followed by “Stainless” in 2012, an urban noir vampire novel set in late 1990s Los Angeles, acclaimed as one of the best of its genre.

In 2011 Grimson was called “The Greatest Horror Writer You’ve Never Read” by Damien Walter of The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom. His range was greater than that, however, Walter said.

“Grimson exposes the beating hearts of his characters, even the undead ones,” Walter wrote.

Grimson, whose real name was Todd Spillum, was born in Seattle and moved to Portland at an early age. After a series of dead-end jobs, he ended up working at the Veterans Administration Hospital and Emanuel Hospital, both of which influenced “Within Normal Limits.”

Shortly before its publication, Grimson was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), an incurable, degenerative disease. He continued to write, however, eventually publishing additional novels and short fiction online under the nom de plume “I. Fontana” in such literary reviews as BOMB, Bikini Girl, Juked, New Dead Families, Lamination Colony and Spork.

“Stabs at Happiness,” a collection of short stories, was published in 2013. “Stainless” will be republished in 2026 by McNally Editions, a small press that specializing in “lost classics.”

Grimson was a friend to many other contemporary Portland writers, including neighbor Katherine Dunn, the author of “Geek Love.” She hired him to type the first manuscript of her award-winning novel about a family of genetically engineered sideshow freaks.

“Todd really is a lot of fun,” Dunn told The Oregonian in a 2011 profile of him. “We met at a party and started talking about a book or something, and we’ve been bickering and arguing ever since. He reads more than anyone I’ve ever known, and he takes it all in.”