Fredric Brown was born on this day in 1906.
He’s one of the many pulp writers profiled in the Beginner’s Guide to Pulp Fiction, Vol. 1.
Brown was a science fiction and mystery writer, known for his use of humor and for his mastery of ultra-short stories of one to three pages, often with ingenious plotting devices and surprise endings.
According to his wife, Fredric Brown hated to write and would do everything he could to avoid it. Despite that, Brown churned out millions of words worth of short stories, novels and collections.
Brown worked as an editor and typesetter at the Milwaukee Journal in the 1930s. His first professional short story publication was “The Moon for a Nickel,” in the March 1938 issue of Detective Story Magazine. Dozens more mystery and detective stories would follow in Thrilling Detective, Ten Detective Aces, G-Men Detective and The Phantom Detective to name just a few.
His first science fiction story, “Not Yet the End”, was published in the Winter 1941 issue of Captain Future. Brown published stories in many of the great science fiction pulps and digests, including Unknown, Astounding, Startling and Galaxy Science Fiction.
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