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Daniel Keyes was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. A public high school graduate, Keyes worked briefly as a ship's purser for the U.S. Maritime Service before applying to Brooklyn College, where he studied psychology. After his 1950 graduation, Keyes tried his hand at magazine editing and then fashion photography before turning to teaching English. He taught both high school and college-level courses (the former while receiving his master's degree back at Brooklyn) before ending up in Athens at Ohio University's English Department in 1966, where he has lectured, taught, and directed the creative writing center.
While beginning his teaching career, Keyes turned to writing as well; the 1959 publication of one of his first efforts, a short story called "Flowers For Algernon," would change the course of his life forever. "Algernon," the predecessor to the novel of the same name, was based on his early experience as a "high school teacher for slow learners"; it was composed of a series of fictional journal entries from a mentally challenged man who undergoes experimental surgery to increase his intelligence. Shortly after "Algernon's" publication in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, the story became a critical and popular success, "winning a Hugo Award and being adapted for television in 1961." It was at that point that Keyes decided to expand it into a novel -- one of the wisest career moves the writer could have made.
Now, five million copies, twenty-seven different language translations, a Broadway musical, numerous television and radio adaptations (including a 2000 TV movie with Matthew Modine and Kelli Williams), two full-length movies, and thirty-seven years later, the novel Flowers for Algernon is still in print. It has won science fiction's prestigious Nebula Award (as well as the earlier mentioned Hugo Award).
Keyes did not rest long on his laurels; he has published nine more books since the mid-1960s, most recently the fictional Until Death… in 1998, and the semi-autobiographical/behind-the-scenes book: Algernon, Charlie & I: A Writer's Journal in 2000.
Though he is best known for Algernon, Keyes won critical acclaim and numerous awards for two of his nonfiction books as well: The Minds of Billy Milligan and Unveiling Claudia: A True Story of a Serial Murder. In both books, Keyes, who is "fascinated by the complexities of the human mind," tells the true stories of criminals with multiple personalities.
Keyes now makes his home in South Florida, and is currently on extended leave from Ohio University. (He still, however, maintains an office there.) His time these days is consumed by book tours and signings, public appearances, television appearances, and guest lectures at universities throughout the country. Though he is certainly well-read here in the States, Keyes is wildly popular with Japanese audiences as well, as evidenced by this quote: "When I went to Tokyo, they drove me past the department store where I was going to go for signings. The line was wrapped around the block three times! They brought me gifts, flowers, candy, letters, and I sat there thinking, 'I feel like a rock star.'"
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