Judith Merril
Encyclopedia
Judith Josephine Grossman (January 21, 1923 - September 12, 1997), who took the pen-name Judith Merril about 1945, was an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and then Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 writer, editor and political activist.

Although Judith Merril's first paid writing was in other genres, in her first few years of writing published science fiction she wrote her three novels (all but the first in collaboration with C.M. Kornbluth
Cyril M. Kornbluth
Cyril M. Kornbluth was an American science fiction author and a notable member of the Futurians. He used a variety of pen-names, including Cecil Corwin, S. D. Gottesman, Edward J. Bellin, Kenneth Falconer, Walter C. Davies, Simon Eisner and Jordan Park...

) and some stories. Her roughly four decades in that genre also included writing 26 published short stories, and editing a similar number of anthologies
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

.

Early years

Merril was born in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

. After her father's suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...

during her grade-school years, her mother found a job at Bronx House and moved them to the borough of the Bronx
The Bronx
The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...

in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. In her mid-teens, she pursued Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...

and Marxism
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...

.

In 1939, she graduated from Morris High School
Morris High School (Bronx, New York)
Morris High School was a high school in the borough of the Bronx in New York City. It was built in 1897. It was the first high school built in the Bronx...

 in the Bronx at 16, and rethought her politics under the influence of the Hitler-Stalin Pact. She married Dan Zissman the next year, less than four months into a relationship that started through Trotskyist activities. Their daughter Merril Zissman was born in December 1942. In this period, she also became one of the few female members of the New York City-based group of science fiction writers, editors, artists and fans, the Futurians
Futurians
The Futurians were a group of science fiction fans, many of whom became editors and writers as well. The Futurians were based in New York City and were a major force in the development of science fiction writing and science fiction fandom in the years 1937-1945.-Origins of the group:As described...

, which included Kornbluth. The Zissmans separated about 1945; in 1946 Frederik Pohl
Frederik Pohl
Frederik George Pohl, Jr. is an American science fiction writer, editor and fan, with a career spanning over seventy years — from his first published work, "Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna" , to his most recent novel, All the Lives He Led .He won the National Book Award in 1980 for his novel Jem...

, another Futurian, began living with her. After her divorce from Zissman became final in 1948, she married Pohl, November 25, 1948.

American science fiction writing and editing

Judith Merril began writing professionally, especially short stories about sports, starting in 1945, before publishing her first science-fiction story in 1948. A number, but by no means all, of her contributions were to magazines edited by fellow ex-Futurians. She was a co-founder of the Hydra Club in this period. Her story "Dead Center" (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, November, 1954) is one of only two stories take from any science fiction or fantasy magazine for the Best American Short Stories
Best American Short Stories
The Best American Short Stories yearly anthology is a part of The Best American Series published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Since 1915, the BASS anthology has striven to contain the best short stories by some of the best-known writers in contemporary American literature.-Edward O'Brien:The...

volumes edited by Martha Foley
Martha Foley
Martha Foley cofounded Story magazine in 1931 with her husband Whit Burnett. She achieved some notoriety by introducing notable authors through the magazine such as J. D. Salinger, Tennessee Williams and Richard Wright...

 in the 1950s. Groff Conklin
Groff Conklin
Edward Groff Conklin was a leading science fiction anthologist. He edited 40 anthologies of science fiction, one of mystery stories , wrote books on home improvement and was a freelance writer on scientific subjects as well as a published poet...

 described her first novel, Shadow on the Hearth, as "a masterly example of sensitive and perceptive story-telling." Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...

 and McComas
J. Francis McComas
Jesse Francis McComas was an American science fiction editor. McComas wrote several stories on his own in the 1950s using both his own name and the pseudonym Webb Marlowe....

 praised it as "a sensitively human novel, terrifying in its small-scale reflection of grand-scale catastrophe.". P. Schuyler Miller
P. Schuyler Miller
Peter Schuyler Miller was an American science fiction writer and critic.-Life:Miller was raised in New York's Mohawk Valley, which led to a life-long interest in the Iroquois Indians. He pursued this as an amateur archaeologist and a member of the New York State Archaeological Association.He...

 found it a "warm, human novel" comparable to Earth Abides
Earth Abides
Earth Abides is a 1949 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer George R. Stewart. It tells the story of the fall of civilization from deadly disease and its rebirth. Beginning in the United States in the 1940s, it deals with Isherwood "Ish" Williams, Emma, and the community they...

.

Her second child, Ann, was born in 1950; in 1952 she separated from Pohl, and their divorce finalized the next year, in which she also lived with Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Walter Michael Miller, Jr. was an American science fiction author. Today he is primarily known for A Canticle for Leibowitz, the only novel he published in his lifetime. Prior to its publication he was a prolific writer of short stories.- Biography :Miller was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida...

 for six months. Her third marriage came in 1960, devolving into separation, in 1963, but never a final divorce. Ann's daughter (Merril's granddaughter), Emily Pohl-Weary
Emily Pohl-Weary
- Biography :She is the granddaughter of science fiction writers Judith Merril and Frederik Pohl. Her 2002 biography Better to Have Loved: The Life of Judith Merril won the Hugo Award for Best Related Book in 2003 and was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award...

, is an author of young adult fiction and science-fiction stories. (She also co-authored Merril's biography after the latter's death, using access to her drafts, notes and letters).

Merril began editing science fiction short story anthologies in 1950—especially a popular "Year's Best" story-anthology series of that ran from 1956 to 1967—and published her last in 1985. In her editorial introductions, talks and other writings, she actively argued that science fiction should no longer be isolated but become part of the literary mainstream. Early in her editing career, Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher
Anthony Boucher was an American science fiction editor and author of mystery novels and short stories. He was particularly influential as an editor. Between 1942 and 1947 he acted as reviewer of mostly mystery fiction for the San Francisco Chronicle...

 described her as "a practically flawless anthologist."
She also had an important role as Books Editor for The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction from 1965 until 1969.

Science fiction scholar Rob Latham noted in 2005 that "throughout the 1950s, Merril, along with fellow SF authors James Blish
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...

 and Damon Knight
Damon Knight
Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...

 had taken the lead in promoting higher literary standards and a greater sense of professionalism within the field" -- especially by establishing an annual series of writers' conferences in Milford, Pennsylvania
Milford, Pennsylvania
Milford is a borough in Pike County, Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat. Its population was 1,021 at the 2010 census. It was founded in 1796 by Judge John Biddis, one of the state's first four circuit judges, who named the settlement after his ancestral home in Wales.Milford has a...

, where Merril then lived. Manuscripts were workshopped at these avid gatherings, thus encouraging more care in the planning of stories, and a sense of solidarity was promoted, eventually leading to the formation of the Science Fiction Writers Association." However, "disaffected authors began griping about a `Milford Mafia' that was endangering SF's unique virtues by imposing literary standards essentially alien to the field."

A project Merril began in the early 1960s, under contract to Lion Books in Chicago, was abortive, but inspired her publisher's editor, Harlan Ellison
Harlan Ellison
Harlan Jay Ellison is an American writer. His principal genre is speculative fiction.His published works include over 1,700 short stories, novellas, screenplays, teleplays, essays, a wide range of criticism covering literature, film, television, and print media...

, to go forward with his version of the project, Dangerous Visions
Dangerous Visions
Dangerous Visions is a science fiction short story anthology edited by Harlan Ellison, published in 1967.A path-breaking collection, Dangerous Visions helped define the New Wave science fiction movement, particularly in its depiction of sex in science fiction...

(Doubleday, 1967). As an initiator of the New Wave
New Wave (science fiction)
New Wave is a term applied to science fiction produced in the 1960s and 1970s and characterized by a high degree of experimentation, both in form and in content, a "literary" or artistic sensibility, and a focus on "soft" as opposed to hard science. The term "New Wave" is borrowed from the French...

 movement, in 1968 she edited the anthology England Swings SF. She collected the stories for it while living in England for a year in the late 1960s.

Canadian years

In the late 1960s, Merril moved to Canada, citing what she called undemocratic suppression of anti-war activities by the U.S. government. She was a founding resident of Rochdale College
Rochdale College
Opened in 1968, Rochdale College was an experiment in student-run alternative education and co-operative living in Toronto, Canada. It provided space for 840 residents in a co-operative living space. It was also a free university where students and teachers would live together and share knowledge...

, an experiment in student-run education and cooperative living, very much part of the zeitgeist of the era. At Rochdale, she was the "Resource Person on Writing and Publishing" with her extensive personal collection of books and unpublished manuscripts.

In 1970 she began an endowment
Financial endowment
A financial endowment is a transfer of money or property donated to an institution. The total value of an institution's investments is often referred to as the institution's endowment and is typically organized as a public charity, private foundation, or trust....

 at the Toronto Public Library
Toronto Public Library
Toronto Public Library is a public library system based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public library system in Canada and in 2008, had averaged a higher...

 for the collection of all science fiction published in the English language. She donated all of the books and magazines in her possession to the library, which set up the "Spaced Out Library" (Merril's term), with Merril in a non-administrative role as curator. The library has had its own physical space from the onset. It was renamed in Merril's last decade as the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation, and Fantasy. Merril received a small annual stipend as curator, and when low on funds, she lived in her office at the library, sleeping on a cot.

From 1978 to 1981 Merril introduced Canadian broadcasts of Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

. As the "Undoctor," Merril presented short (3-7 minute) philosophical commentaries on the show's themes.

Merril was an active organizer and promoter of science fiction in Canada. For example, she founded the Hydra North network of writers. In 1985 she launched and edited the first issue of [Tesseract]s, the first Canadian science fiction anthology, which helped to define a particularly Canadian version of science fiction writing.

In the early 1980s, Merril donated to the National Archives of Canada her voluminous collection of correspondence, unpublished manuscripts and Japanese science-fiction material. This became the National Archives' "Judith Merril Fonds."

Merril became a Canadian citizen in 1976. She became active in the Writers' Union. When the Union debated at its annual meeting whether people could write about other genders and ethnic groups, she exclaimed "Who will speak for the aliens?" which closed the debate.

From the mid-1970s until her death, Merril spent much time in the Canadian peace movement, including traveling to Ottawa dressed as a witch in order to hex Parliament for allowing American cruise missile testing over Canada.

She also remained active in the SF world as a commentator and mentor. Her lifetime of work was honoured by the International Authors Festival at the Harbourfront Centre, Toronto. She spent much time working on her memoirs.

The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...

 (the renamed SFWA) made Merril its Author Emeritus
Author Emeritus
Author Emeritus award is an honorary title bestowed by Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc. It was created "as a way to recognize and appreciate senior writers in the genres of science fiction and fantasy who have made significant contributions to our field but who are no longer...

 for 1997.

In contemplation of her death, she left a sizable sum of money to hold a celebratory/memorial party at Toronto's Bamboo Club. An organized editor to the end, she prepared detailed lists of who should call whom when she finally died.

Selected works

  • "That Only a Mother
    That Only a Mother
    "That Only a Mother" is a science fiction short story by Judith Merril, originally published in 1948. "That Only a Mother" was among the stories selected in 1970 by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one the best science fiction short stories of all time...

    " (1948, short story)
  • Shadow on the Hearth (1950)
  • Outpost Mars (1950, with C. M. Kornbluth as "Cyril Judd")
  • Gunner Cade (1952, with C. M. Kornbluth as "Cyril Judd")
  • "Survival Ship" (1954, short story in Bold, February 1954)
  • Human?
    Human?
    Human? is an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories edited by Judith Merril, published as a paperback original by Lion Books in 1954. No further editions were issued.-Contents:* "Introduction", Fredric Brown...

    (1954, editor)
  • SF: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy
    SF: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy
    SF: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy is a 1956 anthology of science fiction and fantasy short stories edited by Judith Merril. It was the first in a series of 12 annual anthologies edited by Merrill...

    (1956, editor)
  • SF '57: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy
    SF '57: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy
    SF '57: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy is a 1957 anthology of science fiction and fantasy short stories edited by Judith Merril. It was published by Gnome Press in an edition of 3,000 copies and was the second in a series of 12 annual anthologies edited by Merrill...

    (1957, editor)
  • SF '58: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy
    SF '58: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy
    SF '58: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy is a 1958 anthology of science fiction and fantasy short stories and articles edited by Judith Merril. It was published by Gnome Press in an edition of 4,000 copies of which 1,263 were never bound. It was the third in a series of 12 annual...

    (1958, editor)
  • SF '59: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy
    SF '59: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy
    SF '59: The Year's Greatest Science Fiction and Fantasy is a 1959 anthology of science fiction and fantasy short stories and articles edited by Judith Merril. It was published by Gnome Press in an edition of 5,000 copies, some of which were never bound. It was the fourth in a series of 12 annual...

    (1959, editor)
  • The Tomorrow People
    The Tomorrow People (novel)
    The Tomorrow People is a 1960 science fiction novel by Judith Merril.-Plot summary:Only one man, Johnny Wendt, has returned from the first expedition to Mars. Efforts to determine what happened to the others are in vain; four pages of the ship's log are missing, and Johnny's companion, Doug...

    (1960)
  • The 5th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F (1960, editor)
  • The 6th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F (1961, editor)
  • The 7th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F (1962, editor)
  • The 8th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F (1963, editor)
  • The 9th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F (1964, editor)
  • The 10th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F (1965, editor)
  • The 11th Annual of the Year’s Best S-F (1966, editor)
  • SF12 (1967, editor)
  • England Swings SF (1968, editor)
  • Daughters of Earth and Other Stories (1968, short story collection)
  • Survival Ship and Other Stories (1973, short story collection)
  • The Best of Judith Merril (1976, short story collection)
  • Tesseracts (1985, editor)
  • Homecalling and Other Stories: The Complete Solo Short SF of Judith Merril (2005, short story collection, edited by Elisabeth Carey)
  • with C. M. Kornbluth, Spaced Out: Three Novels of Tomorrow (2008, novel omnibus containing Outpost Mars, Gunner Cade, and Shadow on the Hearth, edited by Elisabeth Carey)

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK