Диан Рэй Кунтц: Американдық жазушы және сценарист

American writer and screenwriter (born 1945)

Dean Ray Koontz (born July 9, 1945) is an American author. His novels are billed as suspense thrillers, but frequently incorporate elements of horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery, and satire. Many of his books have appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list, with fourteen hardcovers and sixteen paperbacks reaching the number one position. Koontz wrote under a number of pen names earlier in his career, including "David Axton", "Deanna Dwyer", "K. R. Dwyer", "Leigh Nichols" and "Brian Coffey". He has published over 105 novels and a number of novellas and collections of short stories, and has sold over 450 million copies of his work.

Koontz was born on July 9, 1945, in Everett, Pennsylvania, the son of Florence (née Logue) and Raymond Koontz. He has said that he was regularly beaten and abused by his alcoholic father, which influenced his later writing, as also did the courage of his physically diminutive mother in standing up to her husband. In his senior year at Shippensburg State College, he won a fiction competition sponsored by Atlantic Monthly magazine. After graduation in 1967, he went to work as an English teacher at Mechanicsburg High School in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. In a 1996 interview with Reason magazine, he said that while the program sounded "very noble and wonderful,  [i]n reality, it was a dumping ground for violent children  and most of the funding ended up 'disappearing somewhere.'" He says he sees Catholicism as English writer and Catholic convert G. K. Chesterton did: that it encourages a "joy about the gift of life". His first hardcover bestseller, which finally promised some financial stability and lifted him out of the midlist hit and miss range, was his book Strangers. Since then, 12 hardcovers and 14 paperbacks written by Koontz have reached number one on The New York Times Best Seller list. In 1997, psychologist Katherine Ramsland published an extensive biography of Koontz based on interviews with his family and him. This "psychobiography" (as Ramsland called it) often showed the conception of Koontz's characters and plots from events in his own life. Early author photos on the back of many of his novels show a balding Koontz with a mustache. After Koontz underwent hair transplantation surgery in the late 1990s, his subsequent books have featured a new, clean shaven appearance with a fuller head of hair. Koontz explained the change by claiming that he was tired of looking like G. Gordon Liddy. Many of his novels are set in and around Orange County, California. As of 2006, he lives there with his wife, Gerda (Cerra), in Newport Coast, California, behind the gates of Pelican Hills. In 2008, he was the world's sixth most highly paid author, tied with John Grisham, at $25 million annually. In 2019, Koontz began publishing with Amazon Publishing. At the time of the announcement, Koontz was one of the company's most notable signings.

One of Koontz's pen names was inspired by his dog, Trixie Koontz, a Golden Retriever, shown in many of his book jacket photos. Trixie originally was a service dog with Canine Companions for Independence (CCI), a charitable organization that provides service dogs for people with disabilities. Trixie was a gift from CCI in gratitude of Koontz's substantial donations, totaling $2.5 million between 1991 and 2004. Koontz was taken with the charity while he was researching his novel Midnight, a book which included a CCI trained dog, a black Labrador Retriever, named Moose. In 2004, Koontz wrote and edited Life Is Good: Lessons in Joyful Living in her name, and in 2005, Koontz wrote a second book credited to Trixie, Christmas Is Good. Both books are written from a supposed canine perspective on the joys of life. The royalty payments of the books were donated to CCI. Anna died on May 22, 2016. Koontz then adopted a new dog, Elsa, on July 11, 2016.