On A Ghost Story

A great deal of us struggle for many years deciding what we want to do with our lives, but Peter Straub knew since high school he wanted to be a writer. Peter Straub is a notable alumnus of the University of Wisconsin and is a New York Times's bestselling author. He has traveled to many places to help him stay inspired, and to aid him in continuing to learn and advance in being a better writer. Born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a nurse and a salesman he was the oldest of three boys.

His father imagined him to be an athlete and his mother saw him as either a Lutheran minister or a doctor, but all Peter wanted to do was write. He wrote his first book in 1973 and continues to release short stories and poems as of today. He has had a passion and dedication for writing for many years and has always appreciated the art of it from a younger age.

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Peter’s life experiences have helped him to become the successful writer he is today. Peter received his Bachelor of arts in English at the University of Wisconsin, followed by his masters at Columbia University. Shortly after Peter took a teaching position as an English teacher at University of Milwaukee. On his own time Peter loved reading poetry, especially those pieces written by John Ashbery, inspiring him to write copies of his own. After three years had passed of him doing the same thing, he felt as though he was becoming spiritless, and decided to pack his bags and head to Dublin, Ireland to work on his Ph.

D. He remained in Dublin from 1969-1972, and that was the time period of his life where he began writing seriously.

Peter began to publish poems in poetry magazines well as he released two miniature books of poetry called Open Air and Ishmael. Peter eventually wrote his first book called Marriages, which was not rated well. After some time, he decided it was time to pack his bags again and this time move to London. Peter remained in London from 1972-1979 where he had gone to continue to improve his writing. Peter and his wife Susan settled down and had their first child Benjamin. As Peter has grown up, he has had lots of influencers and authors whom he admires in his life, mostly being poets like Ashbery, Geoffrey Hill, Frank O’Hara and many more. He also enjoyed pieces from Lawrence, Brontë and Thackeray whom he taught his students at University of Milwaukee about.

An author Peter really enjoys reading is Donald Harington, and he is a big fan of his novel Some Other Place. The Right Place. Peter mainly enjoys reading novels as well as biographies of other authors. When it comes to Peter and his own writing, his favorite book that he has published is The Dark Matter and his Blue Rose series consisting of, Koko, Mystery, and The Throat. Peter does not have a specific writing process just lots of notes, outlines and false starts. If it was not for him to become an author for his career path, he believes he would continue to be a teacher of English. At a young age Peter loved the thought of being a writer when he noticed books do not appear out of anywhere, someone puts their thoughts and ideas into it.

Peter wrote four books before his fifth book Ghost Story. Ghost Story was the book that brought attention to his name and work. Ghost Story was also adapted into a movie. After that Peter released four more books which were also a part of the horror genre and all four books did very well. Two of those were a collaboration with his good friend Stephen King. Peter is teasing the idea of a third book to their collaboration series. Since then Peter has released 13 more novels, five short story collections, ten novellas, four poems, and one non-fiction book (Wisconsin Literary map 1).

Stephen King was an ideal collaborator for Peter Straub. Peter thinks of King to be very knowledgeable, quick, powerful and humorous. Before they began to write their book together, they made a detailed and not to be violated plan of the story. When writing one of them would write for as long as they feel centered and strong in their writing, then they would hand it over to the other to continue. The characters portrayed in the book were very dark and cruel. The characters were mostly the imagination of Peter who enjoys and feels blissfully happy taking his characters down that path. He finds those characters interesting when their motives bloom. Peter and Stephens first book together The Talisman was nominated for two awards, The Locus and World Fantasy Award.

Although Peter likes the idea of horror, he does not really read too much from that genre. He believes that horror is too narrow for examples and should not even be claimed as a genre. Peter believes horror has lots of repetition of the same ideas, and it is getting tougher to find something fresh from that category. He does believe novels that are quality works of horror are extremely majestic. Peter enjoys the work of Stephen King and Joyce Carol Oates from the horror genre.

Peter did not follow in the footsteps his parents imagined him to. He followed his own desires leading him into the successful author he is today. Because of his passions and career path today he is recognized as a notable alumnus of the University of Wisconsin as well as a possessor of many awards. In order to be inspired, he decided to travel abroad to continue to educate himself on writing, which led him to spending time in London where he developed one of his bestsellers. His first book was published in 1973 and to this day he continues to write. His passion and dedication towards writing has always been filled with appetition from a young age. Peter’s life experiences have helped him to become the successful writer he is today.