In keeping with the theme of writers who were once prominent but have been to a large degree forgotten, or at least neglected, I’m goinmg to write about two writers whose namaes might be familiar to you: Wlater M. Miller, Jr., and Tom Reamy. Both were born on January 23. Continue reading
I’m not a huge Simon and Grafunkle fan, but I couldn’t help but steal the title of this post from “I am a Rock”. Here are my reading/writing/blogging plans for the last month of the year.
Leigh Brackett
The big thing is that Leigh Brackett’s birthday is next Monday, December 7. It’s her centennial, and I’ll be focusing a lot on her work this month. I’m not the only one. Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward will be discussing “The Moon the Vanished”, one of her novellas set on a swampy Venus next Monday on Howard’s blog. Click here for details and join the discussion. I’m not going to be discussing that particular story here, but I will take some detailed looks at some others. I’m probably going to start with “Lorelei of the Red Mist”, which she began and Ray Bradbury finished when Howard Hawks offered her a job writing the screenplay to Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep with William Faulkner. You can get electronic copies of both stories in Swamps of Venus from Baen ($4), or get the Solar System bundle for $20. Continue reading
So it’s that time of year when the dry grass kinda crunches under foot, the Sun sets earlier, and the evenings are cooler less hot. Classes have started. Things begin to settle into a routine. Orange decorations start to appear.
And my reading matter starts to produce more of a chill.
I’m not planning on doing a heavy Halloween related reading project this year, although there will be a few seasonal blog posts scattered among the things I put up here. One of them will probably be about Tom Reamy’s Blind Voices. It’s been years since I read it, but it’s one of those rare books that I can remember numerous details about years later. Continue reading
…because I don’t have Bud’s email address.
Dear Bud,
I wanted to let you know how much I appreciated your profiling Tom Reamy in your inaugural installment of “Who?!” in the new issue of Black Gate. I’ve enjoyed your “Past Masters” columns for years. You have a tendency to profile most of my favorite writers from my teenage years. I assume you know which ones to pick because you have exemplary taste.
I was especially pleased that you chose Tom Reamy. He is an author who is sadly neglected, and I wish someone would bring him back into print in an archival edition. His work could easily fit into a single volume, and given the size of some of the retrospectives being published these days, it shouldn’t be that hard.
The reason I’m glad you chose him is because, although it’s rather tenuous, I have a personal connection to Tom Reamy.
You mentioned in your article that Tom was born in Woodson, Texas. We lived in Woodson in the 1970s, from about 1972-1976. I was only in 3rd grade when we left, so I hadn’t yet discovered science fiction and fantasy, nor would I have known who Tom was. If I had been a little older, I probably would have made an obnoxious fanboy of myself.
I realize by this time that Tom had moved on, but he still came back from time to time and briefly lived in Woodson circa 1972-1973. Howard Waldrop writes about visiting Tom in Woodson in 1973. (Although I’ve met Howard numerous times, my mind boggles that we were that close geographically back then.) My parents knew the Reamys, but I don’t think they ever met Tom.
When Blind Voices was published, I had started reading science fiction, although I hadn’t gotten into fantasy very much yet and so didn’t read it until a number of years later. It wasn’t until the mid-1980s, after someone had dropped off almost a decade’s worth of F&SF at the local used bookstore in Breckenridge that I read some of Tom’s work.
I was impressed. Somewhere, and I don’t recall where, I found a hardcover of San Diego Lightfoot Sue. At the time I was (and still am) an aspiring writer with a fondness for short fiction. Knowing Tom had written some of his stories in a half horse town not far from where I was attending high school (Woodson wasn’t and isn’t big enough to have a whole horse), as well as the stories themselves, served as an inspiration to me. There’s one story (that will never see the light of day) that I can trace back to Tom’s work as its inspiration.
In his Afterward, Howard Waldrop writes about the gas station the Reamys operated on the highway between Breckenridge and Woodson. As soon as I read about it, I knew exactly the gas station Howard was talking about. It sat in a curve in the road just inside the county line.
The gas station is gone now, but the house is still standing. That’s it in the photo on the right. I’d read on the Black Gate blog that you were going to write about Tom and I took the picture when I was visiting my parents in Breckenridge last Christmas. I think the gas station was where the two pine trees are now, but I’m not sure.
Your article made me do some looking on the internet, Bud, and I learned that Tom is buried in the family plot in Woodson. I’ll try to pay my respects the next time I’m in the area.
Anyway, I wanted to thank you for your article. It brought back memories. Of all the ones you’ve written, this one is the one I can relate to the most.
Best regards,
Keith