Lois Duncan

Lois Duncan Steinmetz (April 28, 1934 – June 15, 2016), known as Lois Duncan, was an American writer, novelist, poet, and journalist.

She is best known for her young-adult novels, and has been credited by historians as a pioneering figure in the development of young-adult fiction, particularly in the genres of horror, thriller, and suspense.

The daughter of professional photographers Lois and Joseph Janney Steinmetz, Duncan began writing at a young age, publishing two early novels under the pen name Lois Kerry.

Lois Duncan Steinmetz was born on April 28, 1934, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the first child of Lois Duncan (née Foley) and Joseph Janney Steinmetz.

Duncan had one younger brother, William Janney "Billy" Steinmetz.

Both of Duncan's parents were professional magazine photographers, who took photos for the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.

She spent her early life in Pennsylvania, relocating in her late childhood to Sarasota, Florida, where her parents resumed their employment as circus photographers.

In Florida, she spent her youth among circus performers, including The Doll Family.

At age 15, Duncan was photographed by her father posed at Siesta Key, and the photo appeared on the cover of the July 9, 1949, issue of Collier's magazine.

She graduated from Sarasota High School in 1952.

The following autumn, she enrolled at Duke University, but dropped out in 1953 to start a family with Joseph Cardozo, a fellow student she had met at the university.

After dropping out of college, Duncan continued to write and publish magazine articles; she wrote over 300 articles published in magazines such as Ladies' Home Journal, Redbook, McCall's, Good Housekeeping, and Reader's Digest.

She published her first novel, Love Song for Joyce, in 1958 under the pen name Lois Kerry, followed by Debutante Hill in 1959; the latter was initially rejected for a literary prize because it featured an adolescent character drinking a beer.

In 1962, Duncan moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, with her children after divorcing her first husband, Joseph Cardozo, and supported herself writing greeting cards and fictional confessionals for pulp magazines.

In 1966, she published the novel Ransom, detailing a group of students held captive on a school bus, which earned her an Edgar Allan Poe Award nomination, as well as marking her shift from romance to more suspense-oriented works.

In the early 1970s, Duncan was hired to teach journalism at the University of New Mexico.

In 1970, she published the historical novel Peggy, chronicling the life of Peggy Shippen, followed by the 1971 children's book Hotel for Dogs, which was later adapted as a 2009 film of the same name starring Emma Roberts.

Influenced by her own interest in the supernatural and speculative fiction, Duncan wrote various suspense and horror novels aimed for teenagers.

Several of her novels, including Hotel for Dogs (1971), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1973), Summer of Fear (1976), and the controversial Killing Mr. Griffin (1978), have been adapted into films.

After the publication of I Know What You Did Last Summer, Duncan wrote Down a Dark Hall (1974), a Gothic novel following four students at an isolated and mysterious boarding school.

In 1976, she published the supernatural horror novel Summer of Fear, which was also adapted into a 1978 film by director Wes Craven.

While teaching, Duncan enrolled in classes at the university, earning her Bachelor of Arts in English in 1977.

In 1978, Duncan published the controversial Killing Mr. Griffin, a novel that details three high-school students' murder of their English teacher.

Critic Margery Fisher noted Duncan's "unreserved" approach to writing the novel, in language she described as both "harsh and literal."

Richard Peck of The New York Times also praised the novel, writing: "Duncan breaks some new ground in a novel without sex, drugs, or black leather jackets, but the taboo she tampers with is far more potent and pervasive: the unleashed fury of the permissively reared against any assault on their egos and authority ... The value of the book lies in the twisted logic of the teenagers and how easily they can justify anything."

Killing Mr. Griffin was one of Duncan's major critical successes, and was selected as an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults that year.

In the 1980s, Duncan would publish several more horror novels with supernatural themes, including Stranger with My Face (1981), about a teenage girl's experiences with astral projection, and The Third Eye (1984), also with psychic themes.

In 1985, she wrote another suspense novel, Locked in Time.

From 1987 to 1989, Duncan wrote several picture books for young children, some paired with audio CDs of songs for children, including Songs from Dreamland, Dream Songs from Yesterday, Our Beautiful Day, and The Story of Christmas.

In 1988 and 1989, Duncan published the thriller novels The Twisted Window and Don't Look Behind You, respectively.

In addition to her novels and children's books, Duncan published several collections of poetry and nonfiction, including Who Killed My Daughter? (1992), which detailed the 1989 unsolved murder of Duncan's teenaged daughter, Kaitlyn.

She received the 1992 Margaret Edwards Award from the American Library Association for her contribution to writing for teens.

After her daughter's murder, Duncan distanced herself from the thriller and horror genres, shifting her focus to picture books and novels aimed for young children.

Her experience growing up in this environment eventually served as the basis of her picture books The Circus Comes Home (1993) and Song of the Circus (2002).

Duncan described herself as a "shy, fat little girl," a "bookworm and dreamer", who spent her childhood playing in the woods.

Duncan cited The Princess and the Goblin, The Wizard of Oz and Mary Poppins series among her favorite novels as a child.

She started writing and submitting manuscripts to magazines at age 10, and sold her first story at the age of 13.

Some of her works have been adapted for the screen, the most infamous example being the 1997 film I Know What You Did Last Summer, adapted from her 1973 novel of the same title, an adaptation she was not fond of due to her daughter's murder the prior decade.

"I was hired on a fluke," Duncan recalled in a 2011 interview: Her friend, who was the chair of the journalism department, hired her as a replacement based on her experience writing for magazines, despite the fact that she did not have a degree.

Her last published work, a sequel to Who Killed My Daughter? titled One to the Wolves, was published in 2013.