Stanley Wiater has made a name for himself as an editor, author, screenwriter and as the host of a new television series called Dark Dreamers. He has been called the “world’s leading authority on horror filmmakers and authors” and “the master journalist of the dark genres.”

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The Start of a Career

Stanley Wiater wanted to be a writer from the age of 12, when he became enamored of Edgar Allen Poe, Ray Bradbury and other authors of dark fiction. He sold his first article to the paranormal magazine “Fate“ in 1970, when he was just sixteen. He attended the University of Massachusetts, graduating with honors for his BDIC degree in Writing and Cinema. While attending college, he won an essay contest that awarded him a 12-week scholarship to study the film industry. While he was in California, he ran into Ray Bradbury, one of his favorite authors. He asked him for an interview, and Bradbury granted it. It went well, so he went on to interview all sorts of people he met in Hollywood, including actors, directors and producers. When he went home to Massachusetts, he found out he could sell his interviews… and a career was born.

Three Decades of Accomplishment

Stanley Wiater has sold over 700 short stories, interviews and articles since 1980, when his first short story was published. His fans have enjoyed four collections of interviews with the authors and filmmakers of horror and the fantastique. He has worked with Stephen King on The Stephen King Universe and with Richard Matheson on a collection of Matheson’s Twilight Zone scripts. His Dark Thoughts: On Writing sets out the tips and tricks of the trade from some of the genre’s best authors, including Stephen King, Dean Koontz and Anne Rice.

To this day, he still enjoys reading horror fiction, and he teaches workshops at the University of Massachusetts on freelance writing, as well as in horror, mystery and suspense writing. He emphasizes the business end to his students, in an effort to help them succeed.

Stanley Wiater has worked on comic book scripts, mostly with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He also wrote the only authorized guide to this phenomenally popular comic. He created a script for a computer game called Jon Dark: Psychic Eye which is as yet, unpublished. He has also reached into the world of edutainment by writing AlphaSaurs, an educational program to help preschoolers learn their ABC’s.

Wiater has been hosting the television series, Dark Dreamers. The episodes profile the great creative minds in horror, like Clive Barker, Wes Craven and Harlan Ellison. In Wiater’s own words, “Dark Dreamers is the first and only show to go right to the hearts of darkness: the homes and studios of the world’s greatest dark dreamers.” For horror aficionados, this series will bring them into the creative process of all of their favorites.

Awards

Stanley Wiater began garnering recognition early by being one of only five national recipients of the NEC/Warner Brothers scholarship in 1974. This allowed Wiater to spent time studying the television and film industry. His first published story in 1980, The Toucher, was the sole winner in a competition that was judged by none other than Stephen King. The ReaderCon Committee nominated his book, Night Visions 7 as a finalist for Best Anthology in 1990.

In 1991, he won the Bram Stoker Award for the first time with Dark Dreamers: Conversations with the Masters of Horror for Superior Achievement in Non-fiction. Wiater was a finalist for this award again in 1993, and won this award from the Horror Writers Association twice more in 1998 and again in 2002, for Dark Thoughts: On Writing and Dark Dreamers: Facing the Masters of Fear, respectively. Wiater was also nominated for an Eisner Award and a Harvey Award in 1994 for his Comic Book Rebels.

Stanley Wiater has made a life-long career out of doing what he loves… writing and his favorite genre of fiction. Not too many people have been able to carve out a niche like he has and remain successful at it for over 30 years. By keeping his focus and finding unique opportunities, he has navigated his way to the top of his field, never straying from what he loves.