Mort Castle

Mort Castle (born 1946) is an American horror author and writing teacher, with more than 350 short stories and a dozen 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 lit mags to more off the wall or risqué markets. He has been nominated four times for the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction.

A dedicated writing teacher, Castle has been a working musician, a standup comic, a stage hypnotist, a high school English teacher (for 11 years), a magazine and comic book editor. He is currently writer in residence for three high schools, and teaching "Researching and Writing Historical Fiction" and "Story In Graphic Form" at Columbia College Chicago. He is a frequent keynote speaker at writing conferences and has given over 800 presentations to writers, would-be writers, and teachers of writing. His latest book, 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. He is also the Executive Editor of Thorby Comics, and currently fiction editor for Doorways Magazine.

Castle has been nominated for various awards: the Pushcart Prize, the Bram Stoker Award, the DeMarco Prize, the Emerson Fiction Award, Leaders in the Arts for Chicago.