About Robert McCammon

Robert McCammon is the award-winning, best-selling author of more than 16 novels. Throughout the 1980s, McCammon wrote some of the most popular horror novels published, including such best-selling titles as Swan Song, Stinger, and The Wolf's Hour. In the 1990s, his work became more mainstream with such novels as MINE and the World Fantasy Award-winning Boy's Life.

After the release of Gone South in 1992, McCammon shied away from publishing. His writing interests started to come into conflict with the big publishers, who insisted on pigeonholing his work. His next novel, Speaks the Nightbird, was more of an historical-fiction/mystery than fantasy/horror book. Potential publishers soured the writer by insisting on substantial changes to support their marketing efforts. McCammon refused to sign a contract and entered into a long phase of semi-retirement.

Speaks the Nightbird was eventually published in 2002 by River City Publishing, a small Alabama press. The success of the novel—and the warm reception by readers eager to see McCammon writing again—led McCammon to write a sequel entitled The Queen of Bedlam, which was published in 2007. The third novel in the planned ten-book series following the career of "problem solver" Matthew Corbett is Mister Slaughter. It will be published by Subterranean Press in January 2010.

In between his historical fiction novels, McCammon has planned several contemporary novels, the first of which he is currently writing.

Robert McCammon is a lifelong resident of Birmingham, Alabama, where he lives with his wife and daughter.

Bibliography

• Baal (1978)
• Bethany's Sin (1980)
• The Night Boat (1980)
• They Thirst (1981)
• Mystery Walk (1983)
• Usher's Passing (1984)
• Swan Song (1987)
• Stinger (1988)
• The Wolf's Hour (1989)
• MINE (1990)
• Blue World (1990)
• Boy's Life (1991)
• Gone South (1992)
• Speaks the Nightbird (2002)
• The Queen of Bedlam (2007)
• Mister Slaughter (2009/2010)

Awards

Robert McCammon is the recipient of five Bram Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers Association (which he helped found) and the World Fantasy Award for Boy's Life. In addition, he has received the 1985 Alabama Library Association's Alabama Author Award, the prestigious French 1992 Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire Award, and the 2008 Grand Master Award from the World Horror Convention, among others.