Dean Ray Koontz - 1945
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Read other essays on Dean Koontz written by California student Monica Gracia and New Hampshire student Brynne-Ithaca Dizack.
"Eventually, as my books became best-sellers, the nickels pile up and one day I was offered a substantial
four-book deal that was lucrative as any airliner hijacking in history. Though writing those four books was hard work, at least I didn't have to wear Kevlar
body armor, carry heavy bandoliers of spare ammunition, or work with associates named Mad Dog." - Dean Koontz I. Biography Dean Koontz was born and raised in Pennsylvania. His childhood was filled with more
downs than ups, his father, being an alcoholic who was prone to violent outbursts. Koontz, being a 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, to give them a world to step into when their own became too harsh and bad. Most of his novels written later contained characters who were or had been
troubled children, Koontz was never encouraged by his parents in writing. They considered books and reading to be a waste of time and money, and actually tried to stop him from reading. This did not discourage Dean however.
Koontz began selling original fiction when he was eight years old. He wrote short stories on regular paper and sharpened them up with colorful covers, stapled the left margin of
each story, put electrician's tape over the staples, and tried to sell them to relatives and neighbors, 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 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. His first 'real' fiction sale was called "Kittens" which he sold while still in college at the
age of twenty. He graduated from 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 the previous occupier of his position had been beaten up by the very kids
he had been trying to help and had landed in the hospital for several weeks. The following year was a challenging one, but Koontz was more highly motivated to build a career as a writer.
Koontz wrote when he could - nights and weekends - and continued this as he left the poverty program and started teaching in a suburban school district near Harrisburg. After
teaching there 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 those 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 huge writing career. By this time Koontz had published a great deal of science fiction, both
short stories such as ("Worlds of Tomorrow", 1970) and novels like The Haunted Earth (Lancer Books, 1970) and Demon Child (Lancer Books, 1971). In 1976 the Koontz's moved
to Southern California, where they presently still reside. Koontz now writes books and novels that consistently top the best sellers list and in the process make him a lot of money and a famous man for years to come.
II. Literary Works Demon Seed :"Susan Harris lived in a self-imposed seclusion, in a mansion featuring numerous automated systems controlled by a state-of-the-art computer. Every comfort
was provided, and in this often-unsafe world of ours, her security was absolute. Now, her security system has been breached, her sanctuary from the outside world violated by an
insidious artificial intelligence which has taken control of her house. In the privacy of her own home, and against her will, Susan will experience an inconceivable act of terror. She
will become the object of the ultimate computer's consuming obsession: to learn everything there is to know about the flesh..." MOVIE: 1977 Julie Christie The Funhouse
"Once there was a girl who ran away and joined a traveling carnival. She married a man she grew to ate-and gave birth to a child she could never love. A child so
monstrous that she killed it with her own hands... Twenty-five years later, Ellen Harper has a new life, a new husband, and two normal children-Joey loves monster movies and Amy is
aboutto graduate from high school. But their mother drowns her secret guilt in alcohol and prayer. The time has come for Amy and Joey to pray for her sins... because Amy is
pregnant, and the carnival is coming back to town." MOVIE: 1981 Elizabeth Berridge, Shawn Carson Intensity "His name is Edgler Foreman Vess. He likes to make words from the letters of his
name-GOD, DEMON, SAVE, RAGE, ANGER, FEAR, FOREVER, are just a few of them-and then make sentences of the words. One of his favorites, GOD FEARS ME, is sometimes the
last thing he whispers to his victims. On this night, his adventure - murdering everyone in the house - becomes Chyna's long nightmare. Trapped in Vess's deadly orbit, Chyna thinks
only of getting out alive. But when she inadvertently learns the identity of Vess's intended next victim, Chyna is gripped by concern for this innocent. Driven now by a sense of
responsibility for another, by a purpose and meaning beyond mere self-preservation, Chyna rises to unexpected heights of courage and daring - her only hope as the threat of
Edgler Foreman Vess closes in and grows more horrifying moment by moment." MOVIE: 1997 Molly Parker, John McGinley (mini series on FOX) Audio book: Unabridged, read by Kate Burton III. Further Information
Full Name: Dean Ray Koontz. VI. Works Availability
A bookstore near you:
Date of Birth: July 9, 1945, Everett, Pennsylvania.
Residence:Orange (Orange Hills), California.
Education: Shippensburg State Teachers College, Shippensburg Pennsylvania.
Career:Teacher-counselor with Appalachian Poverty Program, 1966-67
High school English teacher, 1967-69
Full-time writer, 1969-present
Family: Gerda, married October 15, 1966. No Children.
http://www.randomhouse.com
VII. Koontz on the Webhttp://www.deankoontz.com
http://www.veinotte.com/koontz
http://www.qnet.com/~raven/dkbio.html
http://www.randomhouse.com
http://www.amazon.com
VII. Sourceshttp://www.deankoontz.com
http://www.veinotte.com/koontz
http://www.qnet.com/~raven/dkbio.html
http://www.randomhouse.com
http://www.amazon.com
This essay was submitted by a student of Cheryl Petersohn, a teacher at Harriton High School in Rosemont, Pennsylvania.