Dean Koontz - 1945
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Londonderry High School in Londonderry, New Hampshire
Read other essays on Dean Koontz written by California student
Edward Martin, or Pennsylvania student Adam Sobol.I. Biography
Dean Koontz was born and raised in Pennsylvania. His childhood was filled with turmoil and abuse from an alcoholic father who was prone to violent outbursts and was eventually diagnosed as being mentally ill. Koontz, being an only child with a mother who was prone to illness, developed his own survival strategies to cope with the horrors of his home life. Books became a large part of this, as he found that they could take him into a better world. As a child, Koontz desired to create this same escape for others. He wanted his writing to be a safe place for his readers—away from the turmoil of their real lives. Most of his novels, written later in life, contained characters who were troubled children. Another repeated underlying theme was that those who embrace friendship, love, faith and an unwavering commitment to freedom will inevitably win over those who are motivated by power, envy, and greed.
Koontz received no encouragement from his parents as far as writing was concerned. They considered books and reading to be a waste of time and money, and actually discouraged him from reading. Undaunted by this, Koontz began selling original fiction when he was eight years old. He wrote short stories on tablet paper, sharpened them up with colorful covers, stapled the left margin of each story, put electrician's tape over the staples, and tried to peddle them to relatives and neighbors, usually for a nickel a story. When he was twelve, he won a wristwatch and twenty-five dollars in a nationwide newspaper essay competition, writing on the subject "What being an American means to me". He realized early on the need to charge a fee for his work in order to be taken seriously.
As a senior in college, Koontz won a fiction competition, and wrote consistently from then on.
Koontz is a former resident of Francestown, New Hampshire.
II. Professional Life
Koontz's first 'real' fiction sale was a novella called Kittens –which he sold while still in college at the age of twenty.
He soon graduated from Shippensburg State College (now Shippensburg University), and his first job after graduation was with the Appalachian Poverty Program, where he was expected to counsel and tutor underprivileged children on a one-on-one basis. His first day on the job, he discovered that his predecessor had been having a tough time. He had been, beaten up by the very kids he had been trying to help, and had landed in the hospital for several weeks. After learning this, Koontz left the poverty program and started teaching in a suburban school district near Harrisburg.
The following year was filled with challenges and struggle, but Koontz was more highly motivated than ever to build a career as a writer. He wrote when he could, on nights and weekends.
III. Influences
After teaching for about a year and a half, Koontz's wife, Gerda, made him an offer too attractive to refuse. She offered to support him for a period of five years, so that he could pursue his freelance writing full-time. "If you can't make it as a writer by that time, you'll never make it," she told him. Of course, Koontz made full use of these five years and by the end of that time his wife had quit her job in order to run the business end of her husband's galloping writing career. By this time, Koontz had published a great deal of science fiction, both short stories such as "Unseen Warriors" (Worlds of Tomorrow, 1970) and novels like The Haunted Earth (Lancer Books, 1970) and Demon Child (Lancer Books, 1971).
Because of the hardships in his life, Koontz is also influenced by things that make him laugh.
Koontz states: "Ever since I was a kid, I've loved humor of the absurd. Ernie Kovacs, Stan Freberg, Jack Douglas, Ed Bluestone, early Steve Martin, recently Steven Wright - all of those guys with the really strange extra edge can make me laugh until I'm too limp to stand up. Then I have to be taken to a dry cleaner to be steamed, starched and pressed, but thereafter I'm as good as new."
Among the writers who influenced Koontz , John D. Macdonald stands among the top of
the list. Koontz refers to Macdonald as a "brilliant writer" and, in reference to McDonald's work, states: "When I read something like Slam the Big Door, Cry Hard Cry Fast, The Damned, or
The End of the Night, I usually turn to the last page thinking: 'O.K. Koontz, face it, you don't belong in the same craft as this man; go learn plumbing, Koontz, get yourself an honest trade!' "
Koontz's respect for writers of this caliber obviously played a part in his severely critical view of his own work. Koontz is an admitted obsessive-compulsive, and this personal
characteristic drives him to accept nothing but high quality work from himself. A novel normally takes him from five months to a year to complete, and he often works seventy hours a week.
In 1976, the Koontzs moved to southern California, where they still reside. IV. Works by Dean Koontz Fiction Nonfiction Short Fiction V. Dean Koontz on the Web
(Includes works written by Dean Koontz and published using a pseudonym.)
After The Last Race (1974)
Anti-Man (1970)
The Bad Place (1990)
Beastchild (1970)
Blood Risk (as Brian Coffey, 1973)
Chase (as K.R. Dwyer, 1972)
Children of the Storm (as Deanna Dwyer, 1972)
Cold Fire (1991)
The Crimson Witch (1971)
Dance with the Devil (as Deanna Dwyer, 1973)
The Dark Of Summer (as Deanna Dwyer, 1972)
Dark Of The Woods (1970)
The Ark Symphony (1970)
Darkfall (1984)
A Darkness in My Soul (1972)
Demon Child (as Deanna Dwyer, 1971)
Demon Seed (1973)
The Door To December (as Richard Paige, 1985)
Dragon Tears (1993)
Dragonfly (as K.R. Dwyer, 1975)
The Eyes of Darkness (as Leigh Nichols, 1981)
The Face of Fear (as Brian Coffey, 1977)
The Fall of the Dream Machine (1969)
Fear That Man (1969)
The Flesh in the Furnace (1972)
The Funhouse (as Owen West, 1980)
Hanging On (1973)
The Haunted Earth (1970)
Hell's Gate (1970)
Hideaway (1992)
The House of Thunder (as Leigh Nichols, 1982)
Invasion (as Aaron Wolfe, 1975)
The Key to Midnight (as Leigh Nichols, 1979)
Legacy Of Terror (as Deanna Dwyer, 1971)
Lightning (1988)
The Long Sleep (as John Hill, 1975)
The Mask (as Owen Wet, 1981)
Midnight (1989)
Mr. Murder (1993)
Night Chills (1976)
Nightmare Journey (1975)
Oddkins (1988)
Phantoms (1983)
Prison Of Ice (as David Axton, 1976)
Shadowfires (as Leigh Nichols, 1987)
Shattered (as K.R. Dwyer, 1973)
Soft Come the Dragons (1970)
Star Quest (1968)
Starblood (1972)
Strangers (1986)
Strike Deep (as Anthony North, 1974)
Surrounded (as Brian Coffey, 1974)
Time Thieves (1972)
Twilight (as Leigh Nichols, 1984)
Twilight Eyes
The Land Of Enchantment (1985)
The Vision (1977)
The Voice of the Night (as Brian Coffey, 1980)
The Wall Of Masks (as Brian Coffey, 1975)
Warlock (1972)
Watchers (1987)
A Werewolf Among Us (1973)
Whispers (1980)
Winter Moon (1994)
How to Write Best-selling Fiction (1981)
The Pig Society and The Underground Lifestyles Handbook (1970)
Writing Popular Fiction (1972)
"Altarboy." Infinity Three (1972)
"Beastchild." Venture Science Fiction (August 1970)
"The Black Pumpkin." Twilight Zone (December 1986)
"Bruno." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (April 1971)
"Cosmic Sin." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (February 1972).
"The Crimson Witch." Fantastic Stories (October 1970).
"A Darkness in My Soul." Fantastic Stories (January 1968)
"Dreambird." If (September 1968)
"Down in the Darkness." The Horror Show (Summer 1986)
"A Dragon in the Land." Venture Science Fiction (August 1969)
"The Good Ship Lookoutworld." Fantastic Stories (February 1970)
"Graveyard Highway, in Tropical Chips" (1988)
"Grayworld." Infinity Five (1973)
"Hardshell." Night Visions 4 (1987)
"In the Shield." If (January 1969)
"The Interrogation." The Horror Show (Summer 1987)
"Killerbot." Galaxy (May 1969)
"Kittens" (1965)
"Miss Attila the Hun." Night Visions 4 (1987)
"A Mouse in the Walls of the Global Village." Again Dangerous Visions (1972)
"Muse." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (September 1969)
"The Mystery of His Flesh." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (July 1970)
"Night of the Storm." Continuum 1 (1974)
"Nightmare Gang." Infinity One (1970)
"Ollie's Hands." Infinity Four (1972)
"Show." The Horror (Summer 1987)
"The Psychedelic Children." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (July 1968)
"Shambolain." If (November-December 1970)
"The Sinless Child." Flame Tree Planet (1986)
"Snatcher." Night Cry (Fall 1986)
"Soft Come the Dragons." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (August 1967)
"Temple of Sorrow." Amazing Stories (January 1969)
"Terra Phobia." Androids, Time Machines and Blue Giraffes (1973)
"A Third Hand." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (January 1970)
"To Behold the Sun." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (December 1967)
"Trapped." Stalkers (1989)
"The Twelfth Bed." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (August 1968)
"Twilight of the Dawn." Night Visions 4 (1987)
"The Undercity." Future City (1973)
"Unseen Warriors." Worlds of Tomorrow (Winter 1970).
"Wake Up to Thunder." Children of Infinity (1973)
"We Three." Final Stage (1974)
"Weird World." The Horror Show (Summer 1986)
"Where the Beast Runs." If (July 1969)
VI. Bibliography
Hampson, Thomas. "Science Fiction and Fantasy Author Index: Dean Koontz (Biography)." Thirteen Online: WNET New York. 1996. Online. Internet. Ramsland, Katherine. Dean Koontz: A Writer's Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
This essay was submitted by a student of Elizabeth H. Juster, a teacher at Londonderry High School in Londonderry, New Hampshire.
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