Mort Castle

A former stage hypnotist, folksinger, and high school teacher, Mort Castle has been a publishing writer since 1967. He's been deemed a "horror doyen" by Publishers Weekly, "El Maestro del Terror" by South America's Galaxia Cthulhu, and "the master of contemporary horror" by Poland s Nowa Fantastyka magazine. Castle has published about 600 "shorter things," mostly articles and short stories, in a variety of magazines, including Penthouse, Twilight Zone, Cavalier, Bombay Gin, Writer's Digest, and...See more

A former stage hypnotist, folksinger, and high school teacher, Mort Castle has been a publishing writer since 1967. He's been deemed a "horror doyen" by Publishers Weekly, "El Maestro del Terror" by South America's Galaxia Cthulhu, and "the master of contemporary horror" by Poland s Nowa Fantastyka magazine. Castle has published about 600 "shorter things," mostly articles and short stories, in a variety of magazines, including Penthouse, Twilight Zone, Cavalier, Bombay Gin, Writer's Digest, and books, among them Still Dead, Lovecraft's Legacy, Poe's Lighthouse, and Masques (he is the only living author to have stories in all five of the Masques volumes edited by the late J. N. Williamson). His novels include Cursed Be the Child and The Strangers, optioned for the screen by Whitewater Films, and cited on the list of "Ten Best Horror-Thriller Novels" published in Poland in 2008 by Newsweek.pl. Castle edited the essential reference work Writing Horror and the expanded and revised later edition On Writing Horror for the Horror Writers Association (Writer's Digest Books). In 2012, William Morrow published Shadow Show: All New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury, the anthology he co-edited with Sam Weller; the book's contributors include Neil Gaiman, Dave Eggers, Margaret Atwood, Joe Hill, and Alice Hoffman, garnering a starred review in PW and Booklist, and such praise as ..". a Who's Who of the absolutely best in modern literature ... may be the greatest collection of short stories ever compiled." (Art Attack). Shadow Show was a Book of the Month Club Alternate and was produced for audio with readings by Neil Gaiman, F. Murray Abraham, Kate Mulgrew, George Takei, and Sam Weller and Mort Castle. Castle's forthcoming or recent publications include: (editor) All American Horror of the 21st Century, Wicker Park Press; (as co-editor with David Campiti) J.N. Williamson's illustrated Masques, IDW; and Writing Historical Fiction, Self-Counsel Press. Castle has twice won the Black Quill award for editing, has been a Bram Stoker award finalist seven times, and has had four Pushcart Prize nominations. He teaches in the fiction writing program at Columbia College Chicago and at writing conferences and seminars throughout the country. Castle and Jane, his wife of 41 years, live in Crete, Illinois, known for both its bandstand and bubbling fountain. See less