Inventory of the Howard Waldrop Science Fiction Collection:

1970-1994

Biographical Note

Howard Waldrop was born in Houston, Mississippi on September 15, 1946 and moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area of Texas in 1950. He attended University of Texas at Arlington, spent two years in the Army, and lived briefly in Grand Prairie and Bryan before moving to Austin in 1974 where he has been a member of the well-known Turkey City Writers Workshop along with Bruce Sterling, Leigh Kennedy, Chad Oliver, Lewis Shiner, and others. Howard Waldrop has spent most of his life in Texas, where he says he fishes a lot. He also writes a lot and just happens to be, according to George R. R. Martin, "the most startling, original, and entertaining short story writer in science fiction today." He sold his first story to Analog in 1970, and since then he has been widely published in places as diverse as Omni, Playboy, Universe, Crawdaddy, New Dimensions, Shayol, Orbit, and Zoo World. His first novel, The Texas Israeli War: 1999, written in collaboration with fellow Texan Jake Saunders was published in 1974. In 1984 his solo novel, Them Bones, was published as part of the new Ace Specials line.

But it is as a short story writer that Waldrop has made his reputation. Many of his unique and bizarre stories have been published in the collections Howard Who? and All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past. A frequent awards nominee, his story "The Ugly Chickens" won both the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards in 1981. And his novelette "Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?" was a finalist for the 1988 Nebula. Two more books of Waldrop were published in 1988: a short novel entitled A Dozen Tough Jobs; and a book of collaborations, "Custer's Last Jump." Another collection of his stories, Night of the Cooters (the title story was a 1988 Hugo nominee), was published in 1992. Waldrop wrote over two hundred stories and around hundred of them were published to date.

Scope and Content Note

Manuscripts, printed material, correspondence, legal documents, financial documents, idea books, photographic material, and books (33 linear feet: 45 file boxes & 3.5 shelves of books) created and/or maintained by Howard Waldrop give a glimpse of his personal life and well document his professional life as one of the prolific and best known science fiction writers from Texas.

The first category consists of Howard Waldrop's works both published and unpublished arranged alphabetically by title. Some manuscript files in this category may contain correspondence, notes, research material, contracts, royalty statement, proofs, etc. Thus, information about a specific story can be found in the collection by title.

The second category consists of materials related to Waldrop personally and/or professionally. This category is arranged alphabetically by general topical heading. His idea for some of his stories can be found in his Idea Books file from 1968-88. Information about him personally or professionally can be found in the newspaper clippings, correspondence and his work diaries files. His movements for any given year from 1970s to 1994 could be reconstructed from his science fiction convention, conferences, programs, etc. file. But the most important file in this category is his story logs file 1970-1989. The file shows: when and where a story was written, how long it is; who bought it or did not; when and where it was published (or supposed to be published); and any subsequent reprints or foreign editions, royalties, etc.

The last category of the collection is works by or materials related to other science fiction writers. It includes manuscripts of other writers' works that happened to be in his possession or other writers' manuscripts which he is one of the collaborators. Some biographical sketch of other writers can be found in Con Bios-writers file. Information about Waldrop written by other writers can also be found in this category of the collection. The arrangement for this category is alphabetically by author.

Restrictions

Access

No restrictions.

Usage Restrictions

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Administrative Information

Provenance

Donated to Cushing Memorial Library by Howard Waldrop, 2004.

Processing Information

Processed by Hung-Chih Yu in August 1995.

Detailed Description of the Collection