About F. Paul Wilson

Paul was born and raised in New Jersey where he misspent his youth playing with matches, poring over Uncle Scrooge and E.C. comics, reading Lovecraft, Matheson, Bradbury, and Heinlein, listening to Chuck Berry and Alan Freed on the radio, and watching Soupy Sales and Shock Theatre with Zacherley.

THE KEEP and THE TOMB both appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers List. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS won the first Prometheus Award in 1979; THE TOMB received the 1984 Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. His novelette “Aftershock” won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for short fiction. DYDEETOWN WORLD was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others. He is listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who's Who in America.

His novel THE KEEP was made into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie (screenplay and direction by Michael Mann) by Paramount in 1983. THE TOMB is in development as “Repairman Jack” by Beacon Films and hopefully will not suffer a similar fate. His original teleplay "Glim-Glim" aired on Monsters in 1989 and is currently in reruns on the Sci-Fi Channel. An adaptation of his short story "Menage a Trois" was part of the pilot for The Hunger series that debuted on Showtime in July 1997. He has written for stage, screen, and interactive media as well.

...or at least the last 6 months or so of it - and only the bits that have to do with writing. Don't worry, I won't annoy you with news of my children's birthdays or pictures of my cat. (Wait...I don't have a cat.)

3/29 - Simon Clark and I present the best-novel Stoker award at the banquet. I peeked into the envelope beforehand and knew Sarah Langan was the winner, so I felt free to harass her beforehand. (Someone later reminded me that BLACK WIND was nominated for best novel in 1988 – I guess it was, but who can remember that long?) You can see it here. And here you can watch Sarah do her impression of the Chef of the Future.

3/29 - back from the desert I have lunch with Stephen Lewis who has the world's most unique take on disease and healing. See for yourself: http://www.energeticmatrix.com/

3/29 - took a long morning ride out past Great Salt Lake into the desert. Strange, stark beauty out there. I can see why the prophets of old would lose themselves in the desert - and come back either wiser or completely mad. (I didn't stay long enough for either.)

3/28 - I hang a good deal with Heather Graham at WHC and, as mentioned elsewhere, I'm performing in her Vampire Ball on Friday night at the Romantic Times Convention. She tells me she has a suitably awful (and even embarrassing) death planned for me. I can hardly wait.

3/28 - the special JACK: SECRET HISTORIES bookmarks arrive today, too late to get into the convention goodie bags. I'll give them away at the signing.

3/28 - Harry Morris emails me 4 different possible covers for the limited edition of LEGACIES. I invite a number of writers at WHC to comment and the choice is unanimous.

3/27 - off to Salt Lake City for the World Horror Convention - all sorts of signings and panels and sundry activities planned. (Skiing is not one of them - I don't get skiing.)

3/23 - the Richard Matheson tribute anthology, HE IS LEGEND is on sale. I wrote a sequel to his "The Distributor" and couldn't resist involving Repairman Jack (though he's never mentioned by name). The prices are astronomical but will go up after it's sold out. It's going to be one hell of a collector's item. http://www.gauntletpress.com/

3/22 - first draft of SECRET CIRCLES completed. I’ll let it sit until the plane ride to and from World Horror next week.

3/21 - into NYC to meet with a young game designer who wants to develop MASQUE into a videogame. (Yes, we've been down this road before.) We have lunch at the Ear Inn in SoHo. (You'll learn all about the place in BY THE SWORD.)

3/20 - spoke to Alexis about the giveaway title for Romantic Times. Although THE TMB would be idea, HOSTS seems right too and it has plenty of copies in the warehouse, so we're going to go with that. This means lots of cases of books - a dozen or more - being shipped to the hotel. I hope they don't all wind up in my room.

3/19 - another great advance review of JACK: SECRET HISTORIES, this time from the target audience: an 11-year old.

3/18 - word from Alexis that the JACK: SECRET HISTORIES postcards are running a little late and will have to be shipped directly to the Radisson in Salt Lake City for the convention. This is not bad news. It saves me from schlepping them onto the plane.

3/17 - email from Thrillerfest wanting me to moderate a panel on paranormal thrillers. (Instead of "moderator" they prefer "Panel Master" - has a fascist ring, which is cool as long as I'm the Master.) Well, since the panel was my idea, I suppose I must.

3/15 - a nice advance review of JACK: SECRET HISTORIES from a respected librarian.

3/14 - I pass the 50K-word mark on SECRET CIRCLES. Beginning the grand finale of the novel and the whole trilogy. Gonna be a slam-bang finish, folks.

3/13 - Jo Carol Jones from Romantic Times writes to ask if I want to join Barry Eisler and Heather Graham for an author chat on Wednesday at Romantic Times. I'm in. Heather's one of my favorite people, and Barry's a good guy and an excellent thriller writer - check out his John Rain series. (But only after you've finished all the Repairman Jacks - let's keep our priorities straight here.)

3/13 - an email from Otto Penzler of the famous Mysterious Bookshop wanting to reprint the =Midnight Mass= novella in an upcoming anthology. Like I'm gonna say no? 3/12 - trading emails with J.A. Konrath and learn that he's had to cancel out on Romantic Times. Something about a wedding. Bummer. Joe's always good for a laugh and a beer. (He even buys.)

3/12 - a new paperback edition of my 1993 medical thriller THE SELECT arrives from Germany (where it's called DIE PRUFUNG). This is its umpteenth printing over there, and tenth incarnation with a different cover each time. It's long out of print everywhere else but hit number one on the German bestseller lists and keeps selling and selling. Go figure. You can rarely explain and never predict this kind of thing.

3/11 - hey, the April issue of =Romantic Times Bookreviews= magazine devotes a page to the men attending the convention. J.A. Konrath, Barry Eisler, and yrs trly are profiled among others under "Let's Hear it for the Boys." Only 7 of us on the page. Just 7 male authors? Yow. Our testosterone-fu must be strong lest we come home in drag.

3/10 - I hear from Alexis that Tor is printing up a bunch of SECRET HISTORIES postcards to give away at WHC. Let's hope they arrive in time for the con.

3/7 - Alexis gets back to me on the CD idea: Marketing would prefer to ship out 500 or so copies of one of the novels to give away - don't give 'em a taste of Jack, give 'em the whole damn book. Well, all right. Can't argue with that.

3/6 - I'm thinking of changing the title of the 3rd YA novel from SECRET LIVES to SECRET CIRCLES. A lot of circular themes running through it and connecting up from the first two books.

3/5 - email from Alexis telling me that NY ComiCon wants me on a panel on Saturday April 19. Then she remembers that I'll be at the Romantic Times con in Pittsburgh at that time. Can I do both? she asks. Only if I breach the space-time continuum which, as you are well aware, will end all life as we know it. (I confess to having a Stimpy big-red-button moment.)

3/3 - Dara from Gauntlet informs me that she's having problems typesetting some of the Kanji in the ms. We work it out.

3/3 - I email Alexis, my publicist, about this idea for a promotional giveaway at the Romantic Times con: a CD with a Repairman Jack story (I suggest "A Day in the Life") and an excerpt from THE TOMB to give the ladies a taste of Jack. "A Taste of Repairman Jack! Exclusive for Romantic Times Booklovers!" She says she'll run it by marketing.

3/1 - I fax the corrected galley pages of BY THE SWORD to Gauntlet. Shouldn't be long now.