Jack Ketchum
Dallas Mayr (born in Livingston, New Jersey on November 10, 1946), better known by his pseudonym Jack Ketchum, is an American author. He is the recipient of four Bram Stoker Awards and three further nominations. Many of his novels have been adapted to film, including The Girl Next Door and Red. In 2011, Ketchum received the World Horror Convention Grand Master Award for outstanding contribution to the horror genre.
Ketchum lives in New York City.
Biography
Education
Ketchum earned a B.A. Bachelor of Arts in English from Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts, and later taught high school level in Brookline, Massachusetts, for two years.
Early years
A onetime actor, teacher, literary agent, lumber salesman, and soda jerk, Ketchum credits his childhood love of Elvis Presley, dinosaurs, and horror for getting him through his formative years. He began making up stories at a young age and explains that he spent a lot of time in his room, or in the woods near his house, down by the brook: '[m]y interests [were] Books, comics, movies, rock 'n roll, show tunes, TV, dinosaurs [...] pretty much any activity that didn't demand too much socializing, or where I could easily walk away from socializing'. He would make up stories using his plastic soldiers, knights, and dinosaurs as the characters. He was also big on Halloween and his mother, being '[...] pretty good with the sewing machine [...]', ensured young Ketchum had an authentic costume: his favorites were Peter Pan and Superman. Ketchum has further expressed an early interest in horror films like Nosferatu and the classic Universal Monsters such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923 film) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925 film).
