Mildred Clingerman
Mildred McElroy Clingerman (March 14, 1918 – February 26, 1997)[1][2] was an American science fiction author.
Clingerman was born Mildred McElroy in Allen, Oklahoma and her family moved to Tucson, Arizona in 1929. She graduated from Tucson High School and attended the University of Arizona.She married Stuart Clingerman in 1937.[1]
Most of her short stories were published in the 1950s in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, edited by Anthony Boucher. Boucher included her story "The Wild Wood" in the seventh volume (1958) of The Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction and dedicated the book to her, calling her the "most serendipitous of discoveries."[3]: 252–3 Her science fiction was collected as A Cupful of Space in 1961. She also published in mainstream magazines like Good Housekeeping and Collier's.[1] Her story "The Little Witch of Elm Street" appeared in Woman's Home Companion in 1956.[3]: 374
Clingerman was a founder of the Tucson Writer's Club and served on the board of the Tucson Press Club.[1]
She was as strongly associated with F&SF as was Zenna Henderson. Her stories tend to wed a literate tone to subject matters whose ominousness is perhaps more submerged than the horrors under the skin made explicit in the work of Shirley Jackson, but equally as deadly. Married women are most vividly portrayed in stories like “The Wild Wood” (January 1957 F&SF) or “A Red Heart and Blue Roses” (original to her collection); they suffer constant violations of body space, male intrusiveness, the impostures of aliens, and allow this to happen, horrifically.
Her stories have also appeared in several anthologies, including literature textbooks for middle and high school students. She was a collector of books of all kinds — especially those by and about Kenneth Grahame — and of Victorian travel journals.
She was awarded the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award posthumously in 2014..
Clingerman’s new anthology, The Clingerman Files, includes all of her originally published stories.
Awards
2014 Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award
The Clingerman Files
Memories of Mildred, by Kendall Clingerman Burling
Foreword by Richard J. Chwedyk
“First Lesson” (Collier’s Weekly, June 1955)
“Stickney and the Critic” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1953)
“Stair Trick” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1952)
“Minister Without Portfolio (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1952)
“Birds Can’t Count” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1955)
“The Word”
“The Day of the Green Velvet Cloak” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July 1958)
“Winning Recipe” (Colliers, June 1952)
“Letters From Laura” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1954)
“The Last Prophet” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1955)
“Mr. Sakrison’s Halt” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1956)
“The Wild Wood” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, January 1957)
“The Little Witch of Elm Street” (Ladies Home Companion, October 1956)
“A Day for Waving” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1957)
“The Gay Deceiver”
“Red Heart and Blue Roses” (The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1964)
“Little Girl”
“Tutti Frutti Delight”
“The Stray”
“The Man Who Stole Tomorrow”
“Grandma’s Refuge”
“Sorrow for the Need”
“You Remember Charles?”
“Size 5 1/2B”
“Apologia”
“The Tea Party”
“The Vine”
“Tribal Customs”
“A Widow For Mr. Stevens”
“The Man Eater”
“The List”
“The Telling Day”
“Threading a Closed Loop”
“Top Hand”
“A Time to be Bold”
“The Birthday Party”
“A Stranger and a Pilgrim”
“On the Nicer Side”
“The Fathers of Daughters”
“Watermelon Weather”
“A Note from Eleanor”
Bibliography
References
- ^ a b c d "Funeral Notices: Clingerman, Mildred McElroy". Arizona Daily Star. March 1, 1997. pp. 16A.
- ^ "Mildred Clingerman - Summary Bibliography". The Internet Speculative Fiction Database. Retrieved August 16, 2011.
- ^ a b Davin, Eric Leif (2006). Partners in Wonder: Women and the Birth of Science Fiction 1926–1965. Lexington Books. ISBN 0-7391-1266-X.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
- 1918 births
- 1997 deaths
- American science fiction writers
- American women short story writers
- Writers from Tucson, Arizona
- University of Arizona alumni
- University of Arizona faculty
- Novelists from Oklahoma
- Women science fiction and fantasy writers
- American women novelists
- 20th-century American novelists
- 20th-century American women writers
- 20th-century American short story writers
- Novelists from Arizona
- People from Allen, Oklahoma