Al Sarrantonio

Al Sarrantonio (born May 25, 1952, in New York City) is an American horror and science fiction author who has published, over the past thirty years, more than forty-five books and seventy short stories. He has also edited numerous anthologies and has been called “a master anthologist” by Booklist.

Background and education

Sarrantonio was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island. He began his professional career at the age of 16 with a nonfiction appearance in one of legendary editor Ray Palmer’s publications. He continued to write throughout university, and in 1974, after graduation from Manhattan College with a B.A. in English, he attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop at Michigan State University. Other prominent attendees that year were Bruce Sterling and James Patrick Kelly.

Career

In 1976 Sarrantonio began a professional editing career at a major New York publishing house. His first short fiction, “Ahead of the Joneses,” appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine in 1978, followed by a story in Heavy Metal magazine the following year. In 1980 he published 14 short stories. In 1982, after leaving publishing to become a full time writer, he began his first novel, The Worms, followed by Campbell Wood, Totentanz and The Boy with Penny Eyes. He quickly established himself in the horror field with such much-anthologized stories as “Pumpkin Head”, “The Man With Legs”, “Father Dear,” “Wish”, and “Richard’s...
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