Richard DuBois has always been drawn to the things that go bump in the night. His journey into horror began with a childhood love of creepy stories, starting with Nightmares: Poems to Trouble Your Sleep by Jack Prelutsky—complete with ghouls, vampires, and other monstrous bedtime companions. He checked it out of the school library so often that other kids never had a chance. Later came fantasy epics like The Hobbit, followed by spine-chilling novels from Stephen King and Dean Koontz. These early reading obsessions planted the seed for a lifelong passion: crafting tales that both entertain and terrify.

Richard does most of his writing in the quiet hours after midnight, when the world is still and the shadows stretch a little farther than they should. He builds soundtracks for each book to deepen the mood, immersing himself in the atmosphere of each scene. For him, writing is a solitary act of obsession and imagination—but nothing compares to the thrill of connecting with readers and seeing their excitement. “Writing is lonely,” he says. “Audience feedback always puts wind back in my sails.”

His goal? Terror. Nail-biting, sleep-disrupting, flashlight-under-the-covers kind of terror. But if young readers also walk away with stronger reading skills, sharper imaginations, and maybe even a sense of self-worth, he won’t complain. After all, reading sparked his own love of storytelling. Now, he’s paying it forward—one ghoul, ghost, or haunted house at a time. He lives in New Jersey with his son and rescue dog, Boris.