Today is April 17. It is the birthday of Lloyd Biggle, Jr. (1923-2002) and J. N. Williamson (1932-2003), Both men were primarily short story writers, although they did publish some novels.

Biggle wrote science fiction and mystery. His work at  times codused on the arts and how advances in technology would affect them.

Williamson wrote horror. Time may remmeber him more as an editor than a writer, though. He edited the anthology series Masques. It ran to five volumes and published some of the top names in horror fiction. Volumes I and II were combined in the paperback Dark Masques, and volumes III and IV were combined as Darker Masques.

Both men are pretty much forgotten these days outside of hardcore scinece fictiona nd horror fans, which is a shame since short fiction can have soem of the best stories.