#scifiwomen

For #SciFiFriday and in celebration of Women’s History Month, we are highlighting two women of science fiction. At the University of Pittsburgh Archives & Special Collections you can find a number of science fiction pulp magazine titles published throughout the 1950′s and 60′s. However, trying to find stories by woman authors is a challenge. Women often times wrote under pseudonyms or used ambiguous names. According to Wikipedia, during the 50s and 60s, almost 1,000 stories published in science fiction magazines by over 200 female-identified authors between 1926 and 1960 were documented, making women writers 10-15% of contributors.

I was however, able to find some short stories, published in If, by Margaret St. Clair and Miriam Allen deFord.

In 1946, St. Clair published her first story “Rocket to Limbo” in Fantastic Adventures. Throughout the 50′s her stories appeared in a number of science fiction magazines like If, Thrilling Adventure Stories, Startling Stories. You might find some of her stories written under the pseudonym Wilton Hazzard or Idris Seabright.

Miriam Allen deFord got her start in the 1920′s writing for a number of liberal magazines like The Masses, The Liberator, and the Federated Press. Her stories were published in Amazing Stories, Analog, Fantastic, and Venture Science Fiction–just to name a few.