Janet Kaye Fox (October 25, 1940 – October 21, 2009) was an American
fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy literature and drama ...
and horror writer, poet, teacher, and founder-editor-publisher of the now-defunct ''Scavenger's Newsletter''. She lived in
Osage City,
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...
.
Career
Fox spent fifteen years as a teacher of English and foreign language at Osage City High School, and a number of years after as an instructor for Writer's Digest School. She served as secretary/treasurer of the Small Press Writers and Artists' Organization, as well as issuing a newsletter for the group, afterwards establishing ''Scavenger's Newsletter'', a monthly market letter for "SF/Fantasy/Horror/Mystery writers and artists with an interest in the small press" published from 1984 to 2003. ''Scavenger's Newsletter'' also published short fiction, poems, essays, reviews, interviews and interior illustrations from writers like
Marge Simon
Marge Baliff Simon (born 1942) is an American artist and a writer of speculative poetry and fiction.
Biography
Early life
Marge Simon was born in Bethesda, Maryland, but grew up in Boulder, Colorado.
Education and career
She received her ...
,
Bruce Boston
Bruce Boston (born 1943) is an American speculative fiction writer and poet.
Early years
Bruce Boston was born in Chicago and grew up in Southern California.Diane SeversonInterview with Bruce Boston''Amazing Stories'' March 15, 2013 (accessed S ...
,
Jeff VanderMeer
Jeff VanderMeer (born July 7, 1968) is an American author, editor, and literary critic. Initially associated with the New Weird literary genre, VanderMeer crossed over into mainstream success with his bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy. The t ...
,
Lela E. Buis and others.
Fox's writing career began in 1970, with her work appearing in professional and small press publications. Most of Fox's book length fiction was written as Alex McDonough, the shared pseudonym under which
Ace Books
Ace Books is a publisher of science fiction (SF) and fantasy books founded in New York City in 1952 by A. A. Wyn, Aaron A. Wyn. It began as a genre publisher of mystery fiction, mysteries and western (genre), westerns, and soon branched out int ...
's six-volume "Scorpio" series was issued in the early 1990s. She wrote all but the first volume.
[Fox, Janet]
"Janet Fox"
i
''Speculative Fiction & Beyond''
. She also wrote, under her own name, a wide variety of short fiction and poetry, some collected in ''A Witch's Dozen'' (2003) and ''Not in Kansas'' (2004).
Her short fiction appeared in ''Borderland'', ''
Cemetery Dance'', ''Collage'', ''Crossroads'', ''Dark Regions'', ''Dead of Night'', ''Eldritch Tales'', ''Eternity'', ''
Fantastic
The fantastic (french: le fantastique) is a subgenre of literary works characterized by the ambiguous presentation of seemingly supernatural forces.
Bulgarian-French structuralist literary critic Tzvetan Todorov originated the concept, characte ...
'', ''Fantasy Book'', ''Grue'', ''The Horror Show'', ''Infinitum'', ''
Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine
''Marion Zimmer Bradley's Fantasy Magazine'' was a quarterly fantasy magazine founded and initially edited by American writer Marion Zimmer Bradley. Fifty issues appeared from summer 1988 through December 2000. It was published by MZB Enterprises ...
'', ''Metamorphoses'', ''New Blood'', ''Shadow Sword'', ''Sorcerer's Apprentice'', ''Tales as Like as Not'', ''Tales of the Unanticipated'', ''
Twilight Zone'', ''2AM FII'', ''The Urbanite'', ''Weirdbook'', ''Whispers'', and such anthologies as ''All the Devils Are Here'' (David D. Deyo, Jr., ed., 1986), ''
Amazons!'' (Jessica Amanda Salmonson, ed., 1979), ''Best of the Horror Show'' (David B. Silva, ed., 1987), ''Burning With a Vision'' (Robert Frazier, ed., 1984), ''The Definitive Best of the Horror Show'' (David B. Silva, ed., 1992), ''Dragon Tales'' (Isaac Asimov, et al., eds., 1982), ''Fantasy Tales #6'' (Stephen Jones, et al., eds., 1991), ''Fears'' (Charles L. Grant, ed., 1983), ''The Giant Book of Fantasy Tales'' (Stephen Jones, et al., eds., 1996), ''Horrorstory Volume Three'' (Karl Edward Wagner, ed., 1992), ''Midnight'' (Charles L. Grant, ed., 1985), ''100 Fiendish Little Frightmares'' (Stefan Dziemianowicz, et al., eds., 1997), ''100 Great Fantasy Short Short Stories'' (Isaac Asimov, et al., ed., 1984), ''100 Twisted Little Tales of Torment'' (Stefan Dziemianowicz, et al., eds., 1998), ''100 Wicked Little Witch Stories'' (Stefan Dziemianowicz, et al., eds., 1995), ''Post Mortem: New Tales of Ghastly Horror'' (Paul F. Olson, et al., eds., 1989), ''
Shadows #2'' (Charles L. Grant, ed., 1979), ''
Shadows #9'' (Charles L. Grant, ed., 1986), ''
Sword and Sorceress #1'' (Marion Zimmer Bradley, ed., 1984), ''
Sword and Sorceress #5'' (Marion Zimmer Bradley, ed., 1988), ''Tales by Moonlight II'' (Jessica Amanda Salmonson, ed., 1989), ''Voices from the Night'' (John Maclay, ed., 1994), ''When the Black Lotus Blooms'' (Elizabeth A. Saunders, ed., 1990), ''
The Year's Best Fantasy Stories #5'' (Lin Carter, ed., 1980), ''
The Year's Best Horror Stories The Year’s Best Horror Stories was a series of annual anthologies published by DAW Books in the U.S. from 1972 to 1994 under the successive editorships of Richard Davis from 1972 to 1975 (after a 1971-1973 series published by Sphere Books in th ...
: Series VI'' (Gerald W. Page, ed., 1978), and ''The Year's Best Horror Stories: Series VII'' (Gerald W. Page, ed., 1979).
Her poetry appeared in ''Critical Mass'', ''Dreams & Nightmares'', ''Eldritch Tales'', Joseph Payne Brennan's ''Essence'', ''Fungi FII'', ''Grue'', ''Nøctulpa'', ''Nyctalops'', ''Owlflight'', ''Paradox'', ''The Tome'', ''2AM'', ''Star*Line'', ''
Weird Tales
''Weird Tales'' is an American fantasy and horror fiction pulp magazine founded by J. C. Henneberger and J. M. Lansinger in late 1922. The first issue, dated March 1923, appeared on newsstands February 18. The first editor, Edwin Baird, prin ...
'', and such anthologies as ''Aliens & Lovers'' (Millea Kenin, ed., 1983), ''Burning with a Vision'' (Robert Frazier, ed., 1984), and ''Once Upon a Midnight'' (Jame A. Riley et al., eds., 1995).
Bibliography
Scorpio series
*''Scorpio'' (as Alex McDonough) (1990)
*''Scorpio Rising'' (as Alex McDonough) (1990)
*''Scorpio Descending'' (as Alex McDonough) (1991)
*''Dragon's Blood'' (as Alex McDonough) (1991)
*''Dragon's Eye'' (as Alex McDonough) (1992)
*''Dragon's Claw'' (as Alex McDonough) (1993)
Collections
*''A Witch's Dozen'' (2003)
Short stories
*"Materialist" (1970)
*"Say It with Spiders" (1970)
*"The Miraculous God Machine" (1971)
*"The Lord Loved Little People" (1972)
*"A Witch in Time" (1973)
*"She-Bear" (1974)
*"Screaming to Get Out" (1977)
*"Intimately, With Rain" (1978)
*"Demon and Demoiselle" (1978)
*"Valentine" (1979)
*"Morrien's Bitch" (1979)
*"Answer Came There None" (1980)
*"How Jaquerel Fell Prey to Ankarrah" (1980)
*"The Name Unspeakable in Tel Urath" (1980)
*"Garage Sale" (1982)
*"How Jaquerel Learned to Let Sleeping Gods Lie" (1982)
*"Small Magic" (1982)
*"Witches" (1983)
*"Surrogate" (1983)
*"In the Kingdom of the Thorn" (1983)
*"Clown Black" (1984)
*"Gate of the Damned" (1984)
*"The Ghost-Winder" (1984)
*"Immortality and Mrs. Mundy" (1984)
*"Christobel" (1985)
*"Taking Care of Bertie" (1985)
*"To a Crow, All Crows are White" (1985)
*"Cille's World" (1986)
*"Cradle Robbers" (1986)
*"The Skins You Love to Touch" (1986)
*"The Umbrella" (1986)
*"Mirror Trick" (1987)
*"Strands" (1987)
*"When Jaquerel Walked with Shadows" (1987)
*"Eyes of the Laemi" (1988)
*"Heirloom" (1988)
*"Getting Miss Grisley" (1988)
*"The Man Who Loved the Wizard's Son" (1988)
*"Dream Journey" (1989)
*"The Servitor" (1989)
*"Late Bloomer" (1990)
*"The Saturday Morning Horrors" (1990)
*"The Unicorn Girl" (1990)
*"The Dragon Business" (with
Kevin J. Anderson) (1991)
*"How Jaquerel Made War in Bel Azhurra" (1991)
*"The Kirkhall Legacy" (1992)
*"The Bloodfruit" (1993)
*"Hey Mom" (1994)
*"The Bug Boy" (1995)
Poems
*"O Slapstick Buddha" (1978)
*"Quotella" (1981)
*"Institutions" (1982)
*"Two Poems" (1982)
*"In the First Month of Becoming" (1983)
*"Death" (1983)
*"As the Wind Improvised" (1984)
*"Insomniac" (1985)
*"Cthulhu of the Webbed Cross" (1986)
*"Haiku" (1986)
*"To Love the Dark" (1986)
*"Untitled" (1986)
*"Hard Knight's Work" (1988)
*"Like an old wizard..." (1988)
*"Nocturnal ... Elisions" (1988)
*"Some Kind of Monster" (1988)
*"That Maniac Upstairs" (1988)
*"The Time Barrier" (1988)
*"Telepathy" (1988)
*"When We Lived in the Cemetery" (1988)
*"Willow Woman Walks" (1988)
*"All the Black Crayons" (1989)
*"Ledger" (1990)
*"Under Jennie's Bed" (1990)
*"Untitled" (“Fading in and out of intermittent...”) (1990)
*“"Untitled ("Neon in vomet green...”) (1990)
*"(____)" (1991)
*"Bag Lady's Ghost" (1995)
*"Time as a Closet" (1995)
Articles
*"Janet Fox" (1982)
*"Other Side of the Desk" (1987)
*"Overview of Horror, SF and Fantasy: A Long-range Market Study" (1987)
Notes
External links
*
*, now defunct
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox, Janet
1940 births
2009 deaths
20th-century American novelists
American fantasy writers
American horror writers
American magazine editors
American women short story writers
American women novelists
American women poets
Women science fiction and fantasy writers
Women horror writers
20th-century American women writers
20th-century American poets
Writers from Kansas
People from Topeka, Kansas
20th-century American short story writers
People from Osage City, Kansas
American women non-fiction writers
20th-century American non-fiction writers
Women magazine editors
21st-century American women writers