Friday, October 23, 2015

Meet Another Renaissance Man...Author & Pulp Fan Tom Johnson

I met Tom through Absolute Write, a forum for authors to meet and exchange book info, writing tips, and just about everything in the biz. I asked him to be my guest here, because I found him very well-rounded and interesting...as I find the historians I meet from the Richard III Society and Aaron Burr Association.

Meet Tom and read about his many pursuits, talents, etc..........

 
Tom was a voracious reader from childhood beginning with the Golden Age comic books to classic literature. Exciting adventure stories entertained him until he discovered science fiction and hardboiled detective mysteries. By his early twenties, he discovered The Shadow and Doc Savage pulp reprints in paperbacks, and was hooked on the fast-paced action novel of the 30s and 40s. This led to collecting and research, which eventually interested him in writing. Today, he still loves an exciting action novel over movies and television. Tom and his wife, Ginger have received numerous awards in the field for their work in keeping the old stories in the spotlight for new readers seeking escape in a thrilling adventure novel.

From April 1982 until December 2004, Tom and his wife Ginger published ECHOES, the hobby magazine for pulp enthusiasts and fans. They met and interviewed many of the important people from the era of the pulps, including editors, artists, writers and publishers. ECHOES remained in magazine format through issue 100, then, due to health problems, it was reduced to newsletter format. Their imprint, FADING SHADOWS, also published a half dozen genre fiction titles, covering science fiction, mystery, action and adventure.

While stationed in France with the US Army in the early 60s, Tom began toying with the idea of writing fiction, and created several plots and characters, but didn’t do anything with them until he completed a tour in Vietnam in 1970. It was then he wrote the first two novels in the JUR series, based on those early plots and character, involving time travel. Receiving rejection slips, he set the two manuscripts in the drawer until 2002, when Novel Books, Inc. picked them up. With his health declining, and now closing the FADING SHADOWS imprint, he concentrated on his own writing.
 
Now retired, Tom and his wife live in Seymour, Texas, where small town living is slow and quiet. They read a lot, and Tom still writes action yarns occasionally.

Besides fiction, Tom researched the pulp magazines and wrote a number of nonfiction historical books on many of the characters that appeared in the 30s and 40s. In 2012 ALTUS PRESS published ECHOES 30, the thirtieth anniversary issue of ECHOES.
 
 
 
About ECHOES 30: Three Decades of Pulp Fandom's Greatest Magazine
 
Echoes, the longest-running pulp fanzine of all time, is back for a special 30th anniversary issue, and it's the largest single-issue pulp fanzine ever published. Enjoy over 300 pages of articles on pulps as well as a pair of classic reprints, written by a variety of pulp experts.
 
The book contains articles on and about the pulp magazines and characters appearing primarily during the 30s and 40s, with lots of cover reproductions and pictures of men and women involved in the pulp era. There is material on The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Phantom Detective, and much more. Also reprinted are two novelettes from the pulp, as well as a new story in the pulp tradition by Tom.
 

Visit Tom: 


 
 
 
 

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the uplifting post, Diana. I'll see if I can get some friends to come by and Comment. Appreciate the Blog spot.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting read. Enjoyed it. Thanks for the post.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Interesting read. Enjoyed it. Thanks for the post.

    ReplyDelete

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