Tag Archives: Margaret St. Clair

Margaret St. Clair

Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) was born on this date, February 17.  She only wrote eight novels, most of them published the the 1960s. She did, however, write a number of shorter works, starting with “The Perfectionist” in 1946. In the 1950s, she published a number of stories under the byline of Idris Seabright. Most of the Seabirght stories were published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. She was still publishing as St. Clair at the same time. The fifities were her most prolific time.

“The Man Who Sold Rope to the Gnoles” (1951), which was originally  F&SF under her Seabright pseudonym, was the first story fo hers I read. I think it was in an Alfred Hitchcock anthology in the school library, but I’m not sure which one. It’s been too long. I do know that it was reprinted under her real name.

She continued to write into the 1960s, but her output dropped off by the middle of the decade. She only published four stories in the seventies, and two in the eighties.

St. Clair was once one of the leading women writers in the field, especially when writing as Idris Seabright. These days she’s not very well-known. That’s a shame, since she had an impact on the field.

But that seems to be the way of literature and publishing. Crtically-acclaimed today, forgotten tomorrow. But that’s another post for another day. Maybe.

Margaret St. Clair and Her Causes

“The Causes”
Margaret St. Clair
First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, June 1952
Currently available in The Hole in the Moon and Other Tales

Margaret St. Clair (1911-1995) was born on this date, February 17. Although she wrote eight novels, she is best remembered for her short stories, both under her own name and the pseudonym Idris Seabright. “The Causes” was one of the Seabright stories, most of which were published in F&SF.

Bar stories and the closely related club stories, which are often some type of tall tale, have a long history in the science fiction and fantasy fields. “The Causes” falls into this subgenre. It’s a fun and clever little story. Continue reading

Margaret St. Clair’s Little Red Owl

“The Little Red Owl”
first published in Weird Tales, July 1951
currently available in The Hole in the Moon
Dover Books
Paperback $14.95

Margaret St. Clair was born on this date, February 17, in 1911.  She passed away in 1995.

St. Clair wrote primarily short stories, with most published in the 1940s and 1950s. She also published eight novels between 1956 to 1973. In addition to writing under her own name, she published under the name of Idris Seabright. These stories appeared primarily F&SF in the 50s. Continue reading

The Women Other Women Don’t See

Trigger Warning:  Humor, Snark, Truth, Thoughts That Might Be Different Than Yours.

In case you’re wondering, yes, the title of this post is a riff on the James Tiptree, Jr., story “The Women Men Don’t See”.  And yes, there is a book review buried in here.  I’ll provide the pertinent information about the book later.  First, though, some context.group of men

I’ve heard for years that there were virtually no women writers in science fiction and fantasy before [insert date du jour here] because they were discriminated against by all the men in the field and had to use masculine pseudonyms or initials if they wanted to write sf/f.  The actual date when this began to change is something of a moving target and depends loosely on the age of the person making the statement.

This belief is pretty widely held in the field, to the point that it’s almost holy writ.  And while men have spread this myth, women tend to be the loudest in voicing it. Continue reading