Stephen King was born in Portland, Maine, on September 21, 1947. After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in English from the University of Maine at Orono in 1970, he became a teacher. His spare time was spent writing short stories and novels. King's first novel would never have been published if not for his wife. She removed the first few chapters from the garbage after King had thrown them away in frustration. Three months later, he received a $2,500 advance from Doubleday Publishing for the book that went on to sell a modest 13,000 hardcover copies. That book, Carrie, was about a girl with telekinetic powers who is tormented by bullies at school. She uses her power, in turn, to torment… and eventually destroy her mean-spirited classmates. When United Artists released the film version in 1976, it was a critical and commercial success. The paperback version of the book, released after the movie, went on to sell more than two-and-a-half million copies. Many of King's other horror novels have been adapted into movies, including The Shining, Firestarter, Pet Semetary, Cujo, Misery, The Stand, and The Tommyknockers. Under the pseudonym Richard Bachman, King has written the books The Running Man, The Regulators, Thinner, The Long Walk, Roadwork, and Rage. King is one of the world's most successful writers, with more than 100 million copies of his works in print. Many of his books have been translated into foreign languages, and he writes new books at a rate of about one per year. In 2003, he received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. In 2012 his title, The Wind Through the Keyhole made The New York Times Best Seller List. King's title's Mr. Mercedes and Revival made The New York Times Best Seller List in 2014.
Brian Lumley was born on England's North Coast on December 2, 1937. He joined the British Army in his teens and remained a soldier for twenty-two years. He first started writing while stationed in Berlin. Lumley's first book was published in the early 1970's. He retired from the Army in 1981 and took up writing full time. He is the author of over 40 books, and is most well known for his "Necroscope Series" which consists of 13 titles. He won the 1989 British Fantasy Award for his Novelette "Fruiting Bodies" as well as the 1990 Fear Magazine Award for "Necroscope III: The Source." In 1998, Lumley won the Grand Master of Horror Award at the World Horror Convention in Phoenix, Arizona. On 28… March 2010 Lumley received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association. He also received a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2010.
Robert Albert Bloch (April 5, 1917 -- September 23, 1994) was a prolific American writer, primarily of crime, horror, fantasy and science fiction. He is best known as the writer of Psycho, the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock. Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and 30 plus novels. His mentor was H. P. Lovecraft, one of the first to encourage Bloch's horror fiction writing. Bloch won the Hugo award for his story, That Hell-Bound Train, in 1959. In 1960 he won the Edgar Allen Poe Award for Psycho and in 1994 he won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction for The Scent of Vinegar. Bloch was born in Chicago, Illinois. In 1994 he died of cancer in… Los Angeles, at the age of 77.