Kristine Kathryn Rusch The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Collection

Identity elements

Reference code

US TxAM-C C000516

Level of description

Collection

Title

Kristine Kathryn Rusch The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction Collection

Date(s)

Extent

5 boxes

Name of creator

(1960-)

Biographical history

Kristine Kathryn Rusch is a renowned and award-winning writer (under several pseudonyms as well as her real name) and editor of speculative fiction. Her published literary debut was the short story "Spare the Rat and Spoil the Child", released in 1987; this was the first in her long career writing short fiction, which to date has been assembled into nineteen separate collections. Several of her stories have been nominated for Nebula, Hugo, and other industry awards: these include "Fast Cars" (1990), "The Gallery of Her Dreams" (1991, winner of the 1992 Locus Award), "Echea" (1998, winner of the 1998 HOMer Award and 1999 Asimov's Readers Award ), and "The Retrieval Artist" (2000). Her novelette "Millennium Babies" won the 2001 Hugo Award for Best Novelette, and she has won several additional Asimov's Readers Awards for her short fiction ("Diving Into The Wreck", 2005; "Recovering Apollo 8", 2008; "The Application of Hope", 2014; "Inhuman Garbage", 2016; and "Lieutenant Tightass", 2019). "Recovering Apollo 8" also won the 2007 Sidewise Award for Best Alternate History. Her 1989 story "Phantom" was nominated for the Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Long Fiction. Rusch's short fiction has appeared in more than twenty Best Of The Year collections.

Rusch is also a well-received author of long form fiction, having written close to 100 novels since The White Mists of Power (1991). She has produced 10 novels (and several shorter works) within her "Diving Universe", and is responsible for creating several other literary universes, including "Faerie Justice", "Retrieval Artist", and "The Fey". In addition, Rusch has written books set in the Star Trek, Star Wars, and Aliens media franchises. She writes mysteries under the name "Kris Nelscott", and lighthearted romance and mystery works as "Kristine Grayson". Her 2002 "Retrieval Artist" novel The Disappeared won the 2002 Endeavour Award.

Rusch has also had a distinguished career as a professional editor and publisher. With her husband and fellow author Dean Wesley smith she co-founded the small press Pulphouse Publishing, which from 1988-1996 published 244 different titles from a wide variety of speculative writers through the hardback magazine Pulphouse, a more standard literary magazine, Pulphouse Weekly, and Author's Choice Monthly, a series of chapbooks from writers that included Lewis Shiner, Jack Williamson, Ron Goulart, Kate Wilhelm, Joe R. Lansdale, Charles de Lint, and Roger Zelazny. Pulphouse publications were nominated for numerous awards, and the hardback magazine won the 1989 World Fantasy Award for Special Award, Non-Professional.

From 1991-1997, Rusch edited the storied The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, founded in 1949 and originally edited by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas. Under her editorship, F&SF began publishing more dark fantasy and and horror to complement its existing science fiction and fantasy corpus. She won the 1994 Hugo Award for Best Editor for her editorial work at F&SF, and the magazine itself was nominated for several industry awards during her tenure.

Rusch won the 1990 Campbell/Astounding Award for Best New Writer.

Content and structure elements

Scope and content

This collection consists of manuscripts of short fiction, book reviews, and nonfiction pieces submitted to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction during the editorship of Kristine Kathryn Rusch from 1991-1997. (Several stories in the collection would be actually published in F&SF by Rusch's successor Gordon Van Gelder, who edited the magazine between 1997-2015.) With a few exceptions, all of the manuscripts were eventually published in the magazine.

Many of the manuscripts in the collection contain handwritten edits, most of which are grammatical or structural and made by copyeditors. A minority of edits, some of them more substantive textual alterations, appear to have been made by the authors themselves.

System of arrangement

Alphabetical by last name of author, and thereunder alphabetical by story title. Dates in parentheses after the title refer to the date of publication in F&SF.

Conditions of access and use elements

Conditions governing access

Many of the manuscripts contain personally identifiable information, such as address, phone, number, and social security number. Before use by patrons, any manuscript must be checked for this information and redacted before provided to patrons.

Physical access

Technical access

Conditions governing reproduction

Copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Languages of the material

  • English

Scripts of the material

Language and script notes

Finding aids

Acquisition and appraisal elements

Custodial history

Collection donated in June 2021 to Cushing Library by Kristine Kathryn Rusch as part of Accession 2021_0052 (Pulphouse Publishing Files), and separated out as an individual collection.

Immediate source of acquisition

Gift, from Kristine Kathryn Rusch.

Accruals

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Existence and location of originals

Existence and location of copies

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Notes element

General note

Note that many of the manuscripts are stained, due to rusty paperclips or rubber bands.

Specialized notes

Alternative identifier(s)

Description control element

Rules or conventions

Sources used

Archivist's note

Processed by Jeremy Brett, June-July 2022.

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