Today, February 20, marks the anniversary of the births of two great short story writers. One of them, Richard Matheson (1926-2013), will need no introduction. Ardath Mayhar (1930-2012), on the other hand, might not be familiar to you. We’ll start with Matheson because he was born first, but I’m going to focus more on Ardath. Continue reading
We lost Bill Crider to cancer in February of last year. February 12, 2018, to be exact. Today (July 28) would have been his 78th birthday.
I took the picture on the left at the 2017 World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio. That’s Joe Lansdale on the left. It was my last time to see Bill. We didn’t get to visit much; his stamina was low. I understood and was thankful for the time I did get to chat with him.
Bill Crider is best remembered as a mystery writer, and that’s as it should be. He was good, very good at that genre. Along with some westerns, he also wrote bit of fantasy and science fiction. It would be great if someone could collect those stories.
I first became aware of Bill in 1999, when he was the guest at a writing symposium held at the university I was at. We didn’t meet then, but I started watching for his books. Then I moved to another part of the state. About a year or two later, ConDFW got started. Bill was a regular attendee there, as well as Aggiecon and Armadillocon, two other conventions I was attending at the time. Although he didn’t write much fantasy and science fiction, Bill was a fan especially of the older, pulpier stuff. We’d both grown up reading a lot of the same authors and stories, although he had read them in their original publications while I had read reprints.
We had some mutual friends, and I got to know Bill and and to a lesser extent his wife Judy by hanging with that group. I tended to stay at the back of the crowd and just listen. Bill was an accomplished raconteur, and when he and Joe Lansdale got going, well, you couldn’t find better entertainment than that.
Bill was always a gentleman, courteous, kind, approachable. He was soft spoken, and he never failed to have something interesting to say. I didn’t know him as well as Joe or Scott Cupp or James Reasoner did. They knew him for far longer after all. Still, he was my friend, and I miss him.
If you’ve not read Bill Crider, give his work a try. He never engaged in literary pyrotechnics. He just told good stories.
Normally I only do these birthday posts for writers who are dead, but I’m making an exception today. Joe Lansdale entered the world on October 28, 1951.
Since we’re both from Texas, our paths have crossed a number of times through the years. Several years may go by when I don’t see Joe at a convention, then we’ll attend the same events more than once in a year.
One of the highlights of my encounters with Joe is when we are both at Armadillcon. After the dealer’s room closes, you can usually find Joe in the lobby in the middle of a group talking about all kinds of things. Joe isn’t the only one talking, of course, but he’s a major contributor to the conversation. Me, I sit at the back of the group, keep my mouth shut (it does happen; don’t look so shocked), and listen. I always learn something, whether it’s about a book I need to read, an anecdote about a writer, or some tidbit of pop culture history. If you ever get a chance to hang out with him, take advantage of it.
Happy birthday, Joe, and thanks for all the great stories over the years, both verbal and written.
I got into a conversation on Twitter this morning with PC Bushi that grew to include several other individuals. Mr. Bushi initiated things by saying Leigh Brackett’s short story “The Woamn From Altair” demonstrated her range as a writer because it was a well-written story that wasn’t an adventure story. I agreed. (If you’re interested, my review from a couple of years ago is here.)
Early in the course of the conversation, he linked to a post he had written about Jack Vance and Andre Norton, discussing their versatility as writers. He says some good stuff, and you should check it out.
The conversation moved onto to all the genres Brackett wrote in. In addition to space opera and science fiction, she also wrote detective stories (which is what got her the job writing for Howard Hawks on The Big Sleep) and westerns. This discussion got me to thinking… Continue reading
(i. to r.) Bill Crider, Joe Lansdale, Scott Cupp, William Browning Spencer on Telling Tall Tales
I’m somewhat tardy in getting this written, but I’ve been focusing on fiction writing this week. Last weekend I attended Armadillocon 39. It was something of a last minute decision. I had a choice, either go to Armadillocon or go to prison (cuz I was gonna go postal and kill somebody). As I have no aspirations to end up as some lifer’s wife, I chose the former rather than the latter.
The headliners (with one exception) weren’t a draw for me this year, although I did have a brief conversation with the GoH, Nisi Shawl. I found her to be a very nice lady, and I enjoyed my interaction with her. Otherwise I hung around with friends and went to some panels on writing. Continue reading
Hey, folks, the Chicken Fried Cthulhu Kickstarter has 25 hours left as I write this and is still a ways from funding. This is an anthology of southwestern flavored Cthulhu and Lovecraft themed stories. It’s set to premiere at the World Fantasy Convention in San Antonio this year.
If it funds. It’s from the same crew that brought you Skelos, and there’s an impressive lineup of authors listed, including Robert E. Howard and Joe Lansdale. Part of the reason the goal is so high is that the editors want to pay the authors professional rates, and that takes money.
So if you’ve been thinking about pledging, please do so. I would really like to see this project get off the ground. I am not an author in the anthology and my only connection to the project is that I’m friends with the guys putting it together. I just want to read the stories.
So, yeah, about Armadillocon. You know, the one that was held at the end of July. While it’s a little late for a con report, I’m going to post a brief one. I’m home waiting on a service technician, who will be by sometime between noon and 5:00. I thought this would be a good time to kill one of the items on my Should Have Already Done List. It’s better than killing someone, such as the person who called at 10:45 wanting to know if I was available because the rest of the service calls are out of town. (No, I thought I made that clear when we talked last week. I have office hours and appointments with students in a few minutes.)
Anyway, I wasn’t planning on going this year, mainly due to distance and money. Then I learned that Bill Crider, who is a regular, had been diagnosed with cancer. I thought I had missed the con but found out it was a week later than I’d thought, namely the upcoming weekend. I looked at the guest list. None of the headliners appealed, but there was a long line of folks I hadn’t seen in years. I used to hit Armadillocon just about every year, but since I moved to the other side of the state in 2010, I hadn’t gone. The summer of 2009 was the last time I was there.
It was a last minute decision, but I was able to make it work. Armadillocon was one of the first conventions I attended, and it was back at the hotel where it was held the first few years I went. Nostalgia won out.
Because I literally didn’t register until a few minutes before the preregistration deadline and make my room reservation, I didn’t get the basic room but one a little fancier, at the end of the hall with a balcony. I came in, noticed a few balloons tied to pieces of candy on the bed, and hit the restroom. When I came out I saw some items that had been out of my field of view when I got in the room. A bottle of bubbly on ice with two fluted glasses. A card in an envelope with a woman’s name on it. A cupcake alongside a smaller card containing the same same woman’s name. A bouquet of birthday balloons. Clearly the front desk had made a mistake. Continue reading