Stephen Volk

Stephen Volk
Stephen Volk
Born	3 July 1954 (age 70); Pontypridd, Wales
Occupation	Novelist; screenwriter;
Alma mater	University of Bristol
Genre	Horror
Years active	1986–present

Stephen Volk (born 3 July 1954) is a Welsh screenwriter and novelist who specializes in the horror genre. He wrote the screenplays for numerous horror films, including Ken Russell's Gothic (1986), The Kiss (1988), and William Friedkin's The Guardian (1990). In 1992, Volk wrote the teleplay for the BBC mockumentary Ghostwatch. Other screenwriting credits include Octane (2003) and The Awakening (2011).

Early life and work

Stephen Volk was born in Pontypridd, Wales on 3 July 1954. Volk has stated his interest in horror was triggered by watching the TV drama The Stone Tape by Nigel Kneale, and the film Don't Look Now by Nicolas Roeg. He studied at Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry, and the University of Bristol. Volk then worked as an advertising copywriter before becoming a full-time writer. Volk's first produced work was Ken Russell's film Gothic in 1986. Volk also wrote a script, Horror Movie, for Goldcrest Films that was never made due to Goldcrest's collapse.

Ghostwatch

His most famous work is Ghostwatch, a controversial drama shown on BBC1 on Halloween 1992.

Other work

Volk's TV work often involves the supernatural and the paranormal, such as with the ITV1 thriller series Afterlife (2005–06). Volk has written fiction in the horror and ghost story genres; some of these stories were collected in the book Dark Corners (2006). In 1995, Volk wrote two serials of the series Ghosts. Volk's fiction often features real people as characters: the novella Whitstable (2013) features the actor Peter Cushing, while Leytonstone (2015) deals with a young Alfred Hitchcock. In 2018, Volk published The Dark Masters Trilogy, an omnibus featuring Whitstable and Leytonstone, as well as a new novella, Netherwood. Netherwood features fictionalised versions of the writer Dennis Wheatley and the occultist Aleister Crowley. Volk also wrote a monthly column about horror for Black Static magazine until the end of 2016.

Volk's story "The Chapel of Unrest" was read on stage by actor Jim Broadbent at London's Bush Theatre in 2013.

Bibliography

Novels and novellas

Gothic (1987, novelisation of the 1986 film)
Vardøger (2009)
Whitstable (2013)
Leytonstone (2015)

Short story collections

Dark Corners (2006)
Monsters in the Heart (2013)
The Parts We Play (2016)

Filmography


Title	Year	Writer	Story	Notes	Ref.
Gothic	1986	Yes	No		^[1]
The Kiss	1988	Yes	Yes		^[1]
The Guardian	1990	Yes	No		^[1]
Ghostwatch	1992	Yes	No	Television film	^[2]
Superstition	2001	Yes	No
Cyclops	2001	Yes	No	Television film
Octane	2003	Yes	No	Alternate title: Pulse
Afterlife	2005–2006	Yes	No	9 episodes; also creator	^[1]
The Awakening	2011	Yes	No		^[1]
Midwinter of the Spirit	2015	Yes	No	3 episodes
My Haunted House	2018	Yes	No

Personal life

He and his wife Patricia, who is a sculptor, live in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire.

References and notes

Sources

Rose, James (2016). "Stephen Volk". In McCarthy, Elizabeth; Murphy, Bernice M. (eds.). Lost Souls of Horror and the Gothic : Fifty-Four Neglected Authors, Actors, Artists and Others. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. pp. 220–223. ISBN 978-1-476-66314-2.

External links

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 Rose 2016, p. 221.
↑ Rose 2016, p. 220.

[FOOTNOTERose2016221-1] 1.0 ^1.1 ^1.2 ^1.3 ^1.4 Rose 2016, p. 221.

[FOOTNOTERose2016220-2] Rose 2016, p. 220.

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