 The Literary Guild - Dean Koontz
Literary Guild Book Club Authors
About Dean KoontzDean Koontz was born July 9th, 1945, and due a difficult childhood, not much is known about his childhood. He graduated from what was then called Shippensburg State College and is now Shippensburg University of PA, in the year 1967. during his college years he converted to Catholicism because he recognized it as a respite from the chaos that he felt in his life. After graduating, he started working at Mechanicsburg High School as an English teacher. He wrote his first novel Star Quest when he had some spare time and that was published in 1968. He would then go on to write over twelve more novels in the science fiction genre. During the 1970's, Dean Koontz found his niche in horror and suspense fiction, publishing the books under both pseudonyms and his own name. Dean Koontz said that he started using the pen names after a few of his editors told him that the authors who wrote several different genres could have trouble keeping their readers and may not bring in new readers. Some of the pseudonyms that Dean Koontz is known to use are K. R. Dwyer, David Axton, John Hill, Brian Coffey, Owen West, Leonard Chris, Anthony North, and Deanna Dwyer. A lot of the books that he's published under his pseudonyms in the past are now under his true name. The breakthrough novel that he wrote was Whispers, which was published in the year 1980. Since that year, 10 hardcover books and 13 paperback books have hit #1 on the NY times Bestseller List. In the year 1987, Katherine Ramsland, a psychologist, published a very extensive biography of Dean Koontz, which was based upon interviews both with his family and him. The book is titled Dean Koontz: A Writer's Biography and is known as something called a psychobiography. It showed that a lot of the plots and characters in his books were concepts from his life. Some of the pictures on the earlier books of Dean Koontz showed him as a balding man that had a mustache. Once he had undergone a surgery for hair transplant in the latter part of the 1990's, the books started showing a Dean Koontz sans mustache and sporting head of hair which was much fuller. Dean Koontz has given nearly $73K to candidates and causes for conservative Republicans, including the Presidential campaigns of both John McCain and Mitt Romney. As of the year 2006, Dean Koontz and Gerda are residing in Newport Beach, CA, where a lot of his novels take place. As of the year 2008, he was the sixth highest paid author, and he's tied with John Grisham. Dean Koontz books are enjoyed by people of all ages, even those who do not care especially for horror or mystery. He has a way of drawing you in and making it hard to put his books down. He is truly an incredible author whose books everyone should read at least once in their life. You will never be the same again. For more information visit the Dean Koontz Web Site. |
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