Career
Betancourt has alternated between writing and editing throughout his career. He worked for Amazing Stories as an assistant editor from 1985–87. When the Philadelphia office shut down, he co-founded a literary agency with George Scithers and Darrell Schweitzer. A year later, Betancourt, Scithers, and Schweitzer licensed the name Weird Tales from Weird Tales, Ltd. and revived the magazine. Betancourt worked as an editor there until 1990.
Betancourt married Kim Betancourt (nee Hermo) in 1990, and they moved from Philadelphia to Newark, New Jersey. He founded Wildside Press in 1989 to publish a collection of essays by Fritz Leiber designed to commemorate Leiber's appearance as Principal Speaker at Philcon that year. The book, Fafhrd & Me sold out quickly, and Betancourt decided to publish additional titles as a hobby.
Betancourt was named science fiction editor for Byron Preiss Visual Publications in 1990. He worked for Byron Preiss for 7 years, rising to Senior Editor, before leaving to write full-time and take care of his and Kim Betancourt's first child. This marked the beginning of his most prolific period as an author.
Betancourt also continued to publish books through Wildside Press during this period, using local short-run printers and Pulphouse Publishing to print new titles. Some of the limited editions, particularly titles by Mike Resnick, are impressive efforts. The limited editions of Resnick's Lucifer Jones series are bound in such exotic materials as Spanish cork, French leopard-patterned cloth, and leather. The limited editions he published of Bradley Denton's two short story collections are bound in Spanish snakeskin-patterned cloth and elephant-hide paper. The lettered editions have mahogany slipcases. The Denton collections won a World Fantasy Award for Best Collection of the Year.
Betancourt has continued to publish Weird Tales through Wildside Press. In 2006 he hired Stephen H. Segal who he then made Editorial Director of the magazine; Segal subsequently recruited Ann VanderMeer as Fiction Editor. In 2009, Segal and VanderMeer won a Hugo Award for Weird Tales in the category of Best Semiprozine. The magazine was also nominated for a 2009 World Fantasy Award.
Read more about this topic: John Gregory Betancourt
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