Today, we celebrate the 100th birthday of one of our favorite writers, Leigh Brackett. Rather than craft a bio of our own, we’d like to share with you the lady’s own words from 1954:
“I was born, of course—December 7, 1915, in Los Angeles, California; educated there and in New Orleans and Boston, where I lived for a few years. My father died before I was three, but whatever knack for writing I may have I inherited from him. Not long ago I found a bundle of his poems, plot-sketches, and half-completed stories among the family papers—an experience made more eerie by the fact that one of his stories bore a title almost identical with one I was working on myself at the time. It’s a pity that he did not live long enough to establish himself as what he always wanted to be—a writer…
“At thirteen I began writing seriously, and very serious it was, too. I wrote two heavy problem novels, quite a number of shorter stories, and several poems, All in longhand on ruled paper. I‘ve often wondered if editors really bothered to read them, and I have even more often prayed that they did not. This early, or Eolithic, Brackettiana was dealt with later in a private burning of the books.
“Most of my childhood—certainly the happiest years of it—was spent in my grandfather’s house on a rather isolated California Beach. There I swam, fished, soaked up sun, and acquired a taste for beach-combing that has never left me. There I discovered Edgar Rice Burroughs and Mars. There I read Doyle’s “The Maracot Deep” in the Saturday Evening Post, another milestone. There I learned Kipling’s “Jungle Books” by heart, and made my first inroads on Rider Haggard. I also got good marks in English. These two things later betrayed me, the one into fantasy and sf, t’other into believing that writing would be an easy profession. I found out.
I sold my first story (in late 1939, to Astounding) largely because of two things. First, because this same grandfather had a sure and quiet faith in me, and showed it by financing me in my chance to write when I was quite old enough to make my own living. Second, because one Henry Kuttner, of whom you may have heard, chose to think my wobbling and misshapen efforts had some promise, and went out of his way to help me develop it.
“I have been writing for a living ever since, mostly in science fiction, sometimes in detective stories, for three years and a bit in the Hollywood studios (Columbia, Republic and Warner’s), and a very brief excursion into radio. I like to write. There are times, I’ll admit, when I wish I had chosen the profession of ditch-digging instead. (In all honesty, I’ll have to qualify that last. Since moving to the country I have actually dug a ditch, and I believe that writing is easier.) But it’s a satisfying job and one that constantly expands and changes because you can never possibly learn everything about it. You ask what my philosophy of writing is—I don’t know that I have any. To tell a good story, to tell it as well and effectively as possible, and to try to grow a little wiser and a little deeper all the time—I suppose, put into words, that’s what I aim at. Whether or not I hit it is another matter entirely.”
Thankfully, she hit what she aimed at very well: her contributions to genre fiction—in print and on the screen—have influenced three generations of storytellers. It is arguable that without the work of Leigh Brackett, tens of millions of movie-goers would not be in cinemas next week watching STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS.
So it is with great pride that we celebrate the day of Leigh Brackett’s Centennial with the announcement of a new hardcover collection of her most famous creation:
THE BOOK OF STARK
By Leigh BrackettArtwork by Raymond SwanlandEdited by Stephen Haffner
ISBN: 9781893887862
720+ pages
Smythe-sewn HardcoverTHIS IS IT! The BIG one! All the tales of Eric John Stark in a single volume. The stories, the novels, and for the first time, Brackett’s working notes for the abandoned FOURTH “Stark” novel from 1977. Need we say more?Contents
“Queen of the Martian Catacombs”
“Enchantress of Venus”
“Black Amazon of Mars”
“Stark and the Star Kings”
The Ginger Star
The Hounds of Skaith
The Reavers of Skaith
“1977: Notes for Stark #4″
LEIGH BRACKETT CENTENNIAL
Edited by Stephen Haffner
Foreword by Bruce DouglassISBN: 9781893887848
500+ pages
Trade Paperback
Over 50 interior images
Discovered by editor Stephen Haffner, Brackett’s unpublished story “They” leads off this tribute volume collecting the majority of Brackett’s nonfiction writings, supplemented with vintage interviews and commentaries/remembrances from such luminaries as Ray Bradbury, Michael Moorcock, Richard A. Lupoff, and more.LEIGH BRACKETT CENTENNIALcovers numerous facets and events of Brackett‘s life including:
• Bringing Philip Marlowe into the 1970s for Robert Altman’s THE LONG GOODBYE . . .
• SF author and NASA employee hosted Brackett at the launch of Apollo XII . . .
• Bookseller Ray Walsh documents the day he escorted Brackett to view a new groundbreaking space-fantasy film in the summer of 1977 . . .
| CONTENTS LIST All contributions are by Leigh Brackett unless noted |
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(248) 288-4756 • www.haffnerpress.com
• Keep Watching the Skies! •
Haffner Press Leigh Brackett 100th Birthday Newsletter – December 7, 2015
(248) 288-4756 • www.haffnerpress.com
• Keep Watching the Skies! •
