HONORS AND AWARDS

(see also autobiography)

Contact Stanley Wiater at: StanleyWiater@hotmail.com

• DARK DREAMERS: FACING THE MASTERS OF FEAR won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association in 2002.

• DARK DREAMERS: FACING THE MASTERS OF FEAR was nominated for the International Horror Guild Award in 2002.

• DARK DREAMERS: FACING THE MASTERS OF FEAR was nominated for the Hugo Award in 2002.

• DARK THOUGHTS: ON WRITING won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for “Superior Achievement in Non-fiction” in 1998.

• Three articles written in the 1980’s for the Valley Advocate newspaper chain were rated amongst the “top 25 stories published during the past 25 years” for the 25th Anniversary issue.

• Author profile in volume 84 of SOMETHING ABOUT THE AUTHOR (Gale Research) in 1996.

• “End of the Line,” a short story, was adapted into a short film by Alan Productions in 1996.

• COMIC BOOK REBELS was nominated for the Eisner Award from the comic book industry in 1994.

• COMIC BOOK REBELS was nominated for the Harvey Award from the comic book industry in 1994.

• Masters of Ceremonies for World Horror Convention III in 1993.

• DARK VISIONS was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for “Superior Achievement in Non-fiction” in 1993.

• DARK DREAMERS: CONVERSATIONS WITH THE MASTERS OF HORROR won the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association for “Superior Achievement in Non-fiction” in 1991.

• NIGHT VISIONS 7 was a finalist for “Best Anthology” from the ReaderCon Committee in 1990.

• “The Toucher ,” first published story, was the sole winner of a competition judged by Stephen King in 1980.

• NEC/Warner Bros. Scholarship. One of five national recipients. Nine weeks studying the film and television industry in Hollywood in 1974.

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IN BRIEF: A CAREER AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Briefly, what can I tell you that will be more truth than fable?

Just that I've wanted to be a writer since I was twelve, after being permanently infected by the fantastic tales of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and Ray Bradbury. (Not to mention covertly purchasing all those parent-forbidden issues of Famous Monsters of Filmland and Castle of Frankenstein which for years had to be hidden under my bed. Believe it or not, as a kid I could read Playboy or Stag openly but not those terrible monster mags…but that's another story.)

Yet I was equally fascinated by the strange and bizarre in non-fiction, and made my first professional sale to the paranormal journal Fate when I was all of sixteen. I've been a fulltime freelancer since 1975, upon graduation from the now legendary BDIC independent study program at the University of Massachusetts.

Although I'm perhaps best known as a journalist specializing in the dark side of popular culture, I am also on occasion engaged as a consultant, creative writing instructor, computer game designer, scriptwriter, and speaker. More recently, I have become the creator and host of my own television show.

My very first published short story was the sole winner of a competition judged by none other than Stephen King in 1980. Entitled "The Toucher" it remains my most famous tale. My stories have appeared in several prestigious anthologies, including the Masques series, Borderlands series, Hot Blood series, and England's Narrow Houses series. Two have been adapted into short films, and also turned into comic books.

Along the way, I've been invited to edit two anthologies of original dark fiction: Night Visions 7 and After the Darkness. (See Bibliography as well as Reviews for complete details on all my books.) I also had the honor of being the editor of Richard Matheson's "The Twilight Zone" Scripts, and have written or edited well received books about the work of my colleagues Stephen King and Brian Lumley.

The first decade of my career, however, was spent happily toiling for various Massachusetts newspapers as an entertainment reporter and reviewer. At the end of the Seventies, however, I began to specialize in the horror, science fiction, and fantasy genre, as my youthful dedication to that still often unjustly maligned field had, quite honestly, never gone away.

Before too long, I discovered that my niche in journalism was as a cultural explorer of the "fantastique." (My first major coup was to be the sole reporter at the 1979 World Fantasy Convention, where I obtained exclusive interviews with, among many other dark dreamers, Stephen King, Peter Straub, and George A. Romero.) I then marketed my interviews, articles, and reviews to various pop culture magazines, and became a contributing editor to Fangoria and England's Fear for most of the Eighties.

I've also dabbled in the comic book medium, penning scripts and creating several characters for the then wildly popular "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" in the early Nineties. (I also worked for a time on the syndicated daily comic strip.) My association with Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, creators of the Ninja Turtles, resulted in the only authorized history of this worldwide phenomenon: The Official Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Treasury. I also co-authored a collection of original interviews with Stephen R. Bissette, Comic Book Rebels: Conversations with the Creators of the New Comics. It was nominated for both a Harvey Award and an Eisner Award.

In 1990 my first collection of original interviews, Dark Dreamers: Conversations with the Masters of Horror, was published. It went on to win the Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers Association.

I have written or edited several well received books since then, including Dark Thoughts: On Writing, which won the Bram Stoker Award in 1997 from the Horror Writers Association. Among my latest titles, both of which took several years to complete, are collaborative efforts: The Stephen King Universe and Dark Dreamers: Facing the Masters of Fear. (The latter won the Bram Stoker Award in 2002 from the Horror Writers Association-my third Stoker Award.) I have so far compiled no less than five volumes in various formats of exclusive interviews with "dark dreamers," and hope to offer still more in the future.

(My work has been published in ten languages to date. See Personalities and Celebrities Interviewed for a listing of all major profiles and for complete book contents. Visit the interview section of ShadoWind, Inc. to uncover my early encounters with Stephen King, Peter Straub, Anne Rice, Clive Barker, and Dean Koontz.)

Last--but certainly not the least--of my creative endeavors is the original television series Dark Dreamers which first debuted in Canada in the fall of 2000. It is a weekly half-hour show showcasing the famous authors, artists, and filmmakers who, like myself, are also best known for exploring the dark side of the arts. Plans are underway to market the series worldwide in 2003. Hopefully my own dark star is still on the rise.

In the meantime, I appreciate your continued appreciation of my work, and welcome your inquiries for consulting, speaking or writing engagements.

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