Flashback: Owl Goingback—Bram Stoker winner “Crota”
“The suspense of a Clive Barker or Dean Koontz.” —Kirkus Reviews
Sheriff Skip Harding is investigating a double murder that has shaken the quiet town of Logan, Missouri. A slaughter that seems too brutal for a human perpetrator. A bear, maybe?
But there are no bears in the area…
Bodies begin to pile up, and Skip soon discovers that bullets are useless against this foe. Only with the help of Cherokee game warden Jay Little Hawk, and the wisdom of Lakota medicine man George Strong Eagle, can Skip hope to stop the monster before it’s too late.
Crota is a magical tale blending elements of mystery, suspense, and Native American mythology. The novel won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel, and was one of four finalists in the Best Novel category.
“When first published in 1996, Owl Goingback’s Crota won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel,” notes Horror DNA, “and came just short against Stephen King’s The Green Mile for best novel of the year. Goingback would go on to write several more novels, including 2019’s Coyote Rage, which also won him the Stoker for best novel. It was that point the Bram Stoker awards presented him with the Lifetime Achievement Award.”
Owl Goingback has been writing professionally for more than thirty years, and is the author of numerous novels, a children’s book, screenplays, magazine articles, comics, and short stories. He is a three-time Bram Stoker Award Winner, receiving the award for lifetime achievement, best novel, and best first novel. He is also a Nebula Award Nominee, and a Storytelling World Awards Honor Recipient. His books include Coyote Rage, Tribal Screams, Crota, Darker Than Night, Evil Whispers, Breed, Shaman Moon, Coyote Rage, Eagle Feathers, and The Gift.
In addition to writing under his own name, Owl has ghostwritten several books for Hollywood celebrities. He has also lectured across the country on the customs and folklore of the American Indians, served in the military, owned a restaurant/lounge, and worked as a cemetery caretaker. He is a member of the Authors Guild, Horror Writers Association, International Thriller Writers, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.
Monster Complex uses Amazon affiliate links
Interview with Owl Goingback
Q “What inspired you to start writing?”
“I planned out stories as a kid. In 8th grade, we had to write a one page story, a comedy. The teacher read it out loud and everyone busted out laughing. In high school I wrote papers for cash. When I went into the military (Air Force) I stopped writing. After I got out, one night my wife and I sat at the bar we owned watching an interview with Stephen King and she turned to me and said “Why Can’t you be smart like that?”. I went home and wrote a story to prove to her I could write and that I wasn’t stupid. I wrote an article for a magazine and they bought it, then a second one.
The first book I wrote was Crota. I think you would like it. It won the 1996 Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel and was one of the four finalists for their Best Novel Award, Stephen King’s The Green Mile won it. George A. Romero talked to me about making it a movie a couple of years ago, but it never panned out. ”—An Interview With Award Winning Horror Author Owl Goingback (Horror Fuel)
Q Florida’s sunshine, beaches and theme parks are no distraction to Goingback. He’s more interested in the state’s cultural underbelly.
“We’ve got an endless supply of stories about ghosts, haunted locations, witches, skunk apes, giants, water monsters and UFOs. It’s a state with spooky swamps, islands once littered with human bones, ancient Spanish forts, Civil War battlefields, a Coral Castle and even a spiritualist camp,” Goingback says. “There’s definitely a lot here to spark my imagination.”—Owl Goingback, Central Florida’s most frightful writer, thinks real life is scarier than werewolves or vampires (Orlando Weekly)
