3 Authors Who Write Horror 2026

Kali Kuzma

17 hours ago

3 min read

What Goes Bump In The Night

It's my favorite time of year again when we get to learn about 3 new authors who love to write horror. I always find it fascinating that some of their lives could be a horror story in itself witho some of the things that happen to them. See what things they have that go bump in the night.

Authors of Horror

Clive Barker

Clive Barker is highly known in the world of theater and arts, but became famous due to his love of writing horror.

Clive was born in 1952 in which he grew up interested in the theater where he later decided to put together his own theater company called, The Dog Company. Through this, he was able to direct his screen plays as well as work on his love of art. Even though he loved the theater, he shifted his attention to writing. His popular series, The Books of Blood and The Hellbound Heart became best sellers and gave way to the famous Hellraiser films in which many of his company and college friends play the iconic characters.

While he wrote, his personal life did not lag. When his writing wasn't paying out he turned to escorting where he realized he enjoyed men's company rather than women's. Or when he fell ill of toxic shock syndrome due to a visit to the dentist that turned sour. Though he was on his death bed, he still made sure to put his work first with trying to complete his novel, Deep Hill which Clive thought would be his last book to ever be published.

As the years have gone by, he has focused more of his writing on fantasy than horror claiming, "he thinks of his work less and less of horror." Most of his work has shifted to showing his art in galleries and illustrations in comics. He though he has decided to no longer meet fans he still continues his work today.

Daphne Du Maurier

Daphne Du Maurie is what we today would call an extreme nepobaby. Born to parents who were both famous actors, her grandfather being a writer and cartoonist, a relation to a famous journalist, and first cousins with Llewelyn Davies who inspired J.M Barrie's Peter Pan, it wasn't a shock when she became a writer after getting her first story published in her great uncle's magazine Bystander.

Even so, her work stood out with her most popular stories Rebecca, The Birds, and Don't Look Now as some of her scary horror stories.

Due to their popularity Daphne's books were translated to film with Albert Hitchcock directing some of them including famous stars such as Charles Laughton and Joan Fontaine. Even though she gave the rights to her stories away, it was well known that Du Maurier was unpleased with the adaptations often stating she was disappointed in the lack of atmosphere or in the miscast of actors.

While her stories became more popular a few authors came out to claim Du Maurier had stolen their work with many story lines and scenes being plagiarized. Nothing came of the claims, but she was looked down upon.

Even in her personal life Daphne was said to be a recluse and not friendly especially with her children who have come out to state this isn't the case.

She died of heart failure at the age of 81. Du Mauier is still highly known in the horror world with her novels and short stories often seen as ahead of her time.

Richard Matheson

Richard Matheson is a house hold name when it comes not just to horror, but fantasy, western, and sci-fi. Born in 1926 in New York he was influenced at a young age by the novel Dracula. He went on to publish his first short story when he was only 8 years old in the Brooklyn Eagle.

After high school he was listed into the army to serve in the war which he later used as inspiration after getting his degree in journalism. After many of his short stories were published throughout several magazines he joined Southern California Sorcerers, a writing club including several horror writers, including Charles Beaumont, from the Twilight Zone. Richard went on to write 12 episodes for the show, but continued his writing with screen plays and novels many of which went on to film including his most famous novel, I AM LEGEND.

In his later career, he turned to writing westerns and short stories before his death in 2013.