Willard E. Hawkins

Willard E. Hawkins was born in Fairplay, Colorado, in 1887 and died in Craig, Colorado, in 1970. His work crossed public speaking, editing and fiction. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes him as an editor, author and speaker, and dates his first genre publication to “The Dead Man’s Tale,” printed in the opening issue of Weird Tales in 1923. Hawkins did not remain attached to a single magazine: his genre-related stories continued to appear through 1952.

His 1934 chapbook Castaways of Plenty turned to near-future satire. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction describes it as anti-capitalist, a distinctive direction beside the ghostly and occult fiction that introduced Hawkins to Weird Tales readers. In 1950 he returned to the genre with “Look to the Stars,” published in Imagination. These titles show a career that moved between forms and venues over nearly three decades. The magazine byline is only one portion of that record, but it is the point where Hawkins’s career intersects with the early history of weird fiction.