Stephen Laws (born July 13, 1952) is an English author working mostly in the genres of horror and dark fantasy. Married, with three children, he lives in his birthplace of Newcastle upon Tyne and makes frequent use of local settings in his published works.Book review, Hartlepool Mail, 7th March 1992Children of the Night Literary Awards, Northern Echo, December 13th 1994 A writer of novels and short stories, he is also an occasional reviewer, columnist, and film festival interviewer.Cinema Macabre, ed Mark Morris with an introduction by Jonathan Ross, PS Publishing 2006 His story The Song My Sister Sang won the British Fantasy Award for short fiction in 1999 and he served as a judge for the World Fantasy Awards in 2013.Stephen Laws at the Science Fiction Awards Database
Early life Asthmatic as a child and often bedridden in the winter months, Laws read and created stories as a means of escape. An early fascination with genre is attributed to his father's dramatic re-telling of the plots of X-rated horror movies fresh in his mind from the evening before.Auden, Sandy. Trauma Magazine (Denmark) Volume 1, issue 2, 1993 Laws would later perform a similar 'playground storyteller'Horror, 100 Best Books ed Stephen Jones and Kim Newman, with a foreword by Ramsey Campbell, Carroll and Graf 1988 service for school friends, recounting and sometimes embellishing the narratives of Hammer Horror films seen in local cinemas in youthful defiance of age restrictionsBBFC history of the age rating symbols|
Career Stephen Laws left Manor Park Technical School at 16 to work in the Architects Department of Northumberland County Council, studying for professional qualifications in the evenings. He went on to work in local government as a committee administrator for twenty years, publishing his first novel in 1985 and becoming a full-time writer in 1992. Early influences included Nigel Kneale's TV dramas and shows such as The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, and Doctor Who, with creative inspiration drawn from the writing of Richard Matheson.A Conversation with Stephen Laws, conducted by Rick Keffell, Cemetery Dance Publications, Issue 51, Mar 2005, ISSN 1047-7675
Success in local writing competitions, along with frustration over a cancelled BBC drama commission,Auden, Sandy, Horror Writers of America Bulletin led to the writing of his debut novel Ghost Train, first published in 1985 by Souvenir Press. This conscious effort to create a modern ghost story was widely seen as a successful move to breathe new life into a well-established genre.St James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic writers, Gale Publishing More novels and short fiction would follow, along with occasional reviews and magazine columns."The Laws of Fear", Page 67, Fear Magazine, ed John Gilbert, Jan-Feb 1989, Newsfield Publications
Described as "a steady, reliable writer whose best work is highly original and carries a powerful emotional impact",Don D'Ammassa, Encyclopedia of Fantasy and Horror Fiction, Facts on File 2006 Laws serves as an occasional onstage interviewer of guests and personalities at film festivals, and contributes introductions and critical matter to DVD and Blu-ray releases of classic genre material.Criterion list of Stephen Laws Blu-ray introductions and commentaries He adapted and appears in a short film adaptation of his short story The SecretThe Secret on the IMDb
A book-length study of his writing, The Laws of Horror: An Exploration of the Novels of Stephen Laws by Anthony Watson was published by Witness Books in 2025
Bibliography
Novels Ghost Train, Souvenir Press 1985 Spectre, Souvenir Press 1986 The Wyrm, Souvenir Press 1987 The Frighteners, Souvenir Press 1990 Darkfall, New English Library 1992 Gideon, New English Library 1993 Macabre, Hodder & Stoughton 1994 Daemonic, Hodder & Stoughton 1995 Somewhere South of Midnight, Hodder & Stoughton 1996 Chasm, Hodder & Stoughton 1998 Ferocity, Leisure Books/Dorchester Publishing 2007
Chapbook Annabel Says, with Simon Clark, The British Fantasy Society 1995
Collections The Midnight Man, Silver Salamander Press 2000
Stories Ghost Train (extract) (1986) Guilty Party (1988) Junk (1989) The Secret (1989) The Frighteners (excerpt) (1990) He Who Laughs (1991) Gordy's A-Okay (1991) Bleeding Dry (1992) Pot Luck (1993) Deep Blue (1994) The Fractured Man (1995) Man Beast (1995) Black Cab (1995) Yesterday I Flew with the Birds (1995) Annabelle Says (1995) with Simon Clark The Crawl (1997) The Song My Sister Sang (1998) The Penitent (1999) Outrage (2005) The Causeway (2006) Stolen Blood (2011) Harbinger (2013) The Slista (2014) The End of the Pier (2015) The Swan Dive (2017) The Greek Widow (2018) Dead Man's Hand (2018) The Laundromat (2018) Get Worse Soon (2018) The True Colour of Blood (2022)
Adaptations The Secret Hydra-X Films 2012
References
External links
The Unforgotten Master of British Horror
Review of Daemonic by Stephen Payne (1996) in Vector 189, p30 Who Else Writes Like -? A Readers' Guide to Fiction Authors, Stephen Laws The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror No.9 Raising the Dead, a history of Hammer horror films by Stephen Laws, Fear magazine issue 20, August 1990