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

Peter Straub (Peter Francis Straub) (March 2, 1943-) American writer. Straub earned a BA in English (honors) at the University of Wisconsin in 1965 and an MA in English at Columbia in 1966. He als studied University College Dublin (1969-1972).

Career

Peter Straub's often complex work has, over a 30-year career in dark fantasy, always been written with elegance and style. He has continued to evolve as a writer, challenging himself and his readers and pushing the boundaries of public perception of the definition of horror. Straub continues to add even more spectacular entries to an already impressive body of work. After two mainstream novels [Marriages (published in 1973), Under Venus (not published until 1984 in Wild Animals)], Straub published supernatural novels Julia (1976) and If You Could See Me Now (1977).

He gained critical acclaim and popular success with Ghost Story (1979), which was loosely adapted into the 1981 film directed by John Irvin. Shadowland (1980), a tale of mystery, magic and evil at a New England school, followed. Horror-fantasy novel Floating Dragon (1983) won the British Fantasy Award. He co-wrote The Talisman with Stephen King in 1984. Koko (1988), a horrific non-supernatural novel of four Vietnam vets seeking a murderer won Straub his first World Fantasy Award. Koko was followed by the related novels Mystery (1990) and The Throat (1993), which together with Koko make up the Blue Rose Trilogy. The Throat won Straub his first Bram Stoker Award. A contemporary Gothic/serial killer novel, The Hellfire Club, was published in 1996. Mr. X (1991), combining a doppelgänger theme, jazz, a family saga, and a Lovecraftian flavor, was another Stoker winner. Straub and King teamed up again for Black House (2001), a loose sequel to The Talisman.

Lost Boy Lost Girl (2003) won the International Horror Guild award and a Stoker. Related novel In The Night Room, another Bram Stoker Award-winner, was published in 2004. Straub's short fiction is also outstanding and has been collected in Houses Without Doors (Dutton, 1990) and Magic Terror (2000, Stoker Award). He has edited Peter Straub's Ghosts (1995), Conjunctions #39 The New Wave Fabulists (2002), and the Library of America's edition of H.P. Lovecraft's Tales (2005). Straub has also published several books of poetry. At The Foot Of The Story Tree, by Bill Sheehan, discusses Straub's work before 2000.

External Links

Official Web Site