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Joseph Payne Brennan (December 20, 1918 – January 28, 1990) was an American writer of fantasy and horror fiction, and also a poet. Brennan's first professional sale came in December 1940 with the publication of the poem, "When Snow Is Hung", which appeared in the Christian Science Monitor Home Forum, and he continued writing poetry up until the time of his death.

As a horror writer, Brennan started out writing stories for Weird Tales in 1952 and then began publishing his own magazine Macabre, which ran from 1957 to 1976. Several of his short stories concern an occult detective named Lucius Leffing. His 1958 collection Nine Horrors and a Dream, with classic stories like "Slime" and "Canavan's Back Yard", is celebrated in an essay by Stephen Gallagher in the book Horror: 100 Best Books, edited by Stephen Jones and Kim Newman.

Brennan has stated in numerous autobiographical snippets that a chance encounter with the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe is what sparked his interest and ambition to engage in writing himself. Prior to his first professional sale, it is unknown how much time and effort was invested in honing his skills, however most of the poetry that Brennan was writing in the late 1930s and late Forties (apart from the intervening World War) was certainly compressed and polished, which has been the Brennan hallmark throughout his writing career. Little is known about how Brennan went about soliciting the early manuscripts, although he did work with several agencies and independent agents, including the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, and much later, agent Kirby McCauley. Recognized editors of his work include Dorothy McIlwraith, Frank Belknap Long, Charles L. Grant, Peter Haining, Helen Hoke, Robert Arthur, Les Daniels, August Derleth, Ruth Iodice, Lilith Lorraine, Gustav Davidson, F. E. S. Finn, Stuart David Schiff, Gerald W. Page, George Abbe, and Loring Williams.

Brennan's first professional sale of fiction came along in the late Forties with the western yarn "Endurance", which appeared in the February 1950 issue of Masked Rider Western. Brennan's debut pulp western appearance came along in December 1948 with the yarn "Fast Gun Freedom", within the pages of WESTERN SHORT STORIES. A total of 26 western yarns can be found in 25 pulp titles. Brennan elatedly "broke into" the pages of WEIRD TALES with the short-short "The Green Parrot" in the July 1952 issue of that unique magazine. In fairly quick succession this tale was followed up by his fame-tag novelette, "Slime", the dark whimsy "On The Elevator", and the classic "The Calamander Chest". Much later in the cavalcade of attempted resurrections, Brennan was also collected in the Zebra Books WEIRD TALES #2, with the Leffing case, "The Nursing Home Horror", retitled "Fear". After the pulps died out Brennan brought out the first issue of the lean and legendary, MACABRE, and continued with his near and dear, ESSENCE, a bi-annual poetry soapbox which ran from 1950 to 1977. August Derleth had been an early correspondent and so, a few years later, Brennan went knocking on the door of Arkham House with a few friends---Henry Hossing, The Hypnotist and Frank, Ernest Maax, Henderson & Larrifer, Miss Meerchum, Canavan, Mr. Massington, Mr. Oricto, and Ed Hyerson with his Model-T and the mail for Juniper Hill. August Derleth assembled Brennan's first collection of Horror fiction, NINE HORRORS AND A DREAM, from these.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Joseph Payne Brennan", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0