Stephen Volk (born 3 July 1954) is a Welsh screenwriter and novelist who specializes in the horror genre."Waffling With Horror Writer Stephen Volk" Themoviewaffler.com. Retrieved 04-03-2017.Stephen Jones,The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 24.Hachette UK, 2013. , (pp. 360-1) 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 pseudo-documentary 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.Paul Long, Tim Wall Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context. Routledge, 2014. (pp. 150-1) It is commonly misrepresented as a hoax documentary, but this was never the intention. It was originally planned as a six-part series for the BBC. However, the producer of the series, Ruth Baumgarten, didn't believe it had commercial viability. Stephen reworked the script so that everything would be set "Like episode six" and repitched it as a 90-minute live broadcast drama on behalf of BBC's Screen One drama segment. Ruth accepted the new format.
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.Magdalena Salata, "“But Terrifying People Was What He Did Best”: The Dark Masters Trilogy by Stephen Volk". Diabolique Magazine, 18 November 2018. Retrieved 6 February 2019. 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."Jim Broadbent makes one-off return to the stage." Matt Trueman. The Guardian, 6 March 2013. Retrieved 28 March 2018.
Bibliography Novels and novellas Gothic (1987, novelisation of the 1986 film) Vardøger (2009) Whitstable (2013) Leytonstone (2015) Netherwood (2018) The Dark Masters Trilogy (2018)
Short story collections Dark Corners (2006) Monsters in the Heart (2013) The Parts We Play (2016) Under a Raven's Wing (2021) Lies of Tenderness (2022) The Good Unknown and Other Ghost Stories (2023)
Non-fiction Coffinmaker's Blues: Collected Writings on Terror (2019)
Filmography +TitleYearWriterStory Notes Gothic 1986 The Kiss 1988 The Guardian 1990 Ghostwatch 1992 Television film Superstition 2001 Cyclops 2001 Television film Octane 2003 Alternate title: Pulse Afterlife 2005–2006 9 episodes; also creator The Awakening 2011 Midwinter of the Spirit 2015 3 episodes My Haunted House 2018
Personal life
He and his wife Patricia, who is a sculptor, live in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire.
References and notes
Sources
External links
Filmography BBC interview Stephen Volk's Website Story behind "Monsters in the Heart" - Online Essay by Stephen Volk