Judith Merril - American Science Fiction Writing and Editing

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 taken from any science fiction or fantasy magazine for the Best American Short Stories volumes edited by Martha Foley in the 1950s. Groff Conklin described her first novel, Shadow on the Hearth, as "a masterly example of sensitive and perceptive story-telling." Boucher and McComas praised it as "a sensitively human novel, terrifying in its small-scale reflection of grand-scale catastrophe." P. Schuyler Miller found it a "warm, human novel" comparable to Earth Abides.

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. 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, 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 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 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 and Damon Knight 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, 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, to go forward with his version of the project, Dangerous Visions (Doubleday, 1967). As an initiator of the New Wave 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.