Category Archives: Odds and Ends
‘Birds of Prey’ March
Kipling, and particularly Kipling’s verse, has been important to me ever since I encountered it when I started to read. (There was a copy of The Jungle Book on the folks’ shelves, along with the first three Hornblower novels and … Continue reading
Manly Wade Wellman, Reporter
In many respects, Manly was as much of a journalist as he was a fiction writer. He was close to his (two years older) brother Paul for all of their mutual lives. When Manly got out of college in the … Continue reading
Vandy, Vandy
Manly traveled with Vance Randolph either during his time at Wichita University (now Wichita State University) or shortly after he graduated. He said that Randolph wanted him to settle in Arkansas. “Manly, you’ve got a hundred dollars. Half of it … Continue reading
About John Lambshead
John Lambshead is joint author with Dave of The Citizen Series from Baen Books. When John Lambshead was fourteen, he helped his mother carry lunch to the firemen spreading dispersants so that oil from the tanker Torrey Canyon did not … Continue reading
Like the Man Said
For my birthday in 1975, John Squires (who had been taking a bookbinding class) gave me a book bound in one of my fatigue shirts (that Jo had given him) and containing (as tearsheets) Ranks of Bronze, Arclight, Contact!, Something … Continue reading
Manly Wade Wellman
On March 17, 1970, I met Manly for the first time, in his writing office above a drugstore in the center of Chapel Hill. According to my journal for the day: Talked to Mr. Wellman (“My parents wrote my great-uncle … Continue reading
Whispers Magazine
In 1971 August Derleth died. He’d been publishing The Arkham Collector, a little magazine associated with his fantasy small press Arkham House. (My only published poem appeared in it.) Stu Schiff, a long-time collector and at that point a dentist … Continue reading
Jim Baen
Jim Baen called me on the afternoon of June 11. He generally phoned on weekends, and we’d usually talk a couple more times in the course of a week; but this was the last time. In the course of the … Continue reading
Joke Covers at Dave’s Roast
At Trinoc-con on Sunday, October 6, 2002, my friend Mark Van Name presided over what was billed as a David Drake Roast but was really a tribute. I was very embarrassed at the idea beforehand, but it turned out to … Continue reading
Rudyard Kipling
Kipling had a major influence on my writing and a lesser one on my life. The photo above is me in the garden of his house in Brattleboro in September, 1996. The one at the bottom of the essay is … Continue reading