Scary Alabama: Michael McDowell

Michael McDowell (horror novelist, screenwriter) 
Michael McEachern McDowell (1950-1999) was born in Enterprise and graduated high school in Brewton. He left Alabama to attend Harvard and later earned a Ph.D. in English from Brandeis.  McDowell was a prolific and popular horror novelist who set many of his works take place in his home state, some in small towns and others in luxury beachfront communities. 
Though most of his novels were mass market paperbacks (a genre not generally associated with high writing quality), McDowell received high praise  from critics and his peers. Stephen King was a particular fan and also a personal friend, and his wife Tabitha completed McDowell's unfinished novel Candles Burning. Though McDowell said  "I am writing things to be put in the bookstore next month...I think it is a mistake to try to write for the ages," more than 20 years after his death his novels are among the most frequently circulating in APLS's Alabamiana collection.
McDowell may be best remembered for as a screenwriter. He wrote for several popular TV series, but his most enduring works were his collaborations with filmmaker Tim Burton, for whom he wrote the screenplays to Beetlejuice (based upon McDowell's story) and A Nightmare Before Christmas. 

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