Category Archives: birthday

Happy Birthday, Tanith Lee

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One of the most acclaimed writers of fantasy was born on this date, September 19, in 1947.  I’m talking about Tanith Lee, of course.  While there are other acclaimed writers with birthdays today, none of them are as important and significant as Tanith Lee was to the field of fantasy, nor ever likely to be.  (Yes, that was a swipe at someone with a birthday today, in case you’re wondering.  No, I’m not going to tell you who.)  Tanith Lee died in 2015.

I’ve only read a little bit of her work, but what I’ve read, I’ve really enjoyed.  I’m not sure I’ll have time today to read any of her fiction; the day’s pretty full.  But if not today, then sometime in the next week.  I’ll have some time to kill on Saturday when I’ll need something to read.  Fortunately I recently purchased a couple of collections of her short fiction.   Among them are The Weird Tales of Tanith Lee (stories published in Weird Tales) and Venus Burning:  Realms (stories from Realms of Fantasy).

If you haven’t read her work, check her out.

A Plethora of Birthdays

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This will be a short post, as I am visiting family. They are between internet providers and won’t get the bew service until Tuesday. I’m typing this on my phone, which is a bit slow. I’ll add more photos and illustrations and maybe a liyttle more biographical detail when I return from my wanderings in the cyber wilderness. I’d also like to thank Deuce Richardson for the heads-up on the birthdays, as I have been distracted with travel today.

A number of my favorite writers were born today, September 1.

First, one of the greatest, Edgar Rice Burroughs. Born in 1875, Burroughs created some of the most iconic characters in modern literature, including Tarzan and John Carter. Continue reading →

Bea Mahaffey at 98

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Eric Frank Russell and Bea Mahaffey. Photo by Norman Shorrock.

Bea Mahaffey was born on August 24, 1926.  She passes away in 1987.  Ms. Mahaffey was active in early fandom and was an assistant editor for Ray Palmer after he left Amazing Stories to from Clark Publications.

I realize it may come as a shock to some people that there were female editors in the early 50s.   They seem to think women didn’t become involved in science fiction and fantasy and smash The Patriarchy until [insert arbitrary recent date here].  I spoke to that issue in this post. Not that it did a lot of good.  Some people just don’t listen.  Not regular readers of this blog, of course.  They’re on top of things.

Mahaffey worked with Palmer on Other Worlds, where she is credited as being the person who actually purchased Eric Frank Russell’s classic story “Dear Devil”.  If she had done nothing else in the field, she should be remembered for this.  Mahaffey is also credited as being co-editor with Palmer on Science Stories, Universe Science Fiction, and Mystic Magazine.  Financial considerations forced Palmer to end her employment in 1956.

Bea Mahaffey was quite popular with the male fans of the day.  Legend has it that both male and female attendance at fan gatherings increased when she was there.  The men attended to keep an eye on Bea, and their wives attended to keep an eye on them.  That may or may not be true, but I’m inclined to think it is to at least some extent.  Mike Resnick and Barry Malzberg got in trouble a few years ago when they wrote favorably about Bea Mahaffey’s looks in the SFWA Bulletin.  Personally, I think beauty and achievement should be recognized.

In conclusion, Bea Mahaffey had a impact on the field of the fantastic.

Ray Bradbury at 98

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On this date in 1920, August 22, Ray Bradbury was born.  He was one of the greatest writers of the fantastic of the last 100 years.

I came to Bradbury early.  He was one of the first adult writers I read.  When I was in 5th grade, we had a guest in my reading class one day.  The man was there to read us a Bradbury story.  He described Bradbury as a science fiction writer but  then went on to tell us that what he was going to read wasn’t science fiction.  He read “The Screaming Woman” to us.  Continue reading →

Happy Birthday, Farnsworth

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Farnsworth Wright, legendary editor of Weird Tales, was born on this date, July 29, in the long-ago year of 1888.  He died in 1940.

We last discussed Mr. Wright a few weeks ago in my post on who was the greatest editor of the 20th Century.  I think it’s a toss-up between Wright and Don Wolheim.

What isn’t up for debate is that Wright published some of the greatest writers of the fantastic in his magazines during his tenure as editor:  H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, C. L. Moore, Henry S. Whitehead, Henry Kuttner, Manley Wade Wellman, Robert Bloch, Seabury Quinn.

Just to name a few.

Granted some, like Kuttner and Bloch, went on to fame for later, more mature work.  But Wright recognized something about their writing and published it.

So if today or tonight you happen to read something published in Weird Tales while Wright was the editor, raise your glass to his memory and his legacy.

Bill Crider’s Birthday

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Bill Crider at the 2017 WFC in San Antonio. That’s Joe Lansdale on the left.

Bill Crider was born on this day, July 28, in 1941, in Mexia, Texas (pronounced Me-hay-a).  He passed away from cancer earlier this year on February 12.

While I certainly didn’t know Bill, he was one of my favorite people to hang out with at conventions.  I first encountered him about 19 years ago, when he was the featured guest of a writing conference at the university where I was a visiting faculty.  We didn’t meet at the time.  I snuck over between classes and heard him speak.

We did meet a year or two later.  I don’t recall if it was at Armadillocon or Aggiecon.  Bill made his mark in the mystery field, but he was a fan of fantasy and science fiction and would dabble in those fields from time to time, as well as attending a number of Texas conventions.  He was knowledgeable about the history of genre fiction and pop culture.  Talking to him or reading his blog was always an education.

As you can tell from the photo above, I got to visit with him one last time this past November.  It was one of the highlights of the convention. He is sorely missed.

Three Weird Birthdays: Benson, Dunsany, and Coye

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Today (July 24) marks the birth of three practitioners of the weird tale: authors E. F. Benson (1867) and Lord Dunsany (1878) and artist Lee Brown Coye (1907).

E. F. Benson

During his lifetime, Benson was probably best known for his novels of upper middle class British life.  The best known of these were the Mapp and Lucia novels, which have been adapted for television.

Benson’s legacy, though, was with his supernatural tales.  Ash-Tree Press collected all his known ghost and spook stories in the early 2000s.  Those editions are nice.  They’re also expensive and out of print AFAIK.  Fortunately Wordsworth has collected all the stories in an inexpensive edition.

I first encountered Benson when I was around ten, give or take a year.  My grandparents had a farm in rural Mississippi, and we would stay there in the summers.  One day I was poking through the bookcase and found a battered paperback copy of a ghost story anthology.  It had probably belonged to my uncle, as my grandparents didn’t read that kind of thing.  The book contained the Benson story “Caterpillars”.  I became an instant fan.  Other Benson stories that have stuck with me have been “Mrs. Amworth” and “The Room in the Tower”.

Lord Dunsany

Lord Dunsany needs little introduction.  His work was greatly admired by H. P. Lovecraft.  In fact, much of Lovecraft’s early work is written in a style similar to Dunsany’s.

Dunsany was primarily a writer of short stories, many of them only a page or two in length.  One of his recurring characters was Jorkens.  The Jorkens stories fall into what is primarily a British type of story, commonly called the club story.  This is when a group of men (sorry, ladies, these stories were at the height of their popularity when men’s clubs were part of British upper crest society) sit around their club and tell tall tales.  P. G. Wodehouse wrote some of these.

The difference between the standard club story and that practiced by Dunsany is that the core of the story involves something fantastic.  Other examples include Gavan’s Bar by L. Sprague de Camp and Fletcher Pratt and Tales From the White Hart by Arthur C. Clarke.

Lee Brown Coye was an artist.  I first became acquainted with his work when I snagged a copy Hugh B. Cave’s Murgunstrumm, published by Carcosa Press.  Lately I’ve been reading the reprint of Manly Wade Wellman’s Worse Things Waiting, originally published by Carcosa.  It was Lee Brown Coye who gave Karl Edward Wagner the idea that became his classic horror story “Sticks”.  Here are some examples of his work.