Quick Facts
Biography
Miriam Allen deFord (August 21, 1888 – February 22, 1975) was an American writer best known for her mysteries and science fiction. During the 1920s, she wrote for a number of left-wing magazines including The Masses, The Liberator, and the Federated Press. Her short story "A Death in the Family" appeared on Night Gallery's second season appearing in Episode Two segment One with Desi Arnez Jr.
Biography
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. DeFord studied at Wellesley College and Temple University. She later studied at the University of Pennsylvania. DeFord worked as a newspaper reporter for a time.DeFord later described herself as a "born feminist"; she became active in theWomen's suffrage movement before 1920, andwas also a campaigner and disseminator of birth control information to women. DeFord was a member of the Socialist Party of America from 1919 to 1922. Her feminist work is documented in From Parlor to Prison: Five American Suffragists Talk About Their Lives, edited by Sherna B. Gluck. During the1930s, deFord joined the Federal Writers' Project and wrote the book They Were San Franciscans for the Project. Interviewed for the League of American Writers pamphlet Writers Take Sides about the Spanish Civil War, DeFord expressed strong support for the Spanish Republic. DeFord added "I am unalterably and actively opposed to fascism, Nazism, Hitlerism, Hirohitoism, or whatever name may be applied to the monster".
She spent perhaps the most energy in mystery fiction and science fiction. Hence she did several anthologies in mystery and crime writing. In 1968, she wrote The Real Bonnie and Clyde.
She also wrote The Overbury Affair, which involves events during the reign of James I of Britain surrounding the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury. For the latter work she received a 1961 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime book. She worked for Humanist magazine and she was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.
However, in 1949, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction began with Anthony Boucher as editor. Anthony Boucher wrote science fiction and fantasy but also garnered attention in the mystery field as well. This gave his magazine some cross-over appeal to mystery writers like Ms. deFord. Hence much of her science fiction first appeared in Boucher's magazine. Her stories there dealt with themes like nuclear devastation, alienation, and changing sexual roles. Her two collections are Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Elsehow and Xenogenesis. She also edited an anthology of stories mixing science fiction with mystery called Space, Time, and Crime.
DeFord was also a passionate Fortean, a follower of Charles Fort, and did fieldwork for him.DeFord is mentioned in Fort's book Lo! Shortly before her death in 1975, Fortean writer Loren Coleman visited Ms. deFord frequently and interviewed her about her earlier interactions with Fort and her trips to Chico, California, to investigate the case of a poltergeist rock-thrower on Fort's behalf.
DeFord died February 22, 1975, aged 86, at her longtime home, the Ambassador Hotel at 55 Mason Street in San Francisco.
In 2008, The Library of America selected deFord's story of the Leopold and Loeb trial for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.
Personal Life
DeFord's first marriage was to Armistead Collier in 1915. The couple divorced in 1920. She was married to Maynard Shipley from 1921 until his death in June 1934.