Robert Bloch

From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia Robert Albert Bloch April 5 1917 September 23 1994 was a prolific American writer primarily of crime horror and science fiction He is best known as the writer of Psycho the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock He was also known as an excellent standup speaker with a wry sense of humour He many times remarked that he had the heart of a little boy quipping I keep it in a jar on my desk Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over twenty novels usually crime fiction science fiction and perhaps most influentially horror fiction Psycho He was one of the youngest members of the Lovecraft Circle H P Lovecraft was Blochs mentor and one of the first to seriously encourage his talent Bloch was a contributor to pulp magazines such as Weird Tales in his early career and was also a prolific screenwriter and a major contributor to science fiction fanzines and fandom in general He was the recipient of the Hugo Award for his story That HellBound Train the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award He served a term as president of the Mystery Writers of America 1970 and was a member of that organisation and of Science Fiction Writers of America the Writers Guild the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Count Dracula SocietyIn 2008 The Library of America selected Blochs story The Shambles of Ed Gein for inclusion in its twocentury retrospective of American true crime His favourites amongst his own novels were The Kidnapper The Star Stalker Psycho NightWorld and Strange Eons Description above from the Wikipedia article Robert Bloch licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia