Tag Archives: Will Oliver

Three Lost Interviews About Robert E. Howard, Part 1 by Will Oliver

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What follows is the first of four guest posts by Will Oliver. This will be the introduction and background. Each interview will be a separate post. – KW

Three Lost Interviews about Robert E. Howard:
Introduction and Transcription by Will Oliver

In the December 2021 mailing of the Robert E. Howard Universal Press Association’s (REHupa) mailing, Lee Breakiron commented in his fanzine “The Nemedian Chroniclers” that Gary Romeo, another member of REHupa, had read about some interviews regarding Robert E. Howard he had never been able to find. Romeo had earlier written, “Years ago I noticed a website saying they had these tapes of Cross Plains guys talking about REH. I tried and tried to contact these guys and always ran into a dead end. Finally gave up.”

Breakiron then included the following information Romeo had obtained from the Science Fiction Oral History Association Archives:

“WB–10 (90) Both Sides. Three men who knew Robert E. Howard in boyhood and all of his life tell in 1982 interviews of Howard’s growing up and his untimely suicide in 1936.  Leroy Butler, Jack Scott, and J. Brown Baum reminisce about the young author. Daryl Lane interviews. Invaluable material for Howard enthusiasts and scholars. There are three short (10-20 minute) individual interviews, one at the beginning of Side A (Leroy Butler) and two at the beginning of Side B. The last two subjects are not identified on tape.”

In all my research for the Robert E. Howard biography I am currently writing, I have never seen any mention of these interviews before, so I was very, very curious. And since there was a web-link to the Science Fiction Oral History Association Archives (http://sfoha.org/ ), I immediately went to work tracking it down. Continue reading →

The Robert E. Howard Bran Mak Morn Sequel: Maker of Shadows by Jack Mann

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Today’s post is by Will Oliver.

“Bran eyed her somberly; he reached forth and gripped her arm in his iron fingers.  An involuntary shudder shook him at the feel of her sleek skin. He nodded slowly and drawing her close to him, forced his head down to meet her lifted lips.”

– Robert E. Howard
“Worms of the Earth”

As a fan of pulp magazines, I generally have in my reading pile or to-read bookshelf either reprints of pulp magazines or paperbacks of stories from the pulp era. A couple of years ago, I discovered the magazine dedicated to the old pulps, Blood ‘N’ Thunder, and wouldn’t you know it, just as I discovered it, it was no longer publishing on a regular basis. Ed Hulse, both editor and publisher, decided to step away from the quarterly publication to dedicate himself to other pulp magazine projects. No more deadline pressures for him—something we can all understand. Still, he has since published some additional issues and I was able to get several articles into the latest one.

One issue of Blood ‘N’ Thunder I recently read was the summer 2015 issue, featuring an article by Rick Lai titled, “The Secret Son of Bran Mak Morn” (pp. 36-41). The article explained that Jack Mann was a fan of Robert E. Howard and was so taken with his character Bran Mak Morn that he wrote a veiled sequel titled Maker of Shadows, published in 1938. Curious, I ordered a copy from Amazon that was published by Ramble House publishers in 2011 and, after reading it, I thought I would write a review for this blog. Continue reading →

Carrying on the Tradition

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Today’s post is a guest post by Will Oliver.

There is a writer we all know and love who was born in the American West in the 19-aughts, and his father was a doctor. When he first started writing, he churned out dozens of stories and sent them off to publishers with little acceptance. He finally got his first break with the pulp magazines and later published in such magazines as Thrilling Adventure. Although he wrote what is often called westerns, most of his stories were really about life on the frontier. He was also both a fan of boxing and was a boxer himself, and he incorporated this interest into many of his short stories.

He also had a distinct love for composing poetry, some of which was published, but he realized that he could not make a living from writing poetry. He wrote well over 200 short stories in his lifetime and wrote across many genres including westerns, adventure, and even science fiction. Although he did a lot of single character stories, some of his most popular writing included series involving the same characters. One of his most popular series was about a merchant sailor. He also wrote of a man named Sackett who came over from England and, on a few occasions, this author also did some ghost writing.

Early on in his career, some of his short stories found their way into a number of anthologies, and this increased the visibility of his name. The first book he ever published, however, was actually published in England, not in America. Later, some of his stories and characters were even made into television shows and movies.

He died in mid-June and his autobiography was published posthumously. Again, even though he wrote widely in many genres, he always believed that his most worthwhile contribution to the literary field was his western frontier stories.

And, of course, we all know I am writing about……………………………………………. Continue reading →