Happy Birthday to These 14 Horror Authors Born in April
April is quite the bookish month
Sharing a birth month with notables such as Leonardo da Vinci and Shakespeare is nothing to sneeze at.
Although, with the opening of flowers as spring leans towards summer, there might actually be some sneezing going on this month.
The whole of April is National Poetry Month in the United States.
This year, 2023, the week beginning 2 April is National Library Week in the United States and the week beginning 23 April is Canada Book Week in … you guessed it, Canada.
FearSome Fiction would like to wish everyone born in April a very happy birthday. We hope you get lots of diamonds since that’s your birthstone, or at the very least a bunch of daisies or sweet peas since those are your birth flowers.
We’ll be eating a lot of rodent-shaped chocolate this month. But we’ll also manage to eat cake in honor of the following horror authors born in this fourth month of the year.
Contents
Douglas Clegg
Happy birthday to Douglas Clegg who was born on 1 April 1958 in Alexandria, USA.
Douglas Clegg is an award-winning American author of horror and dark fantasy.
Seven interesting facts about Douglas Clegg
- His first horror story was a school assignment and was about snakes taking their revenge on St Patrick and the people of Dublin.
- As a teenager, he worked in the Smithsonian in their Insect Zoo. He also worked as a morning news announcer on college radio.
- He has written under the pseudonym Andrew Harper.
- In 1999, he distributed his ghost novel Naomi in serial form by emailing weekly chapters to around 4,000 subscribers for free.
- In 2001, his short novel Purity became the first American fiction able to be read on a cell phone.
- His house in New England is named Stonehaven, after the town in his novel The Halloween Man and because there are large stones around his property.
- He’s not a fan of the movie adaptation of his 1997 novel Bad Karma. In the US, the movie was titled Hell’s Gate.
Some Douglas Clegg to check out
Goat Dance (1989)
Supernatural horror.
“Her name is Theodora Amory, her friends call her Teddy, and the doctors at the Westbridge Medical Center are calling her a modern-day miracle.”
A young man returns to Pontefract, Virginia, to find the girl he once loved.
A town faces its terrifying past as a possessed child threatens to unleash an unspeakable horror upon them all.
A dark house at the edge of a frozen lake remains locked and abandoned.
The Nightmare Chronicles (1999)
Supernatural horror.
“I didn’t see Jenny’s body until I got to the bathroom, which is where her murderer had dragged her, apparently while she was still alive, and then had dropped her in the tub, closed the shower curtain around her.”
Collection of thirteen tales of horror and suspense.
Meet Oliver, whose dead wife may just be waiting for him down a dark alley.
Or Jane Boone, in a distant country to meet the most brutal of killers – or is he a god?
Plus more…
Dan Simmons
Happy birthday to Dan Simmons who was born on 4 April 1948 in Illinois, USA.
Dan Simmons is an award-winning American author of horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and thrillers.
Seven interesting facts about Dan Simmons
- He won a national Phi Beta Kappa Award in his senior college year for excellence in fiction, journalism, and art.
- His first published story appeared on the same day his daughter was born.
- His 2007 historical horror novel The Terror was adapted into a two-season TV series for AMC.
- He worked for 18 years as a teacher before becoming a full-time writer in 1987.
- In 1981 he almost gave up trying to write for publication after receiving acceptances for three stories from three separate magazines which all went under before they could pay him.
- He has a mountain property and isolated cabin over which an 8-foot sculpture of the Shrike (a character from his Hyperion/Endymion novels) stands guard.
- He believes that writing can be taught but that “writing for publication is hard”. His ‘Writing Well’ curriculum can be found on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Some Dan Simmons to check out
The Terror (2007)
Monster horror.
See: 13 Weather Horror Books to Bring You a Degree of Discomfort: The Terror (2007)
Carrion Comfort (1989)
Science fiction horror.
“Saul Laski lay among the soon-to-die in a camp of death and thought about life.”
Some of humanity have psychic powers enabling them to control people from a distance. They can make people do anything, including murder.
Saul Laski survives an extermination camp during World War 2 and, in 1980, is a psychologist, famous for his theories about seemingly strange violence.
He gets caught up in an investigation of bizarre murders involving groups of people who use their abilities as a game or who aspire to world domination.
Gemma Files
Happy birthday to Gemma Files who was born on 4 April 1968 in London, England.
Gemma Files is a Canadian award-winning horror writer and former journalist, film critic, and teacher.
Seven interesting facts about Gemma Files
- Her parents were both actors.
- She has triple citizenship – British, Canadian, and Australian.
- Five of her stories were adapted for the TV horror anthology series The Hunger.
- She has a tattoo on her arm of Gustave Flaubert’s words: “Be neat and orderly in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”
- She wrote fan fiction for the James Mangold remake of 3:10 to Yuma and credits this type of writing with teaching her how to write a chaptered narrative.
- Other jobs she’s held are floor attendant in a sex shop and security guard at the office where the Ontario Lottery Groups computers were kept.
- The main character, Lois Cairns, in her Shirley Jackson Award winning novel Experimental Film mirrors much of her own life.
Some Gemma Files to check out
Experimental Films (2015)
Supernatural horror.
Former film teacher Lois Cairns is struggling to raise her autistic son while freelancing as a critic. She happens upon some silver nitrate silent footage and connects it to the early work of a spiritualist and collector of fairy tales who mysteriously disappeared from a train compartment in 1918.
Hoping to make her own mark on the film world, Lois embarks on a project to prove that Whitcomb was Canada’s first female filmmaker. But her research takes her down a path not of darkness but of light; the blinding and searing light of a fairy tale made flesh, a noontime demon who demands that duty must be paid.
As Lois discovers terrifying parallels between her own life and that of the missing spiritualist, she begins to fear not just for herself, but for those closest to her.
We Will All Go Down Together (2014)
Occult horror.
“Like opening the bible at random, songwriting can be a form of bibliomancy – logomancy, rather. Words come out of nowhere, sometimes – out of sequence, out of sync. Rhymes optional.”
Five interconnected stories about five interconnected families.
After fleeing Scotland, five clans settled in northern Ontario.
Known as the Five-Family Coven, they are the descendants of witches and witch-children, none of whom were spared persecution in their native country.
Now shamans, spellcasters, singers, and thieves, the members of the Devize, Druir, Glouwer, Roke, and Rusk families survive by trading their occult powers and talents, though few can really afford their price.
Robert Bloch
5 April 1917 to 23 September 1994
Happy birthday to Robert Bloch who was born on 5 April 1917 in Illinois, USA.
Robert Bloch was an award-winning American author of psychological horror, crime, fantasy, and some science fiction. Many of his stories have been adapted for movies, television, radio, and comics.
Seven interesting facts about Robert Bloch
- At the age of 8, he saw Lon Chaney Sr’s movie The Phantom of the Opera (1925) on his own. About that, he said, “it scared the living hell out of me and I ran all the way home to enjoy the first of about two years of recurrent nightmares”.
- He did pencil sketches and watercolours, but he developed myopia as a teenager which removed art as a career option.
- In 1933, at the age of 16, he wrote to HP Lovecraft asking him where he could find earlier copies of Lovecraft’s stories and Lovecraft lent them to him.
- It’s rumored that he married in 1940 as a way to keep him out of the army.
- His pen names included: Tarleton Fiske, Will Folke, Nathan Hindin, E.K. Jarvis, Floyd Scriltch, Wilson Kane, John Sheldon, and Collier Young.
- He published over 30 novels and wrote hundreds of short stories.
- Bloch killed off a character based on Lovecraft in The Shambler from the Stars (1935). Lovecraft killed off a character based on Robert Bloch in The Haunter of the Dark (1936).
- Pyscho was one of his favorite novels and is the one most people remember.
Some Robert Bloch to check out
Psycho (1959)
Psychological horror.
“Norman Bates heard the noise and a shock went through him. It sounded as though somebody was tapping on the windowpane.”
Marion is lost on a dark and lonely road; she’s tired and hungry and afraid. She thinks she’s dreaming when she sees a motel sign shining in the darkness: Bates Motel.
But for Marion the nightmare is just beginning.
Midnight Pleasures (1987)
Collection of thirteen macabre stories.
Henry Kuttner
7 April 1915 to 3 February 1958
Happy birthday to Henry Kuttner who was born on 7 April 1915 in California, USA.
Henry Kuttner was an American writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction.
Seven interesting facts about Henry Kuttner
- His father (also named Henry) was a bookseller and died when Kuttner was around 5 years old.
- He and his mother lived in relative poverty.
- He worked for a time in the literary agency of his uncle/first cousin, Laurence D’Orsay.
- He and his wife, C.L. Moore, met through the ‘Lovecraft Circle’ – a group of writers and fans who corresponded with HP Lovecraft.
- He and his wife worked together in the 1940s and 1950s, often publishing under the pseudonyms Lewis Padgett or Lawrence O’Donnell.
- He had 17 known pseudonyms that he published under.
- Richard Matheson dedicated his 1954 novel I Am Legend to Henry Kuttner.
Some Henry Kuttner to check out
The Graveyard Rats (1936)
Monster horror short story.
“Old Masson, the caretaker of one of Salem’s oldest and most neglected cemeteries, had a feud with the rats.”
A cemetery caretaker tries to deal with a colony of abnormally large rats that are cutting into his grave-robbing profits.
This story was adapted for the horror anthology TV series Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities (2022) and horror anthology movie Trilogy of Terror II (1996).
The Power and the Glory (1947)
Sci-fi horror short story.
“I’m sure there’s – something – up on Peak Seven Hundred. Something plenty valuable. You’re going to find it for me.”
Miller’s sent to the Arctic, up to Peak Seven Hundred, by his criminal boss who’s sure there’s a fantastic weapon there that’s sending out a huge amount of radiation energy.
He discovers an iridescent pathway beneath the snow, and is transported towards the peak.
James Herbert
8 April 1943 to 20 March 2013
Happy birthday to James Herbert who was born on 8 April 1943 in London, England.
James Herbert was a prolific English horror writer who sold more than 54 million copies globally.
Seven interesting facts about James Herbert
- His father was a stall holder at London’s Brick Lane Market.
- He left school at the age of 15 to study at the Hornsey College of Art.
- He got a job in advertising agency using the name of a better qualified friend for his interview.
- He wrote his draft stories in longhand on large notepads.
- In 1979, he paid damages to writer Trevor Ravenscroft when a court ruled that part of Herbert’s novel The Spear was based on Ravenscroft’s novel The Spear of Destiny.
- He wrote only one draft of The Rats and received five rejections before finally obtaining a publisher.
- At the age of 75, his mother divorced his father after passing her GCSE in English. However, she continued to cook dinner for him once a week and someone would use the local bus to take it to him.
Some James Herbert to check out
The Rats (1974)
Monster horror.
“Henry Guilfoyle was slowly drinking himself to death. He’d started six years ago, at the age of forty.”
It was only when the bones of the first devoured victims were discovered that the true nature and power of these swarming black creatures with their razor sharp teeth and the taste for human blood began to be realized by a panic-stricken city.
For millions of years, man and rats had been natural enemies. But now, for the first time, the balance of power had shifted.
Haunted (1988)
See: Donald Wandrei
20 April 1908 to 15 October 1987
Happy birthday to Donald Wandrei who was born on 20 April 1908 in Minnesota, USA.
Donald Wandrei was an American author of poetry and weird fiction.
Seven interesting facts about Donald Wandrei
- He was co-founder of Arkham House publishing with August Derleth.
- In 1923, he worked part-time collecting requested books from the stacks in the Circulation Room of the Saint Paul Public Library.
- He was a member of the ‘Lovecraft Circle’ – a group of writers and fans who corresponded with HP Lovecraft. In 1927, he hitchhiked from Minnesota to Rhode Island to meet Lovecraft.
- In the 1940s, he tried writing song lyrics in Hollywood, as well as writing outlines for comic books.
- He served for almost four years in the US army during World War 2.
- His only full-length novel, Dead Titans, Waken!, was rejected by three publishers. It was eventually published, albeit heavily revised, by Arkham House as The Web of Easter Island.
- He refused to accept the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 1984 because he thought the award was a demeaning caricature of Lovecraft.
Some Donald Wandrei to check out
Don’t Dream (2017)
Collection of horror and fantasy stories originally published in Weird Tales, Astounding Stories, Fantasy Magazine, Argosy, Esquire, and The Minnesota Quarterly, as well as some previously unpublished ones.
Simon Clark
Happy birthday to Simon Clark who was born on 20 April 1958 in Doncaster, England.
Simon Clark is an award-winning English author of mainly horror fiction, although he’s also written crime and science fiction.
Seven interesting facts about Simon Clark
- His novel The Night of the Triffids was a sequel to John Wyndham’s novel The Day of the Triffids. He also wrote the script for the five-episode radio drama based on it that played on BBC Radio 4.
- Even though his Vampyrrhic novels are some of his most popular, he’s said he’s not a fan of vampire novels, particularly when they’re portrayed as romantic and attractive.
- He wrote a Doctor Who novella, The Dalek Factor.
- He wrote three episodes for an animated Doctor Who series before his commission was cancelled due the return of the live series.
- His fascination with the idea of the past and our dead ancestors affecting our lives led him to write his 1998 Vampyrrhic novel.
- He once gave a talk in a maximum security prison.
- He’s a proponent of using the ‘Art of Wandering’ to get ideas. This involves walking or riding through a landscape and letting your imagination loose on what you see.
Some Simon Clark to check out
Vampyrrhic (1998)
Vampire novel.
“She was frightened. So frightened it felt as if her heart had become frozen into a great ball of blue ice. It chilled her blood from head to toe.”
David Leppington has returned to the town of his birth to investigate the possibility of a job as a GP, and to learn more of its history. Bearing the same name as the town, the Leppington family used to be prominent members of the community. But the clan has dwindled to a sole uncle who is more loner than town leader.
In this small, isolated town, people are affected by a horrendous condition. It’s Quiet. Unassuming. A forgotten backwater. Yet beneath Leppington’s streets terrifying creatures stir.
Driven by an ancient passion that has become an obsession. United in their burning hunger. They share an unending craving that will leave them in a coma unless they consume blood. They are the Nosferatu. And they have the power to drain your will to resist. To drain it so utterly that you will cheerfully, gladly, eagerly surrender yourself to their sharp, brutal teeth.
Then a terminally ill man plans an act of vengeance: to set the dead against the living, so that the whole world might experience the misery the townspeople have endured for years.
On Deadly Ground (2015)
Supernatural apocalypse horror.
“All right. Picture this:
Before you is desert.
A desert that is black, forbidding, evil-looking.
There are ruined buildings, burned-out cars, stark dead trees. And swamping everything, a black ash that streams out of the sky like Hell-blown snow.”
Rick Kennedy feels good. Tonight there’s going to be the party of the decade, the brother he hasn’t seen for years has just flown in, and Rick is all set to do something about Kate Robinson, the beautiful girl he just can’t get out of his mind. In the pleasant village of Fairburn, the evening air is warm.
But this is also the night that Rick encounters the stranger in the wood. And soon he’s waking up to find 30,000 refugees choking in the streets. People are running for their lives, only there’s nowhere left to run.
The ground blisters, cities erupt into flame and lakes begin to boil. Rick searches desperately for refuge in a burning land, but knows he must soon confront the Grey Men, and the demons inside himself.
Julian Osgood Field
23 April 1852 to 1925
Happy birthday to Julian Osgood Field who was born on 23 April 1852 in Massachusetts, USA.
Julian Osgood Field was an American writer of decadent horror fiction.
Seven interesting facts about Julian Osgood Field
- Although he was a socialite, he was also a forger, moneylender’s tout, and a bankrupt.
- His father was an official in the US Treasury.
- He wrote under the pseudonyms X.L. or Sigma.
- He lived mainly in London and was an intimate friend of the future King Edward VII.
- He did three months in prison for forging a document that he used to try to get a loan.
- He was involved in a financial scandal and was sued successfully for fraud and breach of duty by Lady Ida Stillwell.
- The following year, both Lady Stillwell and Field were imprisoned for conspiring to defraud another wealthy woman.
Some Julian Osgood Field to check out
The Luck of the Devil (1893)
Published in Pall Mall Magazine, Vol 1, No. 2, July 1893
The Kiss of Judas (1893)
Published in Pall Mall Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, August 1893
AC Benson
24 April 1862 to 17 June 1925
Happy birthday to AC Benson who was born on 24 April 1862 in Berkshire, England.
AC Benson was an English author of ghost stories, as well as a poet, essayist, and academic.
Seven interesting facts about AC Benson
- He wrote the lyrics of the British patriotic song Land of Hope and Glory.
- His father was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1883 to 1896.
- His sister was an amateur Egyptologist.
- He may have suffered from bipolar disorder.
- He was Master of Magdalene College in Cambridge for the ten years prior to his death.
- He was very financially generous and his arms or initials are on at least 19 inscriptions around the college.
- Most of his ghost stories were written for his pupils as moral allegories.
Some AC Benson to check out
Paul the Minstrel and Other Stories (1911)
A collection of AC Benson short stories.
Shane Jiraiya Cummings
Happy birthday to Shane Jiraiya Cummings who was born on 24 April 1974 in Sydney, Australia.
Shane Jiraiya Cummings is an award-winning Australian author of horror and fantasy, as well as an editor and journalist.
Seven interesting facts about Shane Jiraiya Cummings
- Jiraiya is the name given to him when he attained his black belt in Ninjutsu.
- He has been a judge for the Aurealis Awards and Australian Shadow Awards.
- He’s had more than 100 short stories published across the globe.
- A lot of his early work was flash fiction under 1000 words.
- Many of his stories are steeped in myths and legends, including Egyptian, Norse, Greek, Japanese, and Hindu myths.
- He’s been nominated for more than twenty genre awards for writing and editing.
- In 2011, he self-published seven e-books simultaneously.
Some Shane Jiraiya Cummings to check out
Apocrypha Sequence: Deviance (2011)
Book 1 of 5 of the Apocrypha Sequence series of themed and interconnected short horror stories.
“Blaine awoke to a world of crushing silence.
He cracked open his eyes as though they were encrusted from years of disuse and squinted at the harsh artificial light. The whole room was blurry and white.”
Explore the darkness within the human heart.
Set foot inside the morgue at Stratton Memorial Hospital, a place where the scales of life and death have tipped in the wrong direction, and wander the city beyond, where fantasies of sex, drugs, and violence can become frighteningly real. Redemption may be found under a scalpel, in an alley, or sometimes, by embracing the darkest corner of the soul.
Requiem for the Burning God (2011)
Cosmic cult horror.
“A week at sea was one thing; a Pacific storm adding a day to the voyage and wobbling Max’s sea legs was something else altogether.”
Evil festers beneath the mountains of 1930s Peru, and British Great War ace turned mercenary Captain Max Calder unwittingly stumbles into the thick of it. Calder is confronted by Lovecraftian horrors, the machinations of a world-spanning cult, and a lunatic song that haunts his every step.
Armed with his trusty Webley pistol and his wits, Calder must confront a cult that seeks to unleash a monstrosity on the world. Will he succumb to madness, or will he put a bullet between the eyes of an insane god?
Walter de la Mare
25 April 1873 to 22 June 1956
Happy birthday to Walter de la Mare who was born on 25 April 1873 in Kent, England.
Walter de la Mare was an English author of ghost horror, as wells as children’s stories and poetry.
Seven interesting facts about Walter de la Mare
- He hated the name Walter and preferred to be called Jack.
- He was one of seven children – three boys and four girls.
- He worked in the Statistics Office of Standard Oil for eighteen years.
- He was able to quit his job and concentrate on writing when he started receiving a civil list pension, which was an honorary pension paid by the government.
- His wife was ten years older than him and they met when he joined an amateur dramatics club where she was the leading lady.
- His book Collected Stories for Children (1947) was the first collection book to win the Carnegie Medal that recognises the best children’s books written by a British subject.
- He believed that all children start out with a ‘childlike’ imagination. As they get older, the external world presses more on their mind until they lose the childlike imagination and become more intellectual and analytical.
Some Walter de la Mare to check out
Seaton’s Aunt (1922)
A schoolboy is drawn into the world of Arthur Seaton, a bullied outsider with a domineering aunt.
Their paths cross again as adults and the malignant power of the aunt becomes apparent.
All Hallows (1910)
The narrator walks for miles to reach the remote All Hallows Cathedral which has fallen into disrepair and is more of a tourist attraction than a religious site.
Once there, he learns about the sinister powers that want to destroy anyone who’s in the cathedral after dark.
Frank Belknap Long
27 April 1901 to 3 January 1994
Happy birthday to Frank Belknap Long who was born on 27 April 1901 in New York, USA.
Frank Belknap Long was an American author of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. He also wrote poetry, gothic romance, comic books, and non-fiction.
Seven interesting facts about Frank Belknap Long
- He wrote some stories under the pen names Leslie Northern, Robert Hart Davis, and Lyda Belknap Long. (Lyda was his wife’s first name.)
- He was fascinated by natural history and, as a boy, he said he dreamed of running away to “explore the great rain forests of the Amazon”.
- He studied journalism at New York University, transferred to Columbia, but never attained his degree.
- He almost died from appendicitis in 1921 and this brush with death convinced him to quit his study and become a freelance writer.
- He was a close friend of HP Lovecraft and regarded Lovecraft as a mentor.
- His serialized story The Horror from the Hills incorporated almost verbatim a dream Lovecraft had told him about in a letter.
- After his death, he was buried in a potter’s field because of his poverty. However, friends and colleagues had his remains reburied at NYC’s Woodlawn Cemetery.
Some Frank Belknap Long to check out
The following stories are available to read on Project Gutenberg.
The Vibrations Wasps (1941)
Lake of Fire (1951)
Ronald Malfi
Happy birthday to Ronald Malfi who was born on 27 April 1977 in New York, USA.
Ronald Malfi is an award-winning American author of horror, thriller, mainstream, and literary fiction. He’s also a musician.
Seven interesting facts about Ronald Malfi
- His 2009 novel Shamrock Alley was based on undercover work his father had done while in the US Secret Service.
- He’s composed music for some independent movies.
- He’s the singer in hard rock band Veer. They released their debut album in December 2018.
- When he was in middle school he got an old manual typewriter and wrote a few pages every day on it.
- Throughout high school, he submitted short stories for publication but they were all rejected.
- In high school, he often went to friends’ houses to use their word processors and computers and spent all afternoon there writing.
- He doesn’t plot or outline, he just writes the story as it comes.
Some Ronald Malfi to check out
Black Mouth (2022)
Supernatural horror.
“One week after our mother committed suicide, my brother Dennis was taken into police custody while walking along the shoulder of a winding mountain highway wearing nothing but a pair of saggy white briefs and what I can only assume to be an empty expression on his face.”
For nearly two decades, Jamie Warren has been running from darkness. He’s haunted by a traumatic childhood and the guilt at having disappeared from his disabled brother’s life. But then a series of unusual events reunites him with his estranged brother and their childhood friends, and none of them can deny the sense of fate that has seemingly drawn them back together.
Nor can they deny the memories of that summer, so long ago – the strange magic taught to them by an even stranger man, and the terrible act that has followed them all into adulthood. In the light of new danger, they must confront their past by facing their futures, and hunting down a man who may very well be a monster.
The Night Parade (2017)
Apocalypse horror.
“David glanced at the Oldsmobile’s dashboard clock. It was just after midnight. He tried to do the math and figure out how long he’d been awake, but found even the simplest brain work next to impossible. Two days? Longer?”
They call it Wanderer’s Folly – a disease of delusions, of daydreams and nightmares. A plague threatening to wipe out humanity.
After two years of creeping decay, David Arlen woke up one morning thinking that the worst was over. By midnight, he’s bleeding and terrified, his wife is dead, and he’s on the run in a stolen car with his eight-year-old daughter, who may be the key to a cure.
Ellie is a special girl. Deep. Insightful. And she knows David is lying to her. Lying about her mother. Lying about what they’re running from. And lying about what he sees when he takes his eyes off the road.
Published: 5 April 2023
