<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

David J. Skal (b. 1952) was born in Garfield Heights, Ohio, and now makes his permanent home in Glendale, California. His interest in horror, fantasy and science fiction began at an early age. A graduate of Ohio University, Athens, and an alumnus of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop, where his teachers included Damon Knight, Harlan Ellison and Samuel Delany, he began a career as a science fiction writer, contributing short stories to science fiction magazines and original anthologies. He published three novels during the 1980s that combined elements of science fiction and horror: Scavengers, When We Were Good and Antibodies. His first non-fiction work, Hollywood Gothic: The Tangled Web of Dracula from Novel to Stage to Screen (1990, revised 2004) was nominated for a Hugo Award, and was followed by The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror. His subsequent, meticulously researched, studies include V is for Vampire, Dracula: The Ultimate Illustrated Edition of the World-Famous Vampire Play, Dark Carnival: The Secret World of Tod Browning (with Elias Savada), Dracula: A Norton Critical Edition (with Nina Auerbach), Screams of Reason: Mad Science and Modern Culture, Vampires: Encounters with the Undead, Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween, Citizen Clone: The Morphing of America and Claude Rains: An Actor’s Voice (with Jessica Rains). He has also written, produced and directed a dozen original DVD documentaries on Universal Studios’ classic horror and science fiction films, a behind-the scenes chronicle of the Academy Award-winning film Gods and Monsters, and scripted segments on classic horror icons for the television series Biography. He was recently appointed Lansdowne Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, teaching a multimedia course based on his books.