Jack Ketchum is the pseudonym for a former actor, teacher, literary agent, lumber salesman, and soda jerk. He is also a former flower child and baby boomer who figures that in 1956 Elvis, dinosaurs and horror probably saved his life. His first novel, Off Season, an updating of the Sawney Beane story, prompted the Village Voice to publicly scold its publisher in print for publishing violent pornography. He has always wondered what they would think of The Girl Next Door His short story The Box won a 1994 Bram Stoker Award from HWA.
Genres: Horror
Series
Novels
Hide and Seek (1984)
Cover (1987)
She Wakes (1989)
The Girl Next Door (1989)
Joyride (1994)
aka Road Kill
Stranglehold (1995)
aka Only Child
Red (1995)
Ladies' Night (1997)
The Lost (2001)
The Crossings (2003)
Old Flames (2008)
The Woman (2010) (with Lucky McKee)
I'm Not Sam (2012) (with Lucky McKee)
The Secret Life of Souls (2016) (with Lucky McKee)
Cover (1987)
She Wakes (1989)
The Girl Next Door (1989)
Joyride (1994)
aka Road Kill
Stranglehold (1995)
aka Only Child
Red (1995)
Ladies' Night (1997)
The Lost (2001)
The Crossings (2003)
Old Flames (2008)
The Woman (2010) (with Lucky McKee)
I'm Not Sam (2012) (with Lucky McKee)
The Secret Life of Souls (2016) (with Lucky McKee)
Collections
The Exit at Toledo Blade Boulevard (1998)
Right to Life (1998)
Peaceable Kingdom (2003)
Sleep Disorder (2003) (with Edward Lee)
Broken on the Wheel of Sex (2006)
Father and Son and Forever (2006)
Closing Time and Other Stories (2007)
Triage (2008) (with Richard Laymon and Edward Lee)
Book of Souls (2008)
Horror For Good (2012) (with Ramsey Campbell, Ray Garton, Joe R Lansdale, Joe McKinney, Lisa Morton, Jeff Strand, Lee Thomas and F Paul Wilson)
Triptych (2012)
Notes from the Cat House (poems) (2013)
Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road (2013) (with J F Gonzalez, Ryan Harding, Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Shane McKenzie, Bryan Smith, Nate Southard and Wrath James White)
What They Wrote (2014)
Night Terrors III (2014) (with Dennis Etchison, Taylor Grant, Eric J Guignard, John McNee, Aric Sundquist, Steve Rasnic Tem and Paul Tremblay)
Closing Time (2015)
Garden of Fiends (2017) (with Max Booth III, Kealan Patrick Burke, Glen Krisch, Jessica McHugh, Mark Matthews, John F D Taff and Johann Thorsson)
Gorilla In My Room (2019)
Right to Life (1998)
Peaceable Kingdom (2003)
Sleep Disorder (2003) (with Edward Lee)
Broken on the Wheel of Sex (2006)
Father and Son and Forever (2006)
Closing Time and Other Stories (2007)
Triage (2008) (with Richard Laymon and Edward Lee)
Book of Souls (2008)
Horror For Good (2012) (with Ramsey Campbell, Ray Garton, Joe R Lansdale, Joe McKinney, Lisa Morton, Jeff Strand, Lee Thomas and F Paul Wilson)
Triptych (2012)
Notes from the Cat House (poems) (2013)
Sixty-Five Stirrup Iron Road (2013) (with J F Gonzalez, Ryan Harding, Brian Keene, Edward Lee, Shane McKenzie, Bryan Smith, Nate Southard and Wrath James White)
What They Wrote (2014)
Night Terrors III (2014) (with Dennis Etchison, Taylor Grant, Eric J Guignard, John McNee, Aric Sundquist, Steve Rasnic Tem and Paul Tremblay)
Closing Time (2015)
Garden of Fiends (2017) (with Max Booth III, Kealan Patrick Burke, Glen Krisch, Jessica McHugh, Mark Matthews, John F D Taff and Johann Thorsson)
Gorilla In My Room (2019)
Chapbooks
Novellas
Anthologies edited
Non fiction
Turning Japanese: (2013)
Writers On Writing Volume 2 (2015) (with Jasper Bark, Dave-Brendon de Burgh, Brian Hodge, Todd Keisling, Kevin Lucia, Monique Snyman, Tim Waggoner and Mercedes M Yardley)
Writers on Writing Volumes 1-4 (2016) (with Jasper Bark, Kealan Patrick Burke, Kenneth W Cain, Brian Hodge, Jonathan Janz, Kevin Lucia, Joe Mynhardt, Tim Waggoner, Stephanie M Wytovich and Mercedes M Yardley)
Writers On Writing Volume 2 (2015) (with Jasper Bark, Dave-Brendon de Burgh, Brian Hodge, Todd Keisling, Kevin Lucia, Monique Snyman, Tim Waggoner and Mercedes M Yardley)
Writers on Writing Volumes 1-4 (2016) (with Jasper Bark, Kealan Patrick Burke, Kenneth W Cain, Brian Hodge, Jonathan Janz, Kevin Lucia, Joe Mynhardt, Tim Waggoner, Stephanie M Wytovich and Mercedes M Yardley)
Anthologies containing stories by Jack Ketchum
Bizarre Sex and Other Crimes of Passion (1994)
Fear Itself (1995)
Vampire Detectives (1995)
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Eighth Annual Collection (1995)
Darkside (1996)
Night Screams (1996)
The UFO Files (1998)
Graven Images (2000)
Fear Itself (1995)
Vampire Detectives (1995)
The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror Eighth Annual Collection (1995)
Darkside (1996)
Night Screams (1996)
The UFO Files (1998)
Graven Images (2000)
Short stories
To Suit the Crime (1992) | |||
I'd Give Anything for You (1994) (with Edward Lee) | |||
The Rose (1994) | |||
Redemption (1995) | |||
Snakes (1995) | |||
The Turning (1995) | |||
If Memory Serves (1996) | |||
Love Letters from the Rain Forest (1996) (with Edward Lee) | |||
Amid the Walking Wounded (1998) | |||
Masks (1999) (with Edward Lee) | |||
Right to Life [short story] (1999) | Bram Stoker (nominee) | ||
Gone (2000) | Bram Stoker (nominee) |
Awards
|
Jack Ketchum recommends

Fever 42 (2002)
Christopher Fahy
"Chris Fahy has done some extraordinary things here...a ride that fundamentally makes you worry for your own strange trajectory.."

Dismember (2010)
Daniel Pyle
"A fast-paced grindhouse-movie of a book. The late Richard Laymon would have been grinning ear to ear."

The End in All Beginnings (2014)
John F D Taff
"Accomplished, complex, heartfelt. The best novella collection in years."

Fragile Dreams (2016)
Philip Fracassi
"Fragile Dreams is anything but fragile. It's harrowing, all rough edges that can hurt you, like the stuff our hero's trapped in. And claustrophobic as hell..."

The Truants (2017)
Lee Markham
"Markham's take on the inside of an anciet vampire's head is invigoratingly fresh as his story is by turns brutal and touching."

The Fourth Monkey (2017)
(4MK, book 1)
J D Barker
"Serial killers in fiction are a dime a dozen these days, and it takes a powerful lot of thought and crafty planning to come up with one who’s unique."

The Wish Mechanics (2017)
Daniel Braum
"There's an urge to race through this skilled collection, from one smart story to another, wondering what's next? But we don't do it. Pause and savor instead."

Cutting Block Single Slices, Volume 1 (2017)
Patrick Beltran
"A tight collection of talented writers, exploring the dark and lonely..."

In the River (2017)
Jeremy Robert Johnson
"Jeremy Robert Johnson is dancing to a way different drummer. He loves language, he loves the edge, and he loves us people. This is entertainment... and literature."

The Atrocities (2018)
Jeremy C Shipp
"Shipp's clear insistent voice pulls you down into the rabbit hole and doesn't let go."

Mouse Trap (2019)
Carlton Mellick III
"If you haven't read Mellick you're not perverse enough for the 21st century."
Visitors to this page also looked at these authors