Earl Kemp - Science Fiction Editor and Fan

Science Fiction Editor and Fan

In 1952, Kemp attended his first World Science Fiction Convention. As he later said, "It was like walking into a world I had been seeking for a very long time. I felt, instantly, that I was at home at last and among my kind of people."

In 1956 Kemp and other members of the University of Chicago Science Fiction Club founded Advent:Publishers, which publishes science fiction criticism, history, and bibliography. One of their first books was In Search of Wonder, a hardcover collection of the book reviews of Damon Knight. Critics have said the book created the "foundation for all subsequent SF criticism."

Kemp won the Hugo Award for Best Fanzine in 1961 for his publication Who Killed Science Fiction. To create the fanzine, "Earl sent the same five questions to 108 people, the elite of the science fiction world. And he printed the seventy-one responses he received." The fanzine was distributed by the Spectator Amateur Press Society (SAPS), a long-running amateur press association. Kemp's win caused a bit of controversy because some felt that his publication had only a single issue; afterwards the award's eligibility rules for fanzines were changed to prevent single-issue publications from winning. However, Who Killed Science Fiction was actually the first SaFari Annual, part of a series of fanzines Kemp was publishing for SAPS, and the "controversy" was largely based on misunderstanding. In 2006 Kemp published a significant updating of Who Killed Science Fiction as the 29th issue of his current fanzine e*I*. It reprinted the entirety of the original 1961 edition and added considerable new material. In 2011 a book edition of Who Killed Science Fiction was published by The Merry Blacksmith Press.

Kemp also served as chairman of the 20th World Science Fiction Convention. The following year he edited The Proceedings: CHICON III, published by Advent:Publishers. The book included transcripts of lectures and panels given during the course of the convention, along with numerous photographs.

Kemp edited a number of science fiction fanzines up until 1965, including Destiny and SaFari. After a 37-year break, Kemp returned to editing fanzines with e*I*, which focuses on his memoirs of the science fiction world and is available online.