Send News

I am about two-thirds of the way through an alphabetical list of authors and the question marks are piling up. Here is a list of unanswered questions thus far:

A--Who was Stafford Aylmer? Where did he live? What did he do for a living? Did he write anything more than just two stories?

B--What is there to tell about George Washington Jones Blume? What of his life? What was the place of his death?

C--How did the story start that O.M. Cabral was a pseudonym of Kenneth H. MacNichol?

D--As a literary agent and editor, Laurence R. D'Orsay played a prominent part in the history of science fiction by employing and teaching Henry Kuttner. He may very well have had other connections to the science fiction scene in Los Angeles. Yet his biography is pretty skimpy. What more can we learn about him?

E--What more of Horatio V. Ellis?

F--Or of Alice Drayton Farnham?

G--Francis D. Grierson is covered pretty well.

H--Without wanting to pry too much, I wonder what happened to Norman Elwood Hamerstrom.

I--I wonder, too, about Alice I'Anson, her family, and her peregrinations.

J--Talbot Johns--another pretty skimpy biography.

K--Was Anthony D. Keogh actually named Mark Anthony Keogh? Did he die in March 1972? See an obituary (unavailable to me) dated March 25, 1972, in the Springfield [Ohio] Daily News.

L & M--Laidlaw and Myers--pretty well covered.

N--Was the Alan Nelson I found the same writer for Weird Tales and other magazines?

O--What more of Anton M. Oliver? Where and when did he die?

P--Of all the writers on the list so far, perhaps none has received shorter shrift from the Internet than Suzanne Pickett. After all, she had a book published this year.

Q--Is the Janice H. Quilligan that I found the same poet for Weird Tales? I like to think Janice is still with us and still writing poetry. Does anyone know?

This is a request for friends and family of these and other writers and artists to come forward and offer whatever you can. And it doesn't matter whether I have written about them yet or not. I can use what you send me to make my biographical sketches better. That goes for living artists and writers as well. You can leave comments or you can email me at:

info@hoosiercartoonists.com (No longer usable as of March 21, 2023.)

Thanks and I hope to hear from you soon. Thanks also to all who read Tellers of Weird Tales and who leave comments and send emails. There is nothing better about writing this blog than to hear from family members.

TH

Copyright 2013, 2023 Terence E. Hanley

Send News . . .

And If There Isn't Any News, Send Rumors

One of the things I have found in doing research is that there is specialized information hiding out there in the world, information commonplace to those holding it and invaluable to those seeking it. Everything we seek may be there for the finding, in old magazines and newspapers, libraries and archives, local history and genealogy organizations, books out of print, collections of letters and diaries, even in the memories of those who survive. Yet the researcher struggles to put all the pieces together. The word research is literal. Someone searched for it once. Subsequently lost, it becomes subject of search again. . . and again. One benefit of the Internet is that once found, information may not be lost again. Or then again, maybe it will. In any case, Tellers of Weird Tales is a blog for everyone. Everyone can read it and everyone can benefit from it. I would also like anyone who has information to feel free to offer it. That's why I am asking for submissions of information, no matter how grand or trivial. You can contribute through your comments, but you can also email me at:

info@hoosiercartoonists.com [No longer active as of March 21, 2023.]

Feel free to send whatever you have: memories, family stories, photographs, clippings, photocopies, letters--it doesn't matter. Anything can help flesh out the bare bones of fact. I read on one blog that a family member has stories from a writer of weird tales, stories never published. I'm open to publishing things like that on my blog as well. In any case, I look forward to hearing from you.

Weird Tales, November 1941, with a cover by Hannes Bok anticipating America's entry into World War II and illustrating Frank Gruber's "Book of the Dead." Many decades later, Weird Tales author E. Hoffman Price published a memoir with same title, telling of the men and women he had known in association with the magazine and his own writing career.

Copyright 2011, 2023 Terence E. Hanley