Earl Kemp is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 editor, critic, and fan who won a Hugo Award for Best Fanzine

Hugo Award for Best Fanzine

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

 in 1961 for Who Killed Science Fiction, a collection of questions and answers with top writers in the field. In 2011 a book edition of Who Killed Science Fiction was published by The Merry Blacksmith Press. Kemp also helped found Advent:Publishers

Advent (publisher)

Advent:Publishers is a publishing house founded by Earl Kemp and other members of the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club, including Sidney Coleman, in 1956, to publish criticism, history, and bibliography of the science fiction field, beginning with James Blish's The Issue at Hand. The...

, a small publishing house focused on science fiction criticism, history, and bibliography, and served as chairman of the 20th World Science Fiction Convention

20th World Science Fiction Convention

The 20th World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Chicon III , was held August 31–September 3, 1962, at the Pick-Congress Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, USA....

. During the 1960s and '70s, Kemp was also involved in publishing a number of erotic paperbacks, including an illustrated edition of the Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. This publication led to Kemp being sentenced to one year in prison for "conspiracy to mail obscene material," but he served only the federal minimum of three months and one day.

Biography

Kemp was born in Arkansas

Arkansas

Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River...

 in 1929 and later moved to Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

, where he worked as a graphics artist.

Before Kemp left Arkansas, he discovered pulp fiction

Pulp magazine

Pulp magazines , also collectively known as pulp fiction, refers to inexpensive fiction magazines published from 1896 through the 1950s. The typical pulp magazine was seven inches wide by ten inches high, half an inch thick, and 128 pages long...

. As Kemp once wrote, "There were a number of magazines that struck my fancy for different reasons, among them were titles like Planet Stories

Planet Stories

Planet Stories was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House between 1939 and 1955. It featured interplanetary adventures, both in space and on other planets, and was initially focused on a young readership. Malcolm Reiss was editor or editor-in-chief for all of its 71...

, Weird Tales

Weird Tales

Weird Tales is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine first published in March 1923. It ceased its original run in September 1954, after 279 issues, but has since been revived. The magazine was set up in Chicago by J. C. Henneberger, an ex-journalist with a taste for the macabre....

, Spicy Mystery Stories, etc. It was probably my emerging pubescence tilting me toward the spicy parts, but I had always been easy to tilt."

Science fiction editor and fan

In 1952, Kemp attended his first World Science Fiction Convention. As he later said, "It was like walking into a world I had been seeking for a very long time. I felt, instantly, that I was at home at last and among my kind of people."

In 1956 Kemp and other members of the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 Science Fiction Club

Science fiction fandom

Science fiction fandom or SF fandom is a community or "fandom" of people actively interested in science fiction and fantasy and in contact with one another based upon that interest...

 founded Advent:Publishers

Advent (publisher)

Advent:Publishers is a publishing house founded by Earl Kemp and other members of the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club, including Sidney Coleman, in 1956, to publish criticism, history, and bibliography of the science fiction field, beginning with James Blish's The Issue at Hand. The...

, which publishes science fiction criticism, history, and bibliography. One of their first books was In Search of Wonder

In Search of Wonder

In Search of Wonder: Essays on Modern Science Fiction is a collection of critical essays by Damon Knight. Most of the material in the book was originally published between 1952 and 1955 in various science fiction magazines including Infinity Science Fiction, Original SF Stories, and Future SF...

, a hardcover collection of the book reviews of Damon Knight

Damon Knight

Damon Francis Knight was an American science fiction author, editor, critic and fan. His forte was short stories and he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre.-Biography:...

. Critics have said the book created the "foundation for all subsequent SF criticism."

Kemp won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine

Hugo Award for Best Fanzine

The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...

 in 1961 for his publication Who Killed Science Fiction. To create the fanzine, "Earl sent the same five questions to 108 people, the elite of the science fiction world. And he printed the seventy-one responses he received." The fanzine was distributed by the Spectator Amateur Press Society (SAPS), a long-running amateur press association

Amateur press association

An amateur press association is a group of people who produce individual pages or magazines that are sent to a Central Mailer for collation and distribution to all members of the group.-Organisation:...

. Kemp's win caused a bit of controversy because some felt that his publication had only a single issue; afterwards the award's eligibility rules for fanzines were changed to prevent single-issue publications from winning. However, Who Killed Science Fiction was actually the first SaFari Annual, part of a series of fanzines Kemp was publishing for SAPS, and the "controversy" was largely based on misunderstanding. In 2006 Kemp published a significant updating of Who Killed Science Fiction as the 29th issue of his current fanzine e*I*. It reprinted the entirety of the original 1961 edition and added considerable new material.

Kemp also served as chairman of the 20th World Science Fiction Convention

20th World Science Fiction Convention

The 20th World Science Fiction Convention, also known as Chicon III , was held August 31–September 3, 1962, at the Pick-Congress Hotel in Chicago, Illinois, USA....

. The following year he edited The Proceedings: CHICON III, published by Advent:Publishers. The book included transcripts of lectures and panels given during the course of the convention, along with numerous photographs.

Kemp edited a number of science fiction fanzine

Fanzine

A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...

s up until 1965, including Destiny and SaFari. After a 37-year break, Kemp returned to editing fanzines with e*I*, which focuses on his memoirs of the science fiction world and is available online.

Pornography and gay books

During the 1960s and '70s, Kemp was involved in publishing erotic paperbacks through a company, Greenleaf Classics, where he was employed by William Hamling

William Hamling (publisher)

William Lawrence Hamling was a Chicago-based publisher active from the 1950s into the 1970s.Hamling began as an author. His Shadow of the Sphinx is a horror novel about an ancient Egyptian sorceress. First published during the 1940s in Fantastic Adventures, it was described by Lin Carter as "the...

. In an example of détournement

Detournement

A détournement is a technique developed in the 1950s by the Letterist International, and consist in "turning expressions of the capitalist system against itself." Détournement was prominently used to set up subversive political pranks, an influential tactic called situationist prank that was...

, Kemp published an illustrated edition of the Presidential Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography. The book was "replete with the sort of photographs the commission examined." Kemp eventually was sentenced to a one-year prison sentence for distributing the book (as was Hamling). However, both served only the federal minimum of three months and one day. The story of their arrest and prison time was covered in Gay Talese

Gay Talese

Gay Talese is an American author. He wrote for The New York Times in the early 1960s and helped to define literary journalism...

's Thy Neighbor's Wife

Thy Neighbor's Wife

Thy Neighbor's Wife is a non-fiction book by Gay Talese, published in 1981 and updated in 2009.The book is an exploration of early-1950s sexuality in America, with notable discussion of the free love subculture...

.

Kemp also was involved in publishing gay

Gay

Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....

-themed books while at Greenleaf, one of the earliest editors to do so, leading novelist Victor J. Banis

Victor J. Banis

Victor J. Banis is an American author, often associated with the first wave of west coast gay writing. For his contributions he has been called "the godfather of modern popular gay fiction." He is openly gay.-Life:...

 to call Kemp the "Godfather of gay publishing" (even though, as Banis says, "Earl himself was resolutely heterosexual"). Among the books Kemp edited in the 1960s were Banis's novel The Why Not and a series of gay pulp fiction

Gay pulp fiction

Gay pulp fiction, or gay pulps, refers to printed works, primarily fiction, that include references to male homosexuality, specifically male gay sex, and that are cheaply produced, typically in paperback books made of wood pulp paper; lesbian pulp fiction is similar work about women...

 spy

Spy fiction

Spy fiction, literature concerning the forms of espionage, was a sub-genre derived from the novel during the nineteenth century, which then evolved into a discrete genre before the First World War , when governments established modern intelligence agencies in the early twentieth century...

 parodies called The Man from C.A.M.P.

The Man from C.A.M.P.

The Man from C.A.M.P. is a series of ten gay pulp fiction novels published under the pseudonym of Don Holliday. The original nine were written by Victor J. Banis between 1966 and 1968; a tenth by an uncertain author appeared in 1971. The series first emerged during a period when gay paperback...

 Banis says once Kemp and Greenleaf proved how much of a market there was for erotic gay fiction, other publishers soon joined in.

"Desert Resident"

Kemp appeared in a late 2007 segment of WIRED Science

WIRED Science

Wired Science is a weekly high-definition television program that covers modern scientific and technological topics. In January 2007 PBS aired pilot episodes for three different science programs, including Wired Science. Using Nielsen ratings, CPB-sponsored research and public feedback, PBS...

titled "Peak Water", identified only as "Earl Kemp, Desert Resident," in which he discussed the realities of water supply

Water supply

Water supply is the provision of water by public utilities, commercial organisations, community endeavours or by individuals, usually via a system of pumps and pipes...

 in his home near Kingman

Kingman, Arizona

Kingman is located in a desert climate on the edge of the Mojave Desert, but its higher elevation and location between the Colorado Plateau and the Lower Colorado River Valley tempers summer high temperatures and contributes to winter cold and rare snowfall. Summer daytime highs reach above 90 °F ...

, Arizona

Arizona

Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

.

External links

• The complete text of "Who Killed Science Fiction", winner of the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine
  Hugo Award for Best Fanzine
  The Hugo Awards are given every year by the World Science Fiction Society for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was once officially...
  
  .
• Earl Kemp's science fiction fanzines.
• Earl Kemp's personal website.
• "Oh Them Crazy Monkeys: Me, Earl, and Robert Heinlein" by Alexei Panshin. An account of Kemp's