Name: GRANT, Charles Lewis Aged: 64
Born: September 12, 1942 Where: Hackettstown, NJ
Died: September 15, 2006 Where: Newton, NJ
Interred:
Married: Debbie Voss When: 1973
Married 2: Kathryn A. Ptacek When: circa 1981
Awards: Two Nebulas: 1977 Short Story "A Crowd of Shadows" & 1979 Novelette "A Glow of Candles, a Unicorn's Eye"; three World Fantasy awards: 1979 for editing Anthology/Collection Shadows, 1983 Novella "Confess the Seasons," and 1983 for editing Anthology/Collection Nightmare Seasons. The British Fantasy Society's Special Award in 1987 for Life Achievement; the Horror Writers Association (HWA) Bram Stoker award in 1999 for Lifetime Achievement; the World Horror Grandmaster award in 2002; and the International Horror Guild's Living Legend award in 2003.

Charles L. Grant

"The Dead Speaketh Not, They Just Grunt Now and Then."

Charles L. Grant was educated by the numbers, as was expected from the son of a minister. Graduated from Kearny High School at 18 and from Trinty College at Hartford at age 22. Then a small glitch...off to Vietnam with the U.S. Army as a Military Policeman for two years, Purple Heart with OLC and a Bronze Star. After that, he was ready for some serious escape fantasy, joining many of the Golden Age writers who held the same credentials...religion and education, followed by war and adjustment. He avoided doing that during the next decade as an English teacher in the New Jersey school system. Then opted for a fulltime free-lance writing career in 1975.

In his earlier career, Charlie preferred to use the name "C. L. Grant" and claimed his main influences were the science fiction writers Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison, rather than H. P. Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith. So he began his career as a science fiction writer and attached himself to that genre, even serving as an officer for the SFWA. But as Ed Bryant said, "Then everything changed. I can't tell you if it required the right full moon, but suddenly Charles L. Grant was a tried and true horror guy, with an ever-growing list of (works), all lurking off in the sinister world of the dark fantastic."

In 1981 Twentieth Century Science Fiction Writers was published. It contained an entry for Charles L. Grant, who had just won two Nebulas and a World Fantasy award prior to the book's compilation process. The author's descriptive section was written by a Jeff Frane and began, "Charles L. Grant continues to be an author of bright, unfulfilled promise." and "It is clear that Charles L. Grant is trying to write something more than simple-minded science fiction adventures." Way to go, Jeff...sure ticked Charlie off...and he changed directions. Not that he wasn't going to anyway or hadn't already. But he was lost to science fiction and concentrated on horror and dark fantasy thereafter.

From the beginning, Charlie was a compulsive writer but he also had to edit, to teach as he was trained to do, but not in a classroom. He wrote 'differently' and edited the same way, he aimed the story or the writer and let the reader or the author make the final expansion of thought or theme. One could make a case that Grant was a slightly better editor than writer, which seems contradictory.

Grant edited an award winning, annual anthology of original stories, the Shadows series, for over a decade. It attracted contributions from some of the best fantasy writers ranging from Robert Bloch to Avram Davidson to Stephen King. Shadows eventually became 12 volumes, with Grant editing additionally at least 13 anthologies that were 90% original material. Among the latter were 3 books published by Playboy, Nightmares, Terrors, & Horrors, and the Gallery of Horror for Dodd Mead. Three collections of his short stories exist, A Glow of Candles, Tales from the Nightside, and Nightmare Seasons. The five 'Black Oak' novels of the last decade are among Grant's best and his two X-File novelizations, Goblins (1994) and Whirlwind (1995) became best sellers. Charlie had a party to note the signing of his 100th book contract some years back and published about 200 short stories, all genres considered. Not too shabby...maybe even fulfilling.

Writers sit too long, slumping over their keyboards...compressing the heart and damaging the lungs. Grant was very prolific across 30 years, inclined to write too long, until the last demon...well..."him finally come calling." Not surprisingly, as there was forewarning, but very unexpectedly. Perhaps someday we might, while reading in Charlie's pages, hear him grunt now and then. Some of us would smile if that happens while others would shrink in terror. It would be the latter reaction that would please him, somewhere in the vicinity of Oxrun Station or Hawthorne Street.

"I didn't mean to be so damned mysterious,
but sometimes I like to play the role."

THUMBNAIL: From a larger 1987 photograph provided and copyrighted by Beth Gwinn.

PEN NAMES: Felicia Andrews (romance), Steven Charles (young adult), Lionel Fenn, C. L. Grant, Simon Lake (young adult), Deborah Lewis (? - not ForSF), & Geoffrey L. Marsh.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.

OBITUARIES: Various.

ON-LINE: The International Horror Guild has a page on Charles L. Grant.

Send relevant email to George C. Willick