Douglas Clegg
Encyclopedia
Douglas Clegg is a horror and dark fantasy author, and a pioneer in the field of e-publishing
. He maintains a strong Internet presence through his website and LiveJournal
.
and Business Week. The former called it "arguably, the first major work of fiction to originate in cyberspace." Some four thousand mailing list subscribers received free chapters of Naomi on a weekly basis, boosting print numbers for the Leisure paperback (published in spring 2001) from the low 50,000 range to over 125,000.
Born in Alexandria
, Virginia
, USA, Clegg grew up in an artistic family, and wrote his first story, about the death of his pet mockingbird, at the age of nine on a typewriter his parents had given him a year or two earlier. For years, he kept his writing secret, hiding his stories and sometimes destroying them, if he thought they might be found. He cites as formative influences the Edgar Allan Poe
poems and Bible stories his mother used to read aloud when he was younger than five, and Twilight Zone
episodes...followed soon after by Shakespeare, Shirley Jackson, and many other writers.
Douglas Clegg received a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Washington and Lee University
, where he co-founded an International Film Program and became a morning news DJ on college radio. After graduating, Clegg taught junior high English, and worked as an editor for Ziff-Davis Publishing in Washington, D.C.
. In 1986, he moved to Los Angeles
to work for KCBS News. Throughout this period, he wrote reviews and entertainment articles for a small magazine. His first novel, Goat Dance, was nominated for Outstanding First Novel by the Horror Writers Association
. Finished in 1987, Clegg was convinced it would languish until an editor from one publishing house took it to Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, which published it in 1989. Pocket also published his second, third, and fourth novels, Breeder, Neverland, and Dark of the Eye. Clegg changed his publisher to Dell for his next novel, The Children's Hour, but Dell dropped its horror line four months later, leaving him without a publisher. His sixth novel, Bad Karma, written under the pseudonym Andrew Harper, was published by Kensington/Zebra, and adapted for the screen by Randall Frakes
. The resulting movie, directed by John Hough and starring Patsy Kensit
, was released as Hell's Gate in the United States, and Bad Karma internationally.
Clegg found a new publishing home with Dorchester's Leisure imprint, a small New York publisher committed to its horror line. Leisure brought out The Halloween Man in 1998, Clegg's short story collection The Nightmare Chronicles, (which won the Bram Stoker Award
and the International Horror Guild Award) in 1999, and two novels, You Come When I Call You and Mischief, in 2000. Also that year, Cemetery Dance Publications
published the print edition of Clegg's novella Purity, which Clegg had made available for free download on his website, and the author launched another e-book, Nightmare House, which was serialized on a weekly basis on the DouglasClegg mailing list at Onelist.com. A bidding war erupted between three companies for sponsorship of the mailing list for the duration of the serial. Cemetery Dance won, and paid Clegg a five-figure fee for his free email novel, which was published in hardcover the following year. Cemetery Dance also sponsored the Harrow Haunting website, which offered readers multi-media along with the e-book. A sequel to Nightmare House, The Infinite, became Leisure's first hardcover in 2001.
Since then, Clegg has published several other novels and collections, including the Shocker Award-winning collection, The Machinery of Night, published in 2004 by Cemetery Dance Publication. His current publishers include Cemetery Dance Publications, Tor Books, Berkley/Ace, Leisure Books, and Wildside Press. Other works include The Abandoned, Mordred, Bastard Son, The Priest of Blood, Afterlife, and The Attraction. Under the pseudonym Andrew Harper, the novels Red Angel and Night Cage also were released. Also published: the novellas The Necromancer, and Isis (summer of 2006.) In late 2006, his novel, The Lady of Serpents came out in hardcover. His 2002 novel, The Hour Before Dark, was optioned for film and is in pre-production in Hollywood.
Clegg's latest published works include Isis, Neverland and The Priest of Blood, a dark fantasy about vampirism
and mythology
, set in an alternate medieval history. It hit the extended New York Times bestseller list in hardcover in late 2005, and came out in paperback in August 2006.
In 2009, Lonely Road Books
announced that they will be publishing Douglas Clegg's The Vampyricon Trilogy: The Definitive Special Edition (forthcoming, 2010). It is scheduled to include all three of the Vampyricon novels: The Priest of Blood, The Lady of Serpents, and The Queen of Wolves. All the novels have been re-edited to the author's liking. Plus, an addendum of around 50 to 100 pages of exclusive "deleted scenes" and "lost material" is scheduled to be included along with color and black and white artwork by Erin Wells. It will be available in two editions: A Limited Edition of 250 copies and a Lettered Edition of 26 copies.
Electronic publishing
Electronic publishing or ePublishing includes the digital publication of e-books and electronic articles, and the development of digital libraries and catalogues. Electronic publishing has become common in scientific publishing where it has been argued that peer-reviewed scientific journals are in...
. He maintains a strong Internet presence through his website and LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
.
Biography
In May 1999, Douglas Clegg's novel Naomi became the Internet's first publisher-sponsored e-serial, garnering write-ups in Publishers WeeklyPublishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
and Business Week. The former called it "arguably, the first major work of fiction to originate in cyberspace." Some four thousand mailing list subscribers received free chapters of Naomi on a weekly basis, boosting print numbers for the Leisure paperback (published in spring 2001) from the low 50,000 range to over 125,000.
Born in Alexandria
Alexandria, Virginia
Alexandria is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of 2009, the city had a total population of 139,966. Located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately six miles south of downtown Washington, D.C.Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, USA, Clegg grew up in an artistic family, and wrote his first story, about the death of his pet mockingbird, at the age of nine on a typewriter his parents had given him a year or two earlier. For years, he kept his writing secret, hiding his stories and sometimes destroying them, if he thought they might be found. He cites as formative influences the Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
poems and Bible stories his mother used to read aloud when he was younger than five, and Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone (1959 TV series)
The Twilight Zone is an American anthology television series created by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964. The series consisted of unrelated episodes depicting paranormal, futuristic, dystopian, or simply disturbing events; each show typically featured a surprising...
episodes...followed soon after by Shakespeare, Shirley Jackson, and many other writers.
Douglas Clegg received a bachelor's degree in English Literature from Washington and Lee University
Washington and Lee University
Washington and Lee University is a private liberal arts college in Lexington, Virginia, United States.The classical school from which Washington and Lee descended was established in 1749 as Augusta Academy, about north of its present location. In 1776 it was renamed Liberty Hall in a burst of...
, where he co-founded an International Film Program and became a morning news DJ on college radio. After graduating, Clegg taught junior high English, and worked as an editor for Ziff-Davis Publishing in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
. In 1986, he moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
to work for KCBS News. Throughout this period, he wrote reviews and entertainment articles for a small magazine. His first novel, Goat Dance, was nominated for Outstanding First Novel by the Horror Writers Association
Horror Writers Association
The Horror Writers Association is a worldwide non-profit organization of professional writers and publishing professionals dedicated to promoting the interests of Horror and Dark Fantasy writers. It was formed in the 1980s with the help of many of the field's greats, including Joe Lansdale, Robert...
. Finished in 1987, Clegg was convinced it would languish until an editor from one publishing house took it to Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books, which published it in 1989. Pocket also published his second, third, and fourth novels, Breeder, Neverland, and Dark of the Eye. Clegg changed his publisher to Dell for his next novel, The Children's Hour, but Dell dropped its horror line four months later, leaving him without a publisher. His sixth novel, Bad Karma, written under the pseudonym Andrew Harper, was published by Kensington/Zebra, and adapted for the screen by Randall Frakes
Randall Frakes
Randall Frakes is a film and science fiction writer primarily known for his work with long-time friends, Bill Wisher, and James Cameron on The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day....
. The resulting movie, directed by John Hough and starring Patsy Kensit
Patsy Kensit
Patricia Jude Francis "Patsy" Kensit is an English actress, singer, model and former child star, known for her television and film appearances. Her films include Lethal Weapon 2 and she has been married to rock stars Jim Kerr and Liam Gallagher, as well as herself fronting the band Eighth Wonder...
, was released as Hell's Gate in the United States, and Bad Karma internationally.
Clegg found a new publishing home with Dorchester's Leisure imprint, a small New York publisher committed to its horror line. Leisure brought out The Halloween Man in 1998, Clegg's short story collection The Nightmare Chronicles, (which won the Bram Stoker Award
Bram Stoker Award
The Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...
and the International Horror Guild Award) in 1999, and two novels, You Come When I Call You and Mischief, in 2000. Also that year, Cemetery Dance Publications
Cemetery Dance Publications
Cemetery Dance Publications is a specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense. Cemetery Dance was founded by Richard Chizmar, a horror author, while he was in college. It is associated with Cemetery Dance magazine, which was founded in 1988. They began to publish books in 1992.Cemetery...
published the print edition of Clegg's novella Purity, which Clegg had made available for free download on his website, and the author launched another e-book, Nightmare House, which was serialized on a weekly basis on the DouglasClegg mailing list at Onelist.com. A bidding war erupted between three companies for sponsorship of the mailing list for the duration of the serial. Cemetery Dance won, and paid Clegg a five-figure fee for his free email novel, which was published in hardcover the following year. Cemetery Dance also sponsored the Harrow Haunting website, which offered readers multi-media along with the e-book. A sequel to Nightmare House, The Infinite, became Leisure's first hardcover in 2001.
Since then, Clegg has published several other novels and collections, including the Shocker Award-winning collection, The Machinery of Night, published in 2004 by Cemetery Dance Publication. His current publishers include Cemetery Dance Publications, Tor Books, Berkley/Ace, Leisure Books, and Wildside Press. Other works include The Abandoned, Mordred, Bastard Son, The Priest of Blood, Afterlife, and The Attraction. Under the pseudonym Andrew Harper, the novels Red Angel and Night Cage also were released. Also published: the novellas The Necromancer, and Isis (summer of 2006.) In late 2006, his novel, The Lady of Serpents came out in hardcover. His 2002 novel, The Hour Before Dark, was optioned for film and is in pre-production in Hollywood.
Clegg's latest published works include Isis, Neverland and The Priest of Blood, a dark fantasy about vampirism
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
and mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, set in an alternate medieval history. It hit the extended New York Times bestseller list in hardcover in late 2005, and came out in paperback in August 2006.
In 2009, Lonely Road Books
Lonely Road Books
Lonely Road Books is a small press publishing company founded in 2007 by Brian James Freeman and Richard Chizmar and based out of Forest Hill, Maryland. They are a publishing company that specializes in deluxe signed limited edition books...
announced that they will be publishing Douglas Clegg's The Vampyricon Trilogy: The Definitive Special Edition (forthcoming, 2010). It is scheduled to include all three of the Vampyricon novels: The Priest of Blood, The Lady of Serpents, and The Queen of Wolves. All the novels have been re-edited to the author's liking. Plus, an addendum of around 50 to 100 pages of exclusive "deleted scenes" and "lost material" is scheduled to be included along with color and black and white artwork by Erin Wells. It will be available in two editions: A Limited Edition of 250 copies and a Lettered Edition of 26 copies.
Private life
On November 17, 2005, Clegg and Raul Silva, his partner of 16 years, were joined in a civil union. On November 17, 2008, Clegg and Raul Silva were legally married. The couple have a menagerie of rescued pets and enjoy canoeing, hiking and bicycling.Awards
- 2004 Bram Stoker AwardBram Stoker AwardThe Bram Stoker Award is a recognition presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing. The awards have been presented annually since 1987, and the winners are selected by ballot of the Active members of the HWA...
Nominations:
- Best Short FictionBram Stoker Award for Best Short FictionThe Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing for short fiction.-Winners and nominees:...
: "A Madness of Starlings" (published in Cemetery Dance Magazine #50) - Best Fiction CollectionBram Stoker Award for Best Fiction CollectionThe Bram Stoker Award for Best Fiction Collection is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing for best fiction collection.-Winners and nominees:...
The Machinery of Night (Cemetery Dance PublicationsCemetery Dance PublicationsCemetery Dance Publications is a specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense. Cemetery Dance was founded by Richard Chizmar, a horror author, while he was in college. It is associated with Cemetery Dance magazine, which was founded in 1988. They began to publish books in 1992.Cemetery...
)
- 2003 Bram Stoker Award Nomination:
- Best Long FictionBram Stoker Award for Best Long FictionThe Bram Stoker Award for Best Long Fiction is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing for long fiction.-Winners and nominees:...
: The Necromancer (Cemetery Dance PublicationsCemetery Dance PublicationsCemetery Dance Publications is a specialty press publisher of horror and dark suspense. Cemetery Dance was founded by Richard Chizmar, a horror author, while he was in college. It is associated with Cemetery Dance magazine, which was founded in 1988. They began to publish books in 1992.Cemetery...
)
- 1997 Bram Stoker Award Nomination:
- Best Short FictionBram Stoker Award for Best Short FictionThe Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction is an award presented by the Horror Writers Association for "superior achievement" in horror writing for short fiction.-Winners and nominees:...
: "I Am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes"