I always used to think that writer’s block was some rundown apartment building where writers sat staring glumly at blank computer screens and sheets of paper. I don’t think I’ll be doing that again! Do you believe in writer’s block? Each novel is about 130,000 words and the pressure was immense. I have written very long historical sagas which have taken over a year but in 2017 I wrote three novels – a new horror novel GHOST VIRUS, an historical crime thriller THE COVEN and a ninth novel featuring my Irish detective Katie Maguire, DEAD MEN WHISTLING. How long does it take you to write a book? I also wrote a lot of poems and made booklets out of them which I sold for 2s 0d. When I was 14 I wrote a 400-page vampire novel titled Morbleu but sadly it is lost. My first book sale! After that I wrote perhaps a dozen books about Hans Lee and also a Pickwick-like character called Augustus Blank and a space pilot called Don Kenyon. I stuck a cardboard cover on it, illustrated it, and sold it to my best friend for 1d. I was so impressed by Kirk Douglas battling the giant squid I filled an exercise book with a story about Hans Lee a harpooner and his battle with a massive octopus. There was never a moment when I thought ‘I’m going to be a writer’ because I started writing stories as soon as I could write (and draw, because I always used to illustrate them.) The first time I wrote an actual book was when I came home from seeing ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea’. When did you first realise you wanted to be a writer? Ladies and gentlemen…Mr Graham Masterton…

He is also the only non-French winner of the prestigious Prix Julia Verlanger for his novel Family Portrait, an imaginative reworking of the Oscar Wilde novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. Masterton currently lives in Surrey, England. Further works garnered critical acclaim, including a Special Edgar Awardby the Mystery Writers of America for Charnel House and a Silver Medal by the West Coast Review of Books for Mirror. This novel was adapted in 1978 for the film The Manitou. Originally editor of Mayfair and the British edition of Penthouse, Graham Masterton’s first novel The Manitou was released in 1976. Graham Masterton (born 16 January 1946 in Edinburgh) is a British horror author.

Family Portrait by Graham Masterton