Ardath Frances Hurst Mayhar (February 20, 1930 – February 1, 2012) was an American writer and poet. Mayhar wrote over 60 books ranging from science fiction to horror to young adult to historical to westerns. Some of her novels appeared under pseudonyms such as Frank Cannon, Frances Hurst, and John Killdeer.[1][2] Mayhar began writing fantasy with a story in 1973, and fantasy novels in 1979 after returning with her family to Texas from Oregon.
Ardath Mayhar | |
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| Born | Ardath Frances Hurst February 20, 1930 Timpson, Texas, U.S. |
| Died | February 1, 2012 (aged 81) Nacogdoches, Texas, U.S. |
| Pen name | Frank Cannon Frances Hurst John Killdeer |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Genre | Science fiction |
Mayhar also wrote Through a Stone Wall: Lessons from Thirty Years of Writing.
Personal life
editMayhar was born at Timpson, Texas, and was first inspired to write by finding Arthur Merritt's fantasy The Face in the Abyss (1931) on a remote rural news-stand at age 15.[3] Mayhar wrote in 1985:
- "I have spent most of my adult life shovelling manure, writing poetry, and looking up at the stars. ... hand-to-hand (sometimes face-to-hoof) with the cows, the cruddy milking machines, the manure, the hay, the weather. ... At the age of forty-three, I ‘reformed’ ... I finally realized that English teachers have destroyed any love of poetry that might remain in the English-speaking race ... so I started writing fantasy novels, and haven’t looked back in the years since. I have been influenced, to a greater or lesser extent, by Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, Ayn Rand, Andre Norton, William Faulkner, and all the 'old heads' in the science fiction field."[4]
Mayhar left the dairy farm to run a bookstore., The View From Orbit Bookstore in Nacogdoches, Texas, with her husband Joe.[1] She later sold the bookstore, which served the students of Stephen F. Austin State University and people in the East Texas area, providing books that would otherwise have been unavailable locally.[5]
Work
editShe moved back to Texas to become a fantasy and science-fiction writer, and lived on a place bordering the Attoyac River[3] as it entered the Sam Rayburn Lake, which is in the Big Thicket country (today just outside the official Big Thicket National Preserve).
Her juvenile novels (what would now be called 'young adult') were divided between her 'East Texas' series with regional settings, and her fantasy works for that age group. She often featured strong-minded and morally-certain adolescent girl heroines at a time when it was not fashionable to do so.[4]
Until her health began to fail, her reputation was such that she still spoke regularly in the area, drawing large crowds.[6]
Joe R. Lansdale wrote "Ardath Mayhar writes damn fine books!"[7]
Papers
editThe main collection of her papers is the Ardath Mayhar Papers at the East Texas Research Center of the Stephen F. Austin State University. There is also an Ardath Mayhar Papers collection at The University of Southern Mississippi.
Awards
editMayhar was nominated for the Mark Twain Award, and won the Balrog Award for a horror narrative poem in Masques I, and had numerous other nominations for awards in almost every fiction genre, and won many awards for poetry.
Bibliography
editShe was the author or co-author of:
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- Non-fiction
- Through a Stone Wall: Lessons from Thirty Years of Writing
- Strange View from a Skewed Orbit (autobiography)
- Short and critical articles
- "Creating Fantasy Folk" in the advice anthology How to write tales of horror, fantasy & science, 1987.
- "On Fantasy vs. SF writing", in the journal Quantum, Summer 1990.
- "The Analog 'We'", in Thrust magazine (Spring 1988). (Makes the case that speculative fiction can influence the real world).
- "Where Has All The Nonsense Gone?", in Thrust magazine (Winter 1988). (Sets out the need to retain fun, humour and optimism in the face of the changing state of science-fiction and fantasy).
† With Ron Fortier
References
edit- ^ a b Biffle, Kent (October 23, 1988). "Author's Eerie Tales Are Meant To Be Read With The Lights On". The Dallas Morning News. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
- ^ Reaves, Dick J. (February 7, 2003). "Two writers witness shuttle horror story; They heard, felt boom in East Texas". San Antonio Express-News. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
- ^ a b "Deep Woods Lady", Starlog issue #159, October 1990 (a long interview with Ardath Mayhar)
- ^ a b Something about the author, 1985, page 142.
- ^ "Ardath Mayhar (1930-2012)". Locus. February 1, 2012. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
- ^ No Fear of the Future, "Ardath Mayhar has passed away", February 2012
- ^ Lansdale, Joe R. (January 17, 2001). "Joe R. Lansdale - Hot Stuff!". Archived from the original on 25 January 2010. Retrieved January 6, 2010.
- ^ MacFadden, Lee; MacFadden, J.J. (March 1, 2009). "'Golden Dream' Is An Interesting Read". Bristol Herald Courier. Archived from the original on February 4, 2013. Retrieved February 1, 2012.
External links
edit- Ardath Mayhar at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- The Gashta Homepage. Includes a biography & an article Mayhar wrote on writing her Fuzzy novel Golden Dream
- Ardath Mayhar works & awards Website co-designed by Mayhar, detailing her career as author of novels, articles, short stories and as an artist in watercolor.
- Ardath Mayhar author page Piccadilly Publishing digital publishers of the MOUNTAIN MAJESTY series Mayhar wrote under the name of John Killdeer, chronicling the life and times of a young fur trapper in the far west of the 1820s.