About Douglas Clegg

Douglas Clegg was born in Virginia and raised in Hawaii, Connecticut and Virginia.

By eleven, he walked up most of the steps of the Pyramid of the Sun in Teotihuacan, Mexico; by 16, he'd entered the Alhambra in Spain.

From those two experiences, he fell in love with traveling and even managed to live in Paris for awhile in his heavily misspent youth.

He has been writing fiction since childhood, but only pursued publication of it beginning in his late twenties.

EARLY WORK

He began his working life at 12, delivering both the Northern Virginia Sun newspaper and The Washington Post.

From there, he conquered lawn mowing, brick-laying, and even babysitting.

When he was sixteen, he worked at the Smithsonian in its then-fledgling Insect Zoo.

His other jobs including hamburger flipper at Roy Rogers' Restaurant in Seven Corners, Virginia, and stints at Wolf Trap Farm-Park as well as a retirement/nursing home.

He wrote his first novella-length work at 17, called Asylum.

In college, he held down three jobs at various times, including waiting tables, working for Texas Instruments, and working in the university development office.

Doug's misspent youth...in college. The cat was an innocent bystander. Just so you know -- Doug was more innocent than the cat. Photo courtesy of Carolyn Thomason

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After graduating from Washington & Lee University, he taught sixth, seventh and eighth grade (briefly),  then worked as an editor, and as a magazine writer in the Washington D.C. area before moving to Los Angeles to work in a television newsroom.

WRITING FICTION

He wrote his first novel in Los Angeles. It was called Goat Dance, and was sold in 1987, and published in 1989 by Simon & Schuster's Pocket Books -- launching Clegg's career as a novelist.

He began writing a book a year -- sometimes more -- from then on, as well as dozens of short stories.

He has primarily written supernatural fiction -- from horror to fantasy to psychological suspense with a paranormal edge. His fiction-writing career currently spans about 20 years of constant writing and publication.
 
Since then, he's seen more than 20 books published -- and they keep coming.

Additionally, he's been Director of Marketing for a publisher, editor for a bookstore's website, a marketing consultant for publishers, publicity firms, and booksellers -- and a wrangler for the cats, dogs and rabbits that have occupied his home. He has also co-authored the book Buzz Your Book with M.J. Rose. The two have also written a screenplay together. So far, these are Clegg's only collaborations.

INNOVATIONS

In 1999, Douglas Clegg launched the internet's (and world's) first publisher-sponsored e-serial novel. Called Naomi, Clegg later went on to sell both hardcover and paperback rights.

In 2000, Clegg's short novel Purity became one of the most-downloaded fiction ebooks on the internet -- reaching more than 100,000 readers in its first year on the internet.

In 2001, Purity became the world's-first fiction to appear on a cell phone -- and was nicknamed an M-Book at the time (for Mobile).
 

CURRENT

He currently lives on the coast of New England with Raul Silva, his partner and civilly-unioned spouse. As a team, they run the home book business -- although Doug does all the writing. Still, as with any home business, his partner does the "everything else," that allows Doug to keep writing the fiction -- including research, office management, story consulting, and more. They have been together since the year Goat Dance was published.

Hobbies include: hiking, biking, canoeing, traveling, sculpting, and now and then playing a guitar. His favorite pastime, outside of reading, is researching for his writing. Or else, wrangling those rabbits.
 

AWARDS & TRANSLATIONS

Doug's fiction has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the Shocker Award.

Clegg's novels have been translated into French, Croatian, Hungarian, Spanish, German, Russian, Norwegian, Greek, and one or two others. He's still waiting for the Italians and the Japanese to want to publish his books.

Douglas Clegg's agent is Simon Lipskar at Writers House LLC.