Tag Archives: Munsey Awards

Nominations Sought for Pulp Interest and Service Awards

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The 2015 Munsey Award nominations are open through May 31. The annual award, named for the publisher of the first pulp magazine, Frank A. Munsey, recognizes an individual who has contributed to the betterment of the pulp community through disseminating knowledge about the pulps, through publishing, or other efforts to preserve and to foster interest in the pulps.

This is also the time to nominate someone for the Rusty Hevelin Service Award, which recognizes people “who have worked long and hard for the pulp community with little thought for individual recognition. It is meant to reward especially good works, and is thus reserved for only those individuals who are most deserving.”

The winners of both awards will be selected by a panel of judges and presented at Pulpfest, being held August 13-16 in Columbus, OH.

All members of the pulp community, except past winners of the Munsey, Hevelin or Lamont Awards are eligible. Names should be sent to Mike Chomko along with a brief paragraph describing why that person should be honored, to 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542, or via e-mail to mike [at] pulpfest [dot] com.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

Cox and Traylor Honored at PulpFest

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J. Randolph Cox
J. Barry Traylor

The Munsey and Hevelin Awards for achievement in the pulp collecting field were presented at PulpFest in August.

The Munsey Award is named for Frank A. Munsey, publisher of the first all-fiction pulp magazine, is presented to a deserving person who has contributed to “the betterment of the pulp community.”

The 2014 Munsey Award went to J. Randolph Cox, editor-publisher of Dime Novel Round-Up for over 20 years. He has also produced invaluable research such as the bibliography, Man of Magic & Mystery: A Guide to the Work of Walter B. Gibson, about the man who created The Shadow; Flashgun Casey: Crime Photographer, co-authored with David S. Siegel, about the character originally created for Black Mask by George Harmon Coxe; Masters of Mystery and Detective Fiction: An Annotated Bibliography;  and The Dime Novel Companion: A Source Book.

Cox recently donated his collection of comic books and newspaper strips, fanzines, pulps, and other materials to the University of Minnesota Libraries, and his extensive collection of Walter Gibson books and Shadow pulps and comics to Gibson’s alma mater, Colgate University.

The Rusty Hevelin Service Award, named for the guiding light behindPulpcon,the convention that helped to keep the memory of the pulps alive for many years, recognizes individuals who have worked long and hard for the pulp community with little thought for individual recognition.

The 2014 Rusty went to J. Barry Traylor who has been organizing convention auctions for 25 years. He does a wide variety of “grunt work”– contacting comic shops and book stores to help with promotion activities; and managing the links on the PulpFest website.

2013 Munsey Award

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Garyn G. Roberts was named the winner of the 2013 Munsey Award at Pulpfest on July 27. The award is presented annually to a person who has contributed to the betterment of the pulp community. Roberts was picked by a vote of living Lamont, Munsey, and Rusty Award recipients.

Garyn has worked in the field of higher education for many years, teaching English and popular culture studies. He is also an unabashed fan of the pulps. Garyn has written extensively about the pulps, both professionally and as a fan. He has edited or co-edited some of the best collections from the pulps including A Cent a Story: The Best from Ten Detective Aces, More Tales of the Defective Detective in the Pulps, The Compleat Adventures of the Moon Man, The Magical Mysteries of Don Diavolo, and The Compleat Great Merlini Saga. His insightful essays in these books and elsewhere have led to a greater understanding of the pulps both inside and outside of the pulp community. His collection, The Prentice Hall Anthology of Science Fiction and Fantasy, a college level textbook, is notable for the attention paid to the pulp magazines. Additionally, Garyn has helped other researchers with various pulp-related projects and is a regular attendee of pulp conventions where he often serves as a presenter and panelist. Last year’s Munsey Award winner, Matt Moring, publisher of Altus Press, recently said about Garyn: “He’s been nothing but helpful and outgoing with anything I’ve ever asked of him.” That pretty much describes how Professor Roberts reacts to all the requests made of him by the pulp community.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]

2011 Munsey Award Nominees

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PulpFest has announced 11 nominees for the 2011 Munsey Award. Past winners of the Munsey and Lamont Awards will select this year’s winner, who will be announced July 30 during PulpFest’s evening program.

  • Stephen Haffner, the “Big Poobah” of Haffner Press, has reprinted the early work of Leigh Brackett, Edmond Hamilton, Henry Kuttner, C. L. Moore, and Jack Williamson in handsomely-produced volumes.
  • Stephen T. Miller, (with Michael Cook) compiled Garland Publishing’s Mystery, Detective, and Espionage Fiction: A Checklist of Fiction in U. S. Pulp Magazines, 1915-1974. With Bill Contento, he compiled Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Weird Fiction Magazine Index (1890-2006), a guide to more than 900 different magazines, published on CD-ROM by Locus Press and updated periodically by the publisher.
  • Matt Moring has published more than fifty books dealing with the pulps. He runs Altus Press.
  • Laurie Powers wrote Pulp Writer: Twenty Years in the American Grub Street, an autobiography and appreciation of her grandfather Paul S. Powers. She also started Laurie’s Wild West, an Internet blog site for those interested in the pulps.
  • Garyn Roberts is the Chair of the Communications/English Discipline at Northwestern Michigan College. He has edited or co-edited some of the best collections from the pulps including A Cent a Story: The Best from Ten Detective Aces, More Tales of the Defective Detective in the Pulps, The Compleat Adventures of the Moon Man, The Magical Mysteries of the Green Ghost and The Compleat Great Merlini.
  • Phil Stephensen-Payne has produced many “working bibliographies,” (often in collaboration with the late Gordon Benson, Jr.) of speculative fiction writers. His Galactic Central website contains an online checklist of pulp magazines.
  • Anthony Tollin convinced Conde Naste to license authorized reprints of Doc Savage, The Shadow, The Avenger, and The Whisperer. His regularly issued Sanctum Books are some of the most popular reprints in the field today.
  • George Vanderburgh through his Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, has published nearly 400 books.
  • Dan Zimmer promotes greater awareness of pulp artists through his Illustration Magazine.

[Thanks to Andrew Porter for the story.]