Michael Clarkson has written six psychology books, including Intelligent Fear and The Secret Life of Glenn Gould, and has won many newspaper awards for investigative stories, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination for a rendezvous with reclusive author J. D. Salinger. He is considered an expert in fear, producing new research and lecturing on the subject. While working in the Niagara region, he researched many ghost stories and got the only interview with a young man thought to have caused a poltergeist incident that affected an entire shift of police officers. He lives in Fort Erie, Ontario.