Another science fictional Fortean.
Richard Burton Matheson is a well-known writer, and so there is not much to add to his biography beyond the outlines that can be found in his obituaries and on Wikipedia.
He was born 20 February 1926 in Allendale, New Jersey, to Norwegian immigrants, his father a tile layer and speakeasy operator. The Mathson’s divorced when Richard was eight, and he moved to Brooklyn with his mother, where he attended local schools. Matheson had an early interest in music, writing hundreds of songs in his teens, which followed his literary pursuits: his first story appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle not long after his parents divorced. He also had an interest in physics and studied engineering at Brooklyn Technical High School.
Matheson enlisted in the army’s pre-engineering program at Cornell to avoid being drafted into the infantry, but ended up in the infantry anyway when the program was cancelled in 1944. He was in combat in Germany. Medically discharged in 1945, Matheson was directionless, ending up back at home for a time before going to journalism school in Missouri. When he graduated in 1949, though, he remained at loose ends; college had stripped him of the Christian Science faith his mother had embraced after her divorce and shared with her children, nor could he find a job in journalism. Like so many writers, he took a job to support his avocation, doing menial night work to free his days. He broke through into the field of fantastic fiction after a fairly brief apprenticeship: his first sale was the now-classic “Born of Man and Woman,” to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which was co-edited by Fortean Anthony Boucher.
Not long after, Matheson moved to southern California—better weather, the movies—and became associated with a group of writers there, “The Fictioneers,” as well as the so-called Southern California Sorcerers, a group of fantastic fiction writers that included Charles Beaumont and Ray Bradbury, among others. (I do not know the relationship between the Fictioneers and the Sorcerers.) He married Ruth Ann Woodson in 1952; they had four children. For a short period, Matheson also worked at Douglas Aircraft and also as a linotype operator.
Richard Burton Matheson is a well-known writer, and so there is not much to add to his biography beyond the outlines that can be found in his obituaries and on Wikipedia.
He was born 20 February 1926 in Allendale, New Jersey, to Norwegian immigrants, his father a tile layer and speakeasy operator. The Mathson’s divorced when Richard was eight, and he moved to Brooklyn with his mother, where he attended local schools. Matheson had an early interest in music, writing hundreds of songs in his teens, which followed his literary pursuits: his first story appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle not long after his parents divorced. He also had an interest in physics and studied engineering at Brooklyn Technical High School.
Matheson enlisted in the army’s pre-engineering program at Cornell to avoid being drafted into the infantry, but ended up in the infantry anyway when the program was cancelled in 1944. He was in combat in Germany. Medically discharged in 1945, Matheson was directionless, ending up back at home for a time before going to journalism school in Missouri. When he graduated in 1949, though, he remained at loose ends; college had stripped him of the Christian Science faith his mother had embraced after her divorce and shared with her children, nor could he find a job in journalism. Like so many writers, he took a job to support his avocation, doing menial night work to free his days. He broke through into the field of fantastic fiction after a fairly brief apprenticeship: his first sale was the now-classic “Born of Man and Woman,” to the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, which was co-edited by Fortean Anthony Boucher.
Not long after, Matheson moved to southern California—better weather, the movies—and became associated with a group of writers there, “The Fictioneers,” as well as the so-called Southern California Sorcerers, a group of fantastic fiction writers that included Charles Beaumont and Ray Bradbury, among others. (I do not know the relationship between the Fictioneers and the Sorcerers.) He married Ruth Ann Woodson in 1952; they had four children. For a short period, Matheson also worked at Douglas Aircraft and also as a linotype operator.