Beatrice Mahaffey (1928–1987) was an American

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

fan and editor. She met Raymond Palmer in 1949 at the

World Science Fiction Convention Worldcon, officially the World Science Fiction Convention, the annual convention of the World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), is a science fiction convention. It has been held each year since 1939 (except for the years 1942 to 1945, during Wor ...

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

, and was hired to assist him at Clark Publications, his publishing company.Nadis (2013), pp. 145–146. She worked on ''Other Worlds'' from May 1950; Palmer was incapacitated by an accident for a while shortly after she was hired, though he remained involved from his hospital bed.Ashley (1985), pp. 460–461. She was listed as coeditor from November 1952 to July 1953 and from May 1955 to November 1955. She coedited both '' Science Stories'' and '' Universe Science Fiction'' with Palmer, along with the first four issues of '' Mystic Magazine'', from November 1953 to May 1954. Science fiction historians Mike Ashley and E.F. Casebeer both consider that she had a strong positive influence on the magazines, and was probably responsible for acquiring much of the better material Palmer published.Casebeer (1985), pp. 692–693. After Palmer closed his offices in Evanston, Illinois in 1955, Mahaffey continued to work on the magazine by mail from Cincinnati.Ashley (1985), p. 463. In 1956, an unexpected tax bill forced Palmer to lay off Mahaffey, and he ran the magazine by himself from that point on.Ashley (1985), p. 464. Mahaffey was very popular with male science fiction fandom in the 1950s; Fred Nadis, in his biography of Palmer, records that "fans flocked to the Clark Publishing offices to get a glimpse of her", and that fans "pined for her" and "reported Bea sightings".

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* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mahaffey, Bea 1928 births 1987 deaths American science fiction editors American magazine editors American women magazine editors