Charles L. Grant

Charles Lewis Grant (September 12, 1942 – September 15, 2006) was an American novelist and short story writer specializing in what he called "dark fantasy" and "quiet horror". He also wrote under the pseudonyms of Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, Deborah Lewis, Timothy Boggs, Mark Rivers, and Steven Charles. He received the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement in 1999 and was selected as World Horror Grand Master in 2002. He received the British Fantasy Society's Special Award for life achievement in 1987.

Biography

Early life Charles L. Grant was born in Newark, New Jersey. He received a Bachelor of Arts from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1964, and taught for four years. Then, from 1968 to 1970, Grant served in the U.S. Army military police in Vietnam and was awarded a Bronze Star.

Career From 1973 to 1977, Grant was Secretary of Science Fiction Writers of America.

Grant won three World Fantasy Awards: the 1979 Anthology award for Shadows, the 1983 Anthology award for Nightmare Seasons, and a tie in the 1983 Novella category for "Confess the Seasons" in Perpetual Light. He received a total of 23 nominations for World Fantasy Awards.

He won a Nebula Award in 1976 for his short story "A Crowd of Shadows", and another Nebula Award in 1978 for his novella A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye, the latter telling of an actor's dilemma in a post-literate future.

Grant wrote twelve books (eight novels and four collections of four related novellas each, with interstitial material) set in the fictional Connecticut town of Oxrun Station. Three of these were intentionally pastiches of classic Universal and Hammer horror films, and feature a vampire, a werewolf, and an animated mummy.

Personal life Grant's first wife is Debbie Voss, with whom he had two children, Ian Matthew and Emily Kathryn. Ian has two sons Payton and Logan; Emily has three children, sons Aaron and William, and daughter, Ella. In February, 1982, Grant married writer and editor Kathryn Ptacek. Discussing Grant's fiction, Jess Nevins said that "Grant excelled at building foreboding atmosphere and mounting dramatic tension, at characterization and pacing." The Encyclopedia of Fantasy wrote that Grant crafted "subtle, atmospheric works that eschew overt violence in favour of the powerful terrors of the imagination" and that "his careful utilization of language and manipulation of mood" is perhaps best displayed in shorter works.