Where Memory Hides: A Writer's Life, by Richard A. Lupoff

Richard A. Lupoff is probably best-remembered as a science fiction writer, though he also wrote mysteries and non-fiction, and pseudonymous media tie-ins. He was very active in fandom and was a well-known and well-liked figure. His time-loop short story "12:01 p.m." (originally published in the December 1973 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction) was filmed twice: first in 1990 as part of the 30-Minute Movie series on Showtime, and then, in 1993, as a feature length film, titled 12:01. Lupoff's autobiography appeared in 2016, four years before his death in 2020 at the age of 85. It has introductions by Gregory Benford and Bill Crider, and lots of encomiums by Lupoff's friends, including Michael Kurland, Robert Silverberg, Christopher Conlon, Ed Gorman, and  others. There is a Lupoff bibliography at the end too. In between is a chatty bunch of reminiscences of Lupoff's life, with anecdotes about friends (like Philip K. Dick and Avram Davidson) and lots of sad stories about publishers and editors. The saddest publishing story at least has a sort-of happy ending. In the late 1970s, Lupoff wrote a massive novel called Marblehead, an alternate history about H.P. Lovecraft. His publisher didn't like it, and thought it way too long, so at their request Lupoff wrote a different much shorter version, which the publisher in turn also refused. Arkham House editor Jim Turner heard about the book a year or two later, and thus the rewritten shorter version appeared as Lovecraft's Book in 1985 from Arkham House. For many years Lupoff thought the original version was lost, but it turned up and was published in 2006 as a print-on-demand trade paperback from Ramble House. This is just one of the horror stories of publishers that Lupoff details. His writer's life is an interesting read about publishing and fandom from the 1960s onward.