Charles L. Grant

Charles L. Grant
Born September 12, 1942
Newark, New Jersey
Died September 15, 2006 (aged 64)
Pen name Geoffrey Marsh, Lionel Fenn, Simon Lake, Felicia Andrews, Deborah Lewis
Occupation Novelist
Alma mater Trinity College, Hartford
Notable awards World Fantasy Award
Nebula Award

Charles Lewis Grant (September 12, 1942 – September 15, 2006) was a 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, and Deborah Lewis.

Biography

Early life

Charles L. Grant was born in Newark, New Jersey. He received a B.A. from Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut in 1964 and taught for four years. Then, from 1968–1970, Grant served in the U.S Army military police in Vietnam and was awarded a Bronze Star.[1]

Career highlights

From 1973-1977, Grant was Secretary of Science Fiction Writers of America.[2]

Grant won a World Fantasy Award for his novella collection Nightmare Seasons, 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 also edited the award-winning Shadows anthology, running eleven volumes from 1978-1991. Contributors include Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Al Sarrantonio, R.A. Lafferty, Avram Davidson, and Steve Rasnic and Melanie Tem. Grant was a former Executive Secretary and Eastern Regional Director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and president of the Horror Writers Association. His story "Temperature Days on Hawthorne Street" was adapted into an episode of Tales from the Darkside entitled "The Milkman Cometh" in 1987.

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. (See the starred titles below.) Three of these were intentionally pastiches of classic Universal and Hammer horror films, and feature a vampire, a werewolf, and an animated mummy. There is a loose continuity running through the Oxrun Station books, with characters from one novel making minor appearances in others.

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 a son, Aaron, and a daughter, Ella. In February, 1982, Grant married writer and editor Kathryn Ptacek.[3]

Death

Suffering ill health in his later years, Grant died on September 15, 2006 from a heart attack.[4]

Bibliography

Horror novels

Science fiction

as "Geoffrey Marsh"

as "Lionel Fenn"

  1. Kent Montana and the Really Ugly Thing From Mars (1990)
  2. Kent Montana and the Reasonably Invisible Man (1991)
  3. Kent Montana and the Once and Future Thing (1991)
  4. Mark of the Moderately Vicious Vampire (1992)
  5. 668, the Neighbor of the Beast (1992)
  1. Blood River Down (1986)
  2. Web of Defeat (1987)
  3. Agnes Day (1987)
  1. Once Upon A Time in the East (1993)
  2. By The Time I Get To Nashville (1994)
  3. Time, The Semi-Final Frontier (1994)

as "Simon Lake"

  1. Daughter of Darkness (1992)
  2. Something's Watching (1993)
  3. Death Cycle (1993)
  4. He Told Me To (1993)

as "Felicia Andrews"

as "Deborah Lewis"

as "Steven Charles"

  1. Nightmare Session (1986)
  2. Academy of Terror (1986)
  3. Witch's Eye (1986)
  4. Skeleton Key (1986)
  5. The Enemy Within (1987)
  6. The Last Alien (1987)

Anthologies edited by Charles L. Grant

Greystone Bay series

  1. The First Chronicles of Greystone Bay (1985)
  2. Doom City (1987)
  3. The SeaHarp Hotel (1990)
  4. In the Fog (1994)

Shadows series

  1. Shadows (1978)
  2. Shadows 2 (1979)
  3. Shadows 3 (1980)
  4. Shadows 4 (1981)
  5. Shadows 5 (1982)
  6. Shadows 6 (1983)
  7. Shadows 7 (1984)
  8. Shadows 8 (1985)
  9. Shadows 9 (1986)
  10. Shadows 10 (1987)

Other anthologies

Non-fiction

Collections

Notes

Short fiction

References

  1. "News: C. Grant". Science Fiction Writers Association. 2006.
  2. "News: C. Grant". Science Fiction Writers Association. 2006.
  3. "News: C. Grant". Science Fiction Writers Association. 2006.
  4. "News: C. Grant". Science Fiction Writers Association. 2006.
  5. http://www.stephenjoneseditor.com/forthcoming02.htm

External links

See also