Hi all ~ I am a bestselling novelist, and produced screenwriter for feature film and TV. Sold my first novel, THE LIGHT AT THE END, at age 24, and have been doing it ever since.
Becoming a novelist was an accident for me -- I was graduating from the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and one day in 1982 while riding the T over the Charles River Bridge to see a feel-good film fest of The Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver it occurred to me: what if there was a vampire in the subways?
That idea became my first novel, THE LIGHT AT THE END. LIGHT became a bestseller, a savage story about a punk vampire abandoned on the doorstep of Hell... or rather, 1980s New York City.
Other books followed -- some in collaboration with former writing partner John Skipp, then solo works -- A QUESTION OF WILL (aka TO BURY THE DEAD), UNDERGROUND, and my last novel, TURNAROUND.
Since 2010 my backlist has been seeing new digital life as eBooks and beautiful trade paperback editions from crossroadpress.com. Those titles are available here on amazon -- THE LIGHT AT THE END, THE CLEANUP, THE SCREAM, DEAD LINES, ANIMALS, A QUESTION OF WILL, UNDERGROUND, and TURNAROUND. I hope you will check them out.
My latest novel, TURNAROUND, is a twisted meta thriller set in Hollywood. It's a bit of a Twilight Zone vibe, 21st century-style. It is available here on amazon as well as other book retailers both online and IRL.
Something new is always in the works, so feel free to friend me on FB. And if you do check out my work, please, feel free to get back to me -- I'd love to know what you think!
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On June 4, 2016, at the age of 57, I had emergency spinal surgery to remove what I had thought was a pinched nerve in my back, but turned out to be a tumor on my T7 vertebrae. The tumor had bored through the bone and reached my spinal cord; when it constricted the nerves by a factor of 50% my legs gave out and stopped "legging" -- I couldn't walk or stand or even crawl. On Memorial Day, I woke up, stood up, and fell over.
An ambulance ride, eleven hours in ER and then a transfer to Sentara Norfolk General, left me spending twelve days in the Trauma Ward. It was there that I learned that the reason why I had the tumor was that I had Stage Four Prostate Cancer, metastized to my bones. No early symptoms, no warning signs, just boom. By the time I found out, Stages 1-3 had passed in stealthy silence, or were mistaken for something less life threatening, more mundane... and I realized that the fight of my life had just kicked off, and the dark dance it portends will last the rest of my days.
The surgery was successful. I had faced the very real possibility of never walking again; as it is, it will be years before I am back to anything like normal. The treatment is ongoing: radiation, androgen deprivation hormone therapy, chemo.
Now, some three years later, I continue my strange journey with THE ART OF NOT DYING: Tales of Recovery on the Resurrection Road. A mixed media meta project in really real time. It's still evolving from real life into something one might call, art? But it exists now, for entirely its own reasons... maybe because art imitates life imitating art; maybe because silence is death and some things just need to be said; maybe just because, why the hell not?
As of this writing, I have recorded and release three indie albums in the last three years -- Resurrection Road (2017), Outposts (2018), and Kicking Cans (2019). I am at work on album #4, Dangertown (2020). They're all available here on amazon.
I've also edited a new anthology of freedom of speech-themed fiction for the dark of heart, called FREEDOM OF SCREECH, with such sterling contributors as Elizabeth Massie, Chet Williamson, Richard Christian Matheson, Matt Hayward, Tom Montelone, and Norman Spinrad. It's out and about on amazon, as well.
But THE ART OF NOT DYING is about more than one man's struggle against a sneak attack from an insidious foe. It's about living: finding and creating the things, situations, and relationships that sustain you, doing the things that make your life meaningful.
None of us know how long we have. We all die. But we're not there yet, so live. Appreciate every moment. Be who you really are. Make your dreams a reality. Take care of yourself, take care of your people, try to leave everything a little bit better than you found it. Love intensely and fiercely. Exercise radical kindness. Take no shit, and give none, either. Fight against evil in the world, starting first and foremost within yourself. Create light in the endless darkness. Find the art in every single thing. Elevate everything you do to an art form. Live courageously, unapologetically. And remember that so much of what we do seems thankless, because we forget to say thanks.
And when the cynical say to you, how can you have hope when the world is so f**ked? Tell them, because if I don't the world will still be f**ked, but there will be no hope.
So fight, like your life depended on it. Because it does.
Welcome to my Resurrection Road.
xo,
Craig Spector
Summer 2019
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