Sam Moskowitz
Sam Moskowitz (* June 30, 1920 in Newark (New Jersey), † April 15, 1997 ) was an American science fiction author and editor.
Life
Sam Moskowitz was born as the son of Russian immigrants and made, beginning in the early 1940s, a reputation as a literary agent, organizer, activist and chronicler of science fiction fandom in the United States. He wrote numerous articles and essays about the genre, which were published in a number of anthologies, and wrote himself occasionally narratives; his first story appeared in The Way Back 1941. He was co-founder of the Science Fiction League, the rival club of Futurians, and made at the first World Science Fiction Convention in New York City in 1939 provoked an uproar because he refused several Futurians the entrance. He was together with Hugo Gernsback Editor of Science Fiction Plus, which among other Robert Bloch, Philip José Farmer, Chad Oliver and Clifford D. Simak published. The magazine also brought the first publication of Anne McCaffrey.
He received the 1981 Pilgrim Award from the Science Fiction Research Association for his many contributions on the history of the genre, after being included in the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 1972. Since 1988, the organization awards the First Fandom after him named Sam Moskowitz Archive Award.
Many years of heavy smoking earned him a cancer and a laryngectomy, yet he kept using an electric voice encoder further speeches at conventions. Sam Moskowitz died at the age of 76 years, a week after he had fallen into a coma following a massive heart attack.