William Markly O'Neal

William Markly O'Neal is the author of numerous horror stories, science fiction, dark comedies, and speculative poetry, including yarns that were published in Weird Tales, Cover of Darkness, and the anthology: Salacious Tales.

 

William was born in Anderson, Indiana, during a blizzard in January of 1961, at almost exactly the same time that the Age of Camelot began in the White House.

William Markly O'Neal is actually William Markly O'Neal II; he was named after his dad.

William's father graduated from Ball State University when William was 1-year-old; he was a high school sociology teacher. His mother-- Marsha-- was first a housewife; then a secretary for Morton Buildings (a company that builds pole barns, horse barns, and various types of steel buildings); and then she owned and operated a nursery school/day care business for more than two decades.

Mr. O'Neal grew up on a farm outside the rural community of Wabash, Indiana. His father taught at a high school in nearby Marion, Indiana. The elder William Markly O'Neal was killed in a car accident in 1976 when the younger William was sixteen-years-old.

Mr. O'Neal had one sibling-- Howard Wayne Sherman O'Neal, his younger brother. Howard was sickly from an early age. When Howard was just shy of his second birthday, he nearly died because of a blockage in a blood vessel (caused by a birth defect) that ruptured. Howard spent an entire year in Riley's Children's Hospital in Indianapolis. He then had health issues both in his early life and throughout his teenage years. He had to suffer through many surgeries and painful medical procedures. Howard developed a dependency to pain killers and later became a substance abuser as an adult. Howard was eventually diagnosed as being bipolar. Howard was a gentle soul who couldn't deal with conflict or confrontation and sought answers in drugs... even though the drugs caused him much trouble, landed him in jail and then even prison, and destroyed most of the relationships he had. Howard knew drugs were his worst enemy but whenever he became emotionally distraught about something, he sought solace in downers.... and that eventually killed him. He died of a drug overdose in 2008.

Mr. O'Neal's mother suffered from repeated bouts of cancer. She contracted breast cancer and survived that... only to have a rare form of ovarian cancer years later-- cancer removed cleanly in surgery... only to have the cancer come back two years later to claim her life, in 2010.

Mr. O'Neal currently resides in Anderson, Indiana-- where he was born. He has never been married and has no children (except his cats and dog). He lives with his dear friend (and editor) who prevents him from making embarrassing mistakes. Mr. O'Neal can write but he can't spell.

Little "Billy" O'Neal made his first attempt at writing a book when he was in third grade. After lunch each day at school, Billy's third grade teacher would read a chapter from a Nancy Drew book. Inspired by those stories, Billy wrote several chapters of a mystery with young boys as the protagonists (he'd never heard of The Hardy Boys). The story was big on cliff-hangers at the end of each chapter... and made no sense whatsoever overall.

In high school, Bill O'Neal wrote about a high school student who aspired to be a murderer... and his mind-reading girlfriend who could see his crazy dreams. It was the first time Mr. O'Neal wrote using a fictitious setting he would return to time and again in his future writings: Trinity County, Indiana, and the imaginary city of Middleridge.

From the mid-90s until about the turn of the Century, Mr. O'Neal contributed to a writer's site on America Online-- a site called The Amazing Instant Novelist. Mr. O'Neal worked first in the Humor Department and then eventually helped manage some of the content on the site, opening up folders on the message boards, starting the topics of various conversations involving both humor and (then) current events.

For the last ten years, Mr. O'Neal has been working on his writing (while also working day jobs not worth mentioning). William Markly O'Neal has written four and a half unpublished books and numerous short stories and novellas. He hopes that the book he finished recently-- entitled Cold Dead Love-- will be his first professionally published book. He is currently looking for a literary agent and/or publisher for that novel.

William Markly O'Neal has two collections of stories currently available for purchase for Kindles on Amazon.   'FISHING in BRAINS for an EYE with TEETH' is a collection of thirteen horror stories.  And his 'Sci Fi Sense of Humor' contains four science fiction novelettes meant to amuse.