18 Facts About Avram Davidson

Avram Davidson was an American writer of fantasy fiction, science fiction, and crime fiction, as well as the author of many stories that do not fit into a genre niche.

Avram Davidson won a Hugo Award and three World Fantasy Awards in the science fiction and fantasy genre, a World Fantasy Life Achievement award, and an Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine short story award and an Edgar Award in the mystery genre.

Avram Davidson's last novel The Boss in the Wall: A Treatise on the House Devil was completed by Grania Davis and was a Nebula Award finalist in 1998.

Avram Davidson was born in 1923 in Yonkers, New York, to Jewish parents.

Avram Davidson served as a Navy hospital corpsman with the Marine Corps in the Pacific during World War II, and began his writing career as a Talmudic scholar around 1950.

Avram Davidson lived in a rural district of Novato, in northern Marin County, California, in 1970, but later moved closer to San Francisco.

Avram Davidson lived in a small house in Sausalito, at the southern end of Marin County next to San Francisco in 1971 and 1972, and it was there fans and friends were welcomed.

Avram Davidson worked for a short time in the late 1970s as a creative writing instructor at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Avram Davidson died in his tiny apartment in Bremerton on May 8,1993, aged 70.

Avram Davidson was survived by his son Ethan and his ex-wife Grania Davis, who continued to edit and release his unpublished works until her own death.

Avram Davidson wrote many stories for fiction magazines beginning in the 1950s, after publishing his first fiction in Commentary and other Jewish intellectual magazines.

Avram Davidson was active in science fiction fandom from his teens.

Avram Davidson wrote dozens of short stories that defy classification, and the Adventures in Unhistory essays, which delve into puzzles such as the identity of Prester John and suggest solutions to them.

Later essays were handicapped by a lack of resources in the libraries of the small towns where Avram Davidson lived in the pre-Internet era, but are enlivened by the style and bold speculation.

Avram Davidson's work is marked by a strong interest in history, with his plots often turning on what at first might seem like minor events.

Avram Davidson's characterization is unusually in-depth for fantasy, and is often enriched by his ear for unusual accents.

Especially in his later works, Avram Davidson included elements that beginning writers are told to avoid, such as page-long sentences with half a dozen colons and semi-colons, or an apparently irrelevant digression in the opening pages of a story.

Avram Davidson expects much from his readers, but delivers much to them.