CRAIG
SPECTOR is
an award-winning and bestselling author, editor, screenwriter, and musician, with
eleven books published, millions of copies sold, and reprints in
nine languages. His
fiction has been published by Tor/St. Martins Press, Bragelonne, Bantam Books, Harper Collins,
Pocket Books, Arbor House, and others; his film and television
work includes A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 5:
THE DREAM CHILD and projects for TNC Pictures, Anonymous Content, ABC, NBC, Fox Television,
Hearst Entertainment, Davis Entertainment Television, New Line Cinema,
Beacon Pictures, and Wonderful World of Disney.
Spector is
a graduate of the Berklee College of Music in Boston MA and an alumni
of the Atlanta College of Art in Atlanta GA, and was the founder
and Chief Creative Officer of the late Stealth Press, an Internet-enabled
publishing company that
specialized in quality hardcover reprints of titles by such authors
as Peter
Straub, Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, Peter Atkins, William
Nolan, Dennis Etchison, John Shirley, and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro.
Spector's novel UNDERGROUND won Le Prix Masterton for best foreign novel of horror for 2008. His feature film adaptation of ANIMALS is slated for a 2009 release from TNC Pictures and Anonymous Content, and stars Marc Blucas, Nicki Aycox, Eva Amurri, and Naveen Andrews. Spector's graphic novel THE NYE INCIDENTS (co-created with Whitley Streiber) was a June 2008 release from Devils Due Publishing.
Spector is also the managing partner of Serendipity Productions, a Creative Media Services company. His band SMASH-CUT (with fellow writer/musician/brothers Preston Sturges and Richard Christian Matheson is cmpelting their debut CD, FADE IN:, due for a 2009 release.
Spector now divides his time between Virginia Beach VA and Redondo Beach CA. You can also reach him at his myspace page.
"Craig Spector's untamed talent
continues to soar; sophisticated, scathing, effortlessly complex.
His newest novel UNDERGROUND is a formidable trance of poetry and
dread. This is the territory of fear taken to unforgivable truth."
--Richard Christian Matheson
"Craig Spector's UNDERGROUND does that rarest of deeds: it scares deliciously. It sounds a dark musical note of danger that resonates long after the book is done. Beautifully written, it takes you through the mirror and by the hand... and I
do mean by the hand."
-- Whitley Strieber
"UNDERGROUND is a really satisfying, frightening, and classically structured tale which pleasantly surprised me because so much of today's horror literature isn't scary. Spector's
writing is impressive and effective because his characters jump off the page,
making you genuinely care about them, and that's the key ingredient to horror.
When you find his characters in peril you share every heart-pounding moment
with them and experience a truly visceral sense of dread."
--Stan Winston, Academy Award-winning Special Creature Effects Creator (Interview with A Vampire, Predator, The Terminator)
"Craig Spector is a modern master of the supernatural thriller. In UNDERGROUND
he takes us, literally and metaphorically, through America's looking-glass
to confront the dark heart of its secret history. Exciting, moving, and deeply
disturbing, UNDERGROUND is both troubled meditation and non-stop thrill ride.
It may be Spector's finest achievement yet."
--Peter Atkins (Morningstar, the HELLRAISER series, WISHMASTER)
"A festering supernatural scourge provides a group of aging Gen X-ers
with one last opportunity to revive the idealism of their youth in Spector's
horror redux of The Big Chill... Spector writes with the brio and energy of
his splatterpunk heyday to yank readers in and keep their attention."
--Publishers Weekly
"Craig Spector waltzes back into the literary scene with another tale
in which the innocent are savaged and the guilty are set free from the bonds
of restraint, to replace law and order with the flawed and sordid. And fortunately
for readers who like violent, actually scary horror novels, Craig Spector is
one of those things... Let the prices rise, let the rich rot in splendor while
the poor starve on their doorstep. Craig Spector will enflesh the deformities
of our spirit with blood-slicked prose. He's always willing to cut to the chase,
no matter how gory and violent the path may be. It's good bloody fun."
--The Agony Column Book Reviews and Commentary
"This haunted house thriller grips the audience from the moment that Justin
splits from the tour to enter the mirror and never slows down until the final
altercation with the evil on the other side... ghost story fans will gladly
journey through the portal with the UNDERGROUND."
-- Harriet Klausner
"UNDERGROUND is the kind of novel that will remind readers -- or show them for the first time -- why horror became so popular, and why it's a genre that will not go away. Spector uses the supernatural elements here to externalize all the internal ugliness that underlies our ability to edit history into something we can tolerate... Don't think for a moment, however that you're going to get a lecture here. Spector keeps the focus tight and the plot tighter. If horror were to have a hard-boiled subgenre, then UNDERGROUND would be a prime example. But what readers will find is that the gore, while fairly substantial, is not the draw. Spector's rock-and-roll prose, his you-know-them characters, his bullet-to-the-brain plot are what's important. As it happens, storytelling skills, characterization and good prose are what make
UNDERGROUND compelling reading."
--Rick Kleffel
"In TO BURY THE DEAD, Craig Spector has achieved a mature, hard-won narrative
authority that will be deeply gratifying to all, as well as to the many thousands
of readers who have enjoyed his earlier work. The novel moves its protagonist
from believable heroism into an equally convincing moral darkness terrible
to behold, and it carries us with it every step along the way. This is what
horror wants to be when it grows up, a vision of tragic inevitability rooted
in character, ruthless and inexorably unfolding, yet shot through with the
possibility of grace."
--Peter Straub
"Spector (THE LIGHT AT THE END) is a strong writer who convincingly re-creates
the dark, often gruesome world of paramedics and firefighters. Most impressive
is his exploration into Paul's character and how ordinary people cope with
extraordinary grief and horror. Not for the faint of heart, Spector's latest
is for lovers of the best psychological thrillers, along the lines of Ruth
Rendell's."
--Publishers Weekly
Click to hear original music by Spector and friends
