Charles L. Grant

September 12, AKA today, is the birthday of Charles L. Grant (1942-2006). Grant was a practitioner of what is known as quiet horror. It’s the type of horror I prefer. In addition to being an amazing writer, he was one of the most influential anthology editors of the late 1970s and 80s.

I first became aware of Shadows, the groundbreaking anthology series he edited when I was in the 8th grade.  We had recently moved to Paris, TX.  The public library had a good selection of anthologies for a library of that size in those days, including at least one, and probably more, titles from the Shadows series. The first volume I read was Shadows 3. I was hooked. I hunted down the others, especially Shadows 2, which had “The Chair” by Jane Cozart and Alan Dean Foster, Foster being my favorite writer at the time.  This was about a year before I discovered Kuttner and Brackett. Continue reading →