Leigh Blackmore - Early Career

Early Career

Following stints at Macquarie University (where he belonged to the university's science fiction club and contributed to their zine Telmar) and Sydney University (where he majored in Semitic Studies), Blackmore came in contact with Don Boyd, editor of Futuristic Tales. Beginning a 25-year career as a bookseller in 1978, he then worked in his spare time as an editorial assistant on The Australian Horror and Fantasy Magazine. in the early 1980s and went on to publish and co-edit its successor, Terror Australis magazine from 1987-1992.

In the 1980s, Blackmore published bibliographies on Brian Lumley and H.P. Lovecraft (the latter in collaboration with S.T. Joshi). He came to be a highly regarded Lovecraft scholar, and carried on correspondence with other Lovecraft fans in many countries including US, the UK, New Zealand, Japan, France, Germany, Italy, Poland and Russia.His first published story was "The Infestation", adapted for graphic form by Gavin O'Keefe and published in Phantastique, a comic which attracted notoriety (questions were asked in Australian Federal Parliament) for being government-funded via an Arts Council grant while containing visceral images and story content.

He worked as a bookseller in Sydney for 25 years (1979–2004), primarily managing specialist science fiction & fantasy departments within larger bookstores such as Dymocks.