Introduction
Mort Castle (born 1946) is an American horror author and writing teacher, with more than 500 short stories and a 17 books to his credit, including Cursed Be the Child (Leisure Books, 1994) and The Strangers. Castle's first novel was published in 1967. Since then he has had pieces published in all sorts of places ranging from traditional literary magazines to more off-the-wall or risqué markets. He has been nominated eleven times for the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction and winner three times.
A dedicated writing teacher, Castle has been a working musician, a standup comic, a stage hypnotist, a high school English teacher (for 11 years), and a magazine and comic book editor. He is currently writer-in-residence for two high schools, and teaching "Researching and Writing Historical Fiction" and "Story In Graphic Form" and other classes at Columbia College Chicago. He is a frequent keynote speaker at writing conferences, and has given over 1000 presentations to writers, would-be writers, and teachers of writing. One of his latest books, Writing Horror, for which he served as editor, has become the "bible" for aspiring horror authors. It also includes interviews with some of horror's top stars, such as Stephen King. Castle is also the Executive Editor of Thorby Comics, and currently fiction editor for Doorways Magazine.
Castle has been a regular contributor to Eureka Productions' Graphic Classics series since 2006, with work in Graphic Classics: Jack London, (second edition), Graphic Classics: Ambrose Bierce (second edition), Graphic Classics: Bram Stoker (second edition), Graphic Classics: Robert Louis Stevenson (second edition), Graphic Classics: O. Henry, and Graphic Classics: Halloween Classics.
In August 2013 it was announced that Castle will be scripting the Red Giant Entertainment comic book Darchon, an ongoing feature of their Giant-Size Comics line of free print comic book titles set to debut on May 3, 2014, as part of Free Comic Book Day. Darchon will appear monthly in Giant-Size Thrills, their horror-focused title.
Mort Castle's short story, Oval Portrait, was published in 3Elements Review's fall issue no. 8, in October 2015.
Awards
Castle has been nominated for various awards, including the Pushcart Prize, the Bram Stoker Award(won three times), the DeMarco Prize, and the Emerson Fiction Award, Leaders in the Arts for Chicago.