Avram Davidson letters

Avram Davidson

1963-1993

Letters

"I had long enjoyed the stories of Avram Davidson, and the issues of F&SF that he edited, so when he asked me in September 1977 to pick him up at the Williamsburg International Airport just north of where I lived in Newport News VA, I was glad to do it. He was to be Writer-in-Residence at William & Mary for a year. While he was in the area, he met occasionally with the local SF club, the Hampton Roads Science Fiction Association. After Avram moved back to Washington state, we continued to correspond until 1993, the year that he died. The content of the letters will have to explain itself - fans may become interested in anything. It might be better if my side of the correspondence were also here, but although almost all my letters to anyone in that period were computer files, I don't find any trace of them now.

The very first letter was not to me at all, but to "Phil" in May 1963 when Avram was editor at F&SF. This must have been Phil Harrell, the first fan I ever met. The content is obscure - Phil must have given me the letter, and at the time I no doubt knew what the issue was. Now I can only speculate that it had to do with the Werewolf Bookstore scandal. Werewolf had been a respected mail-order dealer who advertised in the SF prozines until apparently when the operation was taken over by the original dealer's son fans buying in quantity began to get boxes of useless rubbish."

Ned Brooks

For more infomation see Avram Davidson's page on Fancycloepdia III.

Scans by Ned Brooks from his collection

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