Joseph Faus (1898-1966)-The First Collaboration

Bank Clerk, Worker, Newspaper Reporter & Columnist, Author, Editor, Local Historian, Youth Group Counselor
Born August 30, 1898, Fairbury, Nebraska
Died April 12, 1966, presumably in Miami, Florida

Joseph Faus was a dedicated writer with a very long career and hundreds of stories, newspaper columns, and articles to his credit. He was born on August 30, 1898, in Fairbury, Nebraska, to Oliver Hazard Perry Faus, a Methodist minister, and Annie Faus. Before he was even two years old, Joseph Faus was living in Florida, in Macclenny, with his parents of course. I believe he spent the rest of his life in the Sunshine State, in Lemon City and Miami.

Faus' writing career began when he was a teenager. "When I was sixteen years old," he explained, "I was living in the Lemon City section of Miami, and one Saturday night at the movies on 12th St., I fell in love with Mary Pickford and as a result wrote my first fiction story, a heartrending romance that a Detroit gossip sheet bought for $15." Faus graduated from Miami High School. Shortly after his twentieth birthday, he had his first story in a pulp magazine, "Sanctuary!" in 10 Story Book for December 1918. He also sold stories to Breezy Stories, Cabaret Stories, Complete Novel Magazine, Everybody's, Ghost Stories, The Parisienne Monthly Magazine, Sweetheart Stories, several crime and detective titles, and other magazines, too, including one with a singular title, Flapper's Experience. He was an editor of a literary magazine called White Shadows. His short stories were syndicated in American newspapers from the mid 1920s to the early 1940s.

Joseph Faus collaborated with other writers, including John Irving Pearce, Jr. ("The Belled Boomerang" in The Black Mask, May 1920), and J.C. Penney. With James Bennett Wooding, he wrote:

• "The Object in the Handkerchief" in The Black Mask (Sept. 1921)
• "The Thief of Old Roads" in Action Stories (Feb. 1922)
• "The Extraordinary Experiment of Dr. Calgroni" in Weird Tales (Mar. 1923)

His last story in The FictionMags Index is "Death Drank a Toast" in Killers Mystery Story Magazine, March 1957. Faus had two of his letters printed in Weird Tales.

Faus worked as a reporter for the Miami Evening Record. He had short stories published in 183 straight issues of Miami News Photomagazine and The Miami Sunday News Magazine that succeeded it. His weekly column "The Rocks of God," about churches and synagogues in Miami, ran for 240 entries in the Miami News from 1949 to 1954. He was active in his own church as an usher, youth counselor, and secretary of the board for nine years. Faus also helped to develop the Lemon City Library in the 1950s. His name is mentioned on a historical marker outside the library.

Joseph Faus died on April 12, 1966, presumably in Miami, the city in which he had made his home for the previous half century.

Joseph Faus' Stories & Letters in Weird Tales

• "The Extraordinary Experiment of Dr. Calgroni" (Mar. 1923) with James Bennett Wooding
• Letter to "The Eyrie" (Nov. 1923)
• Letter to "The Eyrie" (Jan. 1924)

Further Reading

If you have access to old newspapers, you can read about Joseph Faus in several articles. You can also read his short stories, possibly dozens of them. I'm not sure that there was any writer for Weird Tales who had more fiction published in American newspapers than he.

1924

Text copyright 2023 Terence E. Hanley