Shawn Montgomery

Born and raised in upstate New York, Shawn (he/him) watched John Carpenter’s Halloween for the first time when he was seven years old. Although utterly terrified that Michael Myers would kill him in his sleep that night, he became forever hooked on horror. It also helped that his aunt and uncle’s house was haunted by a generally innocuous ghost named “Flo,” who seemed to particularly enjoy watching Shawn play with his cousin’s trove of action figures in the toy room.

Shawn was fortunate (he thinks) to have lived near a cemetery, and he often rode his bike with his older brother through the grounds’ winding, intersecting roads, ultimately finding themselves among the children’s tombstones. He liked to read the various epitaphs, wondering how these children had found their way to this serene, shady hill.

Mesmerized by a mélange of horror movies throughout the 1980’s, Shawn began writing scary stories when he was eleven years old and hasn’t stopped. He has had stories featured in Disturbed Digest, Thirteen Podcast, Hellbound Books’ Anthology of Suburban Horror, The Horror Zine, Death Head Grin, Deadman’s Tome, and others.

Shawn self-published his first novel, The Buchman, and has been tinkering with several subsequent novels, as well as shorter works. He lives in the mighty Pacific Northwest with his wife and two daughters.

Read Montgomery’s short story “Burn the Witch” in Horrific Scribes.

Description: Two brothers, living in virtual isolation with their mother and family friend, are forced to confront the mysteries and horrific realities of their past, as well as surviving the menacing presence of their mother’s alter ego—“The Witch.” As The Witch becomes more prevalent in their lives, the young boys grow increasingly desperate, until finally realizing they have to resort to extreme and unspeakable measures… if they’re ever going to survive.