Frances Ferris Yerxa Hamling (September 23, 1917 – March 3, 2019) was an American science fiction writer and editor.

Early life

Frances Ferris was born in

Onondaga, Michigan Onondaga is an unincorporated community in the U.S. state of Michigan. The community is located within Onondaga Township in Ingham County. As an unincorporated community, Onondaga has no legally defined boundaries or population statistics of its ...

, the daughter of Harry Longley Ferris and Ora M. Sherd Ferris. She graduated from high school in 1935.

Career

Frances Yerxa wrote essays and science fiction, under various bylines (possibly including "Frances M. Deegan", though this may also have been a separate writer). She also assisted her second husband in editing

pulp magazine Pulp magazines (also referred to as "the pulps") were inexpensive fiction magazines that were published from 1896 until around 1955. The term "pulp" derives from the Pulp (paper), wood pulp paper on which the magazines were printed, due to their ...

s. She was managing editor of the magazines ''

Imagination Imagination is the production of sensations, feelings and thoughts informing oneself. These experiences can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes ...

'' and '' Imaginative Tales'' from 1953 to 1958, and executive editor of '' Rogue'', a men's magazine. As an officer of Greenleaf Publishing, she was a co-defendant with her husband in 1965, when the company was charged with copyright infringement. In 1976, her ex-husband Hamling served several months in prison for publishing obscene works. Yerxa's essays for science fiction publications were on various topics, from comets and telescopes to "ancient barbering customs", Cambodian dance, and

Atlantis Atlantis () is a fictional island mentioned in Plato's works '' Timaeus'' and ''Critias'' as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world ...

. She chaired the auction and registration committees at the tenth

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 ...

, known as Chicon II, in 1952. In 1964, Frances Hamling and her husband bought a fully-furnished

Arthur Elrod Arthur Dea Elrod, Jr. (August 8, 1924 – February 18, 1974) was an American interior designer, perhaps best known for the Elrod House his home in Palm Springs, California, which he designed in collaboration with architect John Lautner in 1968. ...

house in

Palm Springs, California Palm Springs (Cahuilla language, Cahuilla: ''Séc-he'') is a desert resort city in Riverside County, California, United States, within the Colorado Desert's Coachella Valley. The city covers approximately , making it the largest city in Rivers ...

, but promised the former owner that they would not change it in any way. Rugs, appliances, even ashtrays and a candy dish were left in place for years; the house is still considered "an incredible time capsule" of mid-century modern decor.

Personal life

Frances Ferris married twice; her first husband was writer Leroy Yerxa; they married in the 1935 and had four children together before Leroy died in 1946. She remarried in 1948, to magazine editor William Lawrence Hamling. She had two more children with Hamling; they divorced in 1967, but continued to live together for some time after that. She was active in Palm Springs society, including the

League of Women Voters The League of Women Voters (LWV) is a nonpartisan American nonprofit political organization. Founded in 1920, its ongoing major activities include Voter registration, registering voters, providing voter information, boosting voter turnout and adv ...

. She also lived in

Nampa, Idaho Nampa () is the most populous city in Canyon County, Idaho, United States. The population was 100,200 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. It is Idaho's List of cities in Idaho, third-most populous city. Nampa is about west of Boise, Id ...

in her later years. She died in 2019, in Caldwell, Idaho at the age of 101.

References

External links

* Jean Marie Stine
''Pink Winds, Green Cats, Radiant Rocks & Other Classics by the Forgotten Woman of Science Fiction's Golden Age''
(A&T Books 2005). A collection of Deegan's works. * Eric Leif Davin
"Brief Bios: Frances Yerxa (Hamling)"
''Sigma 381'' (December 2017). {{DEFAULTSORT:Yerxa, Frances American science fiction writers 20th-century American women writers People from Eaton Rapids, Michigan 1917 births 2019 deaths American women centenarians