Youth
As a young man Conover was interested in science fiction, and published a science fiction fanzine, Science Fantasy Correspondent. This brought him into contact with horror writer H. P. Lovecraft. The correspondence between Lovecraft, who was at the end of his life, and the young Conover, has been published as Lovecraft at Last (Carrolton-Clark, 1975; reprint 2004).
Conover's father had intended for him to attend The Citadel and follow his family's tradition of military service. Instead, he attended the Maryland State Teacher's College at Salisbury, Maryland, and became a radio announcer for WTBO in Cumberland, Maryland.
He later moved to Washington, D.C., and focused on jazz in his programming, especially the Duke Ellington hour on Saturday nights. His guests on this program and Saturday morning shows included many important artists, such as Boyd Raeburn.
Read more about this topic: Willis Conover
Famous quotes containing the word youth:
“His youth was distinguished by all the tumult and storm of pleasures, in which he licentiously triumphed, disdaining all decorum. His fine imagination was often heated and exhausted with his body in celebrating and deifying the prostitute of the night, and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of frantic bacchanals.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“Can delight
Chained in night
The virgins of youth and morning bear?”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“In Homer and Chaucer there is more of the innocence and serenity of youth than in the more modern and moral poets. The Iliad is not Sabbath but morning reading, and men cling to this old song, because they still have moments of unbaptized and uncommitted life, which give them an appetite for more.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)