Dean Koontz

Dean Ray Koontz (born July 9, 1945) is an American author. His novels are billed as suspense thrillers, but frequently incorporate elements of horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and satire. Many of his books have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, with fourteen hardcovers and sixteen paperbacks reaching the number-one position. Koontz wrote under a number of pen names earlier in his career, including "David Axton", "Deanna Dwyer", "K. R. Dwyer", "Leigh Nichols" and "Brian Coffey". He has published over 105 novels and a number of novellas and collections of short stories, and has sold over 500 million copies of his work. He has been acknowledged as "America's most popular suspense novelist" by Rolling Stone and as one of today's most celebrated and successful writers.

Early life Koontz was born on July 9, 1945, in Everett, Pennsylvania, the son of Florence and Raymond Koontz. He has said that he was regularly beaten and abused by his alcoholic father, which influenced his later writing, as also did the courage of his physically diminutive mother in standing up to her husband. He was raised in Bedford, Pennsylvania and graduated from Bedford High School in 1963. While attending Shippensburg State College, Koontz married his high school girlfriend Gerda Ann Cerra in 1966.

In his senior year of college, he won a fiction competition sponsored by Atlantic Monthly magazine. After graduation in 1967, he went to work as an English teacher at Mechanicsburg High School in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. In a 1996 interview with Reason magazine, he said that while the program sounded "very noble and wonderful... n reality, it was a dumping ground for violent children ... and most of the funding ended up 'disappearing somewhere.'" This experience greatly shaped Koontz's political outlook. In his book, The Dean Koontz Companion, he recalled that he

... realized that most of these programs are not meant to help anyone, merely to control people and make them dependent. I was forced to reconsider everything I'd once believed. I developed a profound distrust of government regardless of the philosophy of the people in power. I remained a liberal on civil-rights issues, became a conservative on defense, and a semi-libertarian on all other matters. He says he sees Catholicism as English writer and Catholic convert G. K. Chesterton did: that it encourages a "joy about the gift of life". His first hardcover bestseller, which finally promised some financial stability and lifted him out of the midlist hit-and-miss range, was his book Strangers. Since then, 12 hardcovers and 14 paperbacks written by Koontz have reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list.

In 1997, psychologist Katherine Ramsland published an extensive biography of Koontz based on interviews with his family and him. This "psychobiography" (as Ramsland called it) often showed the conception of Koontz's characters and plots from events in his own life.

Early author photos on the back of many of his novels show a balding Koontz with a mustache. After Koontz underwent hair transplantation surgery in the late 1990s, his subsequent books have featured a new, clean-shaven appearance with a fuller head of hair. Koontz explained the change by claiming that he was tired of looking like G. Gordon Liddy.

Many of his novels are set in and around Orange County, California. As of 2006, he has lived there with his wife, Gerda, in Newport Coast, California, behind the gates of Pelican Hills. In 2008, he was the world's sixth-most highly paid author, tied with John Grisham, at $25 million annually.

In 2019, Koontz began publishing with Amazon Publishing. At the time of the announcement, Koontz was one of the company's most notable signings.

Pet dogs One of Koontz's pen names was inspired by his dog, Trixie Koontz, a Golden Retriever, shown in many of his book-jacket photos. Trixie originally was a service dog with Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), a charitable organization that provides service dogs for people with disabilities. Trixie was a gift from CCI in gratitude of Koontz's substantial donations, totaling $2.5 million between 1991 and 2004. Koontz was taken with the charity while he was researching his novel Midnight, a book which included a CCI-trained dog, a black Labrador Retriever, named Moose.

In 2004, Koontz wrote and edited Life Is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living in her name, and in 2005, Koontz wrote a second book credited to Trixie, Christmas Is Good. Both books are written from a supposed canine perspective on the joys of life. The royalty payments of the books were donated to CCI. Anna died on May 22, 2016. Koontz then adopted a new dog, Elsa, on July 11, 2016.

Disputed authorship A number of letters, articles, and novels were ostensibly written by Koontz during the 1960s and 1970s, but he has stated he did not write them. These include 30 erotic novels, allegedly written together by Koontz and his wife Gerda, including books such as Thirteen and Ready!, Swappers Convention, and Hung, the last one published under the name "Leonard Chris". They also include contributions to the fanzines Energumen and BeABohema in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including articles that mention the erotic novels, such as a movie column called "Way Station" in BeABohema.

Koontz wrote in How to Write Best Selling Fiction, a much revised and updated version of 'Writing Popular Fiction' (1972), "During my first six years as a full-time novelist ... I wrote a lot of ephemeral stuff; anything that would pay some bills ... I did Gothic romance novels under a pen-name ... Like many writers, I did some pornography too, and a variety of other things, none of which required me to commit my heart or my soul to the task. (This is not to say I didn't bother to do a good job; on the contrary, I never wrote down to any market, and I always tried to give my editors and readers their money's worth.)" The Gothic novels are identifiable, but none of Koontz's acknowledged work fits into the latter category.

Koontz has stated on his website that he used only the ten known pen names 1971 Locus Award Short Fiction 1971 Hugo Award Novella

1986 British Fantasy Award August Derleth Award 1987 World Fantasy Award Novel

1989 Locus Award Novella

1989 Bram Stoker Award Novel 1990 Locus Award Horror

1991 Locus Award Horror/Dark Fantasy Novel

1992 Bram Stoker Award Novel 1995 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire Foreign Novel

1990 Soaring Eagle Book Award 1993 Japan Adventure Fiction Association Prize

1994 Locus Award Horror Novel

1995 Prometheus Award SF Novel

1995 Bram Stoker Award Fiction Collection 1996 Locus Award Collection

1998 Bram Stoker Award Novel

2003 Utah Beehive Book Award Poetry

2004 Bram Stoker Award Work for Young Readers

2005 Gumshoe Awards Thriller

2006 Evergreen Book Award

2011 Goodreads Choice Awards Horror

2012 Goodreads Choice Awards Horror 2013 Audie Awards Thriller or Suspense

2013 Goodreads Choice Awards Horror

2014 Killer Nashville Awards Silver Falchion Award - Speculative/Horror/Science Fiction/Fantasy

2014 Goodreads Choice Awards Horror

2015 Goodreads Choice Awards Horror

2025 Audie Awards Thriller or Suspense

Koontz was also nominated in 1988 and 1989 for the World Fantasy Special Award—Professional award. He also won the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award in 1996 & the Ross Macdonald Literary Award in 2003.

Screenplays 1979: CHiPs episode 306: "Counterfeit" (as Brian Coffey) 1990: The Face of Fear 1998: Phantoms 2005: Dean Koontz's Frankenstein

Film adaptations Demon Seed (1977) – MGM – starring Julie Christie, Fritz Weaver, and Robert Vaughn as the voice of Proteus The Passengers (1977) – MGM – starring Jean-Louis Trintignant (French film adaptation of Koontz's novel Shattered) Watchers (1988) – Universal Pictures – starring Corey Haim, Barbara Williams, and Michael Ironside Whispers (1990) – Cinepix – starring Victoria Tennant, Chris Sarandon, and Jean LeClere Watchers II (1990) – Concorde Pictures – starring Marc Singer and Tracy Scoggins The Face of Fear (1990) – CBS – starring Pam Dawber and Lee Horsley, also includes Kevin Conroy and William Sadler Servants of Twilight (1991) – Trimark – starring Bruce Greenwood Watchers 3 (1994) – Concorde Pictures – starring Wings Hauser Hideaway (1995) – Tristar Pictures – starring Jeff Goldblum, Christine Lahti, Jeremy Sisto, and Alicia Silverstone Intensity (1997) – Fox – starring John C. McGinley, Molly Parker, and Piper Laurie Mr. Murder (1998) – ABC – starring Stephen Baldwin, Thomas Haden Church, and James Coburn Phantoms (1998) – Miramax/Dimension Films – starring Peter O'Toole, Ben Affleck, Rose McGowan, and Joanna Going Watchers Reborn (1998) – Concorde Pictures – starring Mark Hamill Sole Survivor (2000) – Fox – starring Billy Zane, John C. McGinley, and Gloria Reuben Black River (2001) – Fox – starring Jay Mohr and Stephen Tobolowsky Frankenstein (2004) – USA Network – starring Adam Goldberg, Parker Posey, Michael Madsen, Vincent Perez, and Thomas Kretschmann (Koontz pulled out of the project midway through production because he did not like the direction the film was headed. He ended up writing his own books with the storyline he had originally created. The project continued without him.) Odd Thomas (2013) – starring Anton Yelchin