We met at the first World Science Fiction Convention, in 1939. I have always felt fortunate to have him for a friend. By the fall of 1939, aged 19, he was editing two science fiction magazines of his own and buying his own stories for them. His first publication was a poem, “Elegy to a Dead Planet: Luna,” written when he was sixteen and finally published in Amazing Stories for October 1937. He quit high school as soon as he legally could, because he was more interested in what he was learning outside, most of which came through science fiction. That was in 1933, when he had just turned 13. He tells in The Early Pohl how his world changed when he discovered - or helped invent - science fiction fandom.

Special Introduction to Fred Pohl Interviewįred Pohl, more than anybody else I can think of, is the complete science-fictioneer. I was 26 years old in February of 1977 and had just discovered fandom and conventions a mere two years earlier, but much of that early period - and the memories like the one Fred gave me that night - they still seem very much like yesterday. Reading it for the first time, I hope you come away with it feeling much as I did - and did once again after working up this transcription, getting the chance to relive that night of so long ago. We paid the tip and drove Fred to wherever he was staying (I forget exactly where now, after 36 years.) It was a wonderful evening, getting to spend time with Fred and ending up with such a terrific interview. The separate checks came, but before I could reach for my wallet Fred made it clear that he was going to pickup the check, which he did. Sometime after midnight the recorder clicked off, we were all tired, and so agreed to call it a night. It ran for well over an hour as we talked and talked. We ordered our meals and ate while the tape recorder was running. Fred then suggested we repair to the nearby Howard Johnson’s, get something to eat and do the interview there. The talk ended and my hopes for an interview were fading. I was getting nervous because it was getting very late and we had to drive home.

My ladyfriend and I drove nearly halfway across the state from Oshkosh, then sat through the talk where something like 30 students were in attendance.

I had learned that Fred Pohl was engaged to speak at one of Wisconsin’s small state colleges in Eau Claire the evening of February 1st and was determined to interview him there. 7/8, Summer 1977, and is reprinted here for the first time. Interview originally appeared in Tangent No.

Fred pohl gateway