Richard Chizmar

Richard Chizmar is an American horror writer, editor, and publisher, founder of Cemetery Dance Publications, a leading small press specializing in horror fiction, who partnered with Stephen King to co-author the Gwendy trilogy. The series began with Gwendy's Button Box, a novella following a girl given a mysterious box with buttons that grant wishes and cause catastrophes, set in King's fictional Castle Rock, Maine, and continued across two further installments extending the story into Gwendy's adulthood. Chizmar had a long professional relationship with King prior to their novel collaboration, having published King's work and interviewed him extensively through Cemetery Dance over the years, a relationship that helped make the Gwendy partnership possible. Beyond his work with King, Chizmar has written and edited extensively within the horror genre, including his own novels and numerous anthologies that have helped shape the contemporary horror small-press scene. He continues to run Cemetery Dance and write fiction, recognized both as a horror author in his own right and as one of the genre's most influential independent publishers.