Simon Clark

Simon Clark is thirty-eight years old, married to Janet, and has two children, Alexander (12) and Helen (6). He was born in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, on 20 April 1958, he went to school at Hemsworth High School, going on to further education at Whitwood Mining & Technical College. Before becoming a full-time writer in 1993, he worked at Hillard's Supermarket, Wakefield and Doncaster Councils.

Simon was possessed in childhood by the ambition to write. His first stories appeared on local radio and in small press magazines. In his early twenties he won several short story competitions and a playwriting competition. He has contributed to mass-market anthologies and magazines, including Skeleton Crew, Fear, Beyond, Darklands 2 (NEL), Dark Voices 5 (Pan), The Year's Best Horror four times (DAW, USA), Cold Cuts 3; four anthologies published by Robinson Publishing; his work has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and he has been commissioned to write material for the rock band U2.

In 1990, BBR Books issued his collection of Yorkshire horror stories entitled Blood & Grit.

His first novel, Nailed by the Heart (Hodder & Stoughton/NEL, 1995) is described by bestselling horror writer Richard Laymon as: "Terrific. The most eerie book I've read in a very long time."

Blood Crazy (Hodder & Stoughton/NEL, 1995), his second novel, based largely in Doncaster, has been published to great critical acclaim; indeed one reviewer claimed it as the best British horror novel he'd ever read (Samhain magazine). His third novel, Darker, was published on 4 July 1996; his fourth, King Blood was published in February 1997.

Simon is currently working on a further two novels for Hodder & Stoughton, Vampyrrhic and The Fall, both of which are scheduled to appear in 1998.

He's also collaborating with a television producer over a series of short eerie stories - a kind of Twilight Zone UK. The stories are slightly unconventional in the sense that they feature a narrator who will carry the story as much as the actors. All this is very much in the lap of the gods - so many TV projects fall by the wayside for one reason or another, and those reasons tend to be financial rather than artistic. Simon's keeping his fingers crossed as he types now...