With more than 75 books and some 750 magazine and newspaper pieces to his credit,  William Francis Nolan is a one-man word factory. He is famous as the creator and co-author (with George Clayton Johnson) of  LOGAN'S RUN -- a best-selling SF classic that has become a part of our popular culture as a hit MGM film, a CBS television series, a sequence of comic books, and a soon-to-be-produced mega-movie from Warner Bros. Logan has spawned fan clubs, amateur magazines, buttons, toy guns, an LP record, audio cassettes and DVDs, and a host of other products. Nolan has written two sequel novels, LOGAN'S WORLD and LOGAN'S SEARCH, the novelette, LOGAN'S RETURN and the pilot show for the Logan TV series.        

   Although he is the author of 13 novels, it is in his role as a short fiction writer for over 50 years that Nolan has helped craft modern horror. Joe R. Lansdale has called him "one of the greats of the horror-suspense field." Stephen King has acknowledged Nolan as "an expert in the art and science of scaring the hell out of people," and Ray Bradbury has spoken of Nolan's ability "to create an atmosphere of ultimate terror."

   William F. Nolan's suspenseful short stories have been selected for scores of anthologies and textbooks and he is twice winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Special Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

   His work for television has garnered two Golden Medallions in Europe. Among many other honors and awards, Nolan was voted "Living Legend" for 2002 by the International Horror Guild, has been cited for excellence by the American Library Association, has received an Honorary Doctorate in SF, and won a career commendation from The City of Los Angeles.

   The author of HOW TO WRITE HORROR FICTION, Nolan has edited more than two dozen books in the fields of science fiction, horror , westerns, and suspense. His most recent anthology (with William Schafer) is CALIFORNIA SORCERY, celebrating the "California School" of writers.

   Nolan is also a biographer and historian who has authored bibliographical and biographical books on Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, John Huston, Phil Hill,  Barney Oldfield, Ernest Hemingway, Max Brand, Steve McQueen and Dashiell Hammett. His book on Grand Prix champion Phil Hill was optioned for films by Mel Gibson. 

   Nolan has combined his expertise in pulp-era hard-boiled detectives and authors with his fiction skills to write a series of mysteries with three famed private-eye-authors--Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Erle Stanley Gardner--solving crimes as "The Black Mask Boys" in 1930s Hollywood. These form a trilogy of novels: THE BLACK MASK MURDERS, THE MARBLE ORCHARD and SHARKS NEVER SLEEP. 

   As a writer for films and television Nolan is credited with screenplays on BURNT OFFERINGS and TERROR AT LONDON BRIDGE. He has worked on 25 "Movies of the Week," including THE TURN OF THE SCREW, TRILOGY OF TERROR, and its sequel TRILOGY OF TERROR II, SKY HEIST, MELVIN PURVIS, G-MAN, THE NORLISS TAPES, and THE KANSAS CITY MASSACRE. 

   Born in 1928 in Kansas City Missouri, Nolan attended the Kansas City Art Institute and worked as an artist for Hallmark Cards. He moved to California in the late 1940s and studied at San Diego State College. In his mid-twenties, he began concentrating on writing rather than art and, in 1952, was introduced by fellow Midwest native (and established writer) Ray Bradbury to another young up-and-coming author, Charles Beaumont. Moving to the Los Angeles area in 1953, Nolan became (with Bradbury, Beaumont, and Richard Matheson) part of the "inner core" of the soon-to-be highly influential "Southern California School." By 1956 Nolan was a full-time writer. Since 1951 he has sold more than 1500 stories, articles, books, and other works. He has lectured widely, taught a creative writing seminar at Bowling Green State University, and appeared on countless panels and in discussions at conventions. Away from the keys, he has raced sports cars, acted in films and TV and worked as an illustrator and cartoonist.