Welcome back to 20th Century Refugee, the irregularly published newsletter of Glen Cadigan. Or, if this is your first newsletter, welcome! There is no hazing at 20CR, just fun facts and things to keep in mind pertaining (mostly) to my writing career. If you're here, chances are you've bought something of mine in the past. Hopefully, that trend will continue into the future. And on that topic...
April Part One
A little less than a month from now, Alter Ego # 187 will be in mailboxes and stores everywhere! (Well, not everywhere. How impressive would that be?) It contains my biography of Edmond Hamilton, which I've mentioned here before. I've also told you the story about how I managed to slip in some last minute additions in my most recent newsletter (check it out in the archives if you missed it), and I thought that was all as far as any new revelations were concerned.
But things have a funny way of turning up, especially when it's too late to do anything with them. So barring the invention of a time machine, the following discoveries will just have to be limited to this newsletter. Here's what happened:
Lately I've been rereading some stories by Ray Bradbury, and while looking through his bibliography I discovered a piece written in 1998 for the Readercon 10 Souvenir Booklet entitled, “Leigh Brackett/Edmond Hamilton: My Great Loves, My Great Teachers, My Great Friends.” Of course I had to look into it, and thanks to fanac.org I was able to read it without having to track it down via eBay. There were a few great quotes in there that I definitely would've referenced if I'd known about them when I was writing my own essay, but it's too late for that now. The next best thing I can do is quote them here in my newsletter as bonus material for my subscribers, and hopefully induce anyone who's still on the fence and hasn't already committed to buying Alter Ego # 187 to give it a chance! First up is this one:
“By 1946 Ed Hamilton had moved west and he and Leigh were courting, and I traveled out to Aradia beyond L.A., to start drinking mint juleps and getting yet more advice from my tutors and chums. After their marriage, and mine which occurred in September 1947, we lived within three hundred yards of each other on the beach in Venice and every Thursday night I trudged down the shore to try and learn to drink Scotch instead of the 89 cent muscatel I toted along. Ed taught us both. He loved to recite Yeats, or some of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, or give me tips on Shaw, and the years went on and Leigh became a first class screenwriter working for Howard Hawks, and Ed plunged back into Captain Future and comic strips, but still there were the grand evenings of damning editors and remembering Thomas Love Peacock and Frost. I never did learn to drink the hard stuff, but I drank in Ed’s wondrous recitations and got Leigh to say, “Damn you, you bastard,” when I sold my first story to Collier’s magazine when I was 25.”
Bradbury went on to recall "[Ed] telling me about a wonderous bookstore in Long Beach, the Acres of Books, where he took me to wander through a city block of shadows and dust and time, and hand me his favorite Maugham or Mr. Salteena's Plan."
If you've been paying attention to these newsletters, then you know that Ray Bradbury was the best man at the wedding of Leigh Brackett and Edmond Hamilton. So they were close, and remained so over the years. Which brings us to this:
“And one night[,] a year before he died, Ed in a quiet moment when he and I were coming back from a walk to the liquor store turned to me and for the first time said, ‘Ray, I love you.’ Ed was not one to say that sort of thing often, probably never. I grabbed and hugged him and gave love back.”
Hamilton had been in poor health for a while, and the writing was on the wall. It was actually Bradbury's first agent, Julie Schwartz, who swung by and picked Ray up while he was on his way to visit Ed and Leigh in their California home, which led to the touching encounter.
And that's what isn't in the magazine! There's a lot more that is, so if you haven't ordered a copy, a preview and the necessary info are still at:
https://twomorrows.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=98_55&products_id=1770
If you want a digital copy instead of a physical one, just select DIGITAL ONLY in the dropdown box where it says “Please choose: Packaging” and instead of paying $10.95 for the magazine, you’ll only be charged $4.99 for a PDF. Myself, I like to hold something in my hands, but you do you!
April Part Two
Alter Ego # 187 isn't the only thing I have coming out in April. Behold the next book in the Tall Tales series!
More Tall Tales, Fairy Tales, and Bedtime Stories (For Former Children) is a continuation of its predecessor. Like I said about that one, this book is also for those young at heart but old enough to drink. Also like its predecessor, it retails for $11.99 US in paperback and $4.99 US for digital. And because I don’t do anything by halves, here’s the back cover!
Amazon is taking preorders for the eBook here. When their computers finally get the print book in their system, I’ll let you know. And if you ever see it in the wild, let me know! And take a picture!
Well, that’s it for another of these newsletters. If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! See you again whenever I send out another one!
‘Til Then,
Glen