Judith Merril

<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Judith Josephine Grossman (January 21, 1923 - September 12, 1997) was an American-Canadian author who wrote under the pen name Judith Merril and considered one of the pioneers of twentieth century science fiction.

Merril was born in Boston to Ethel and Samuel Grossman. Her father committed suicided at the start of the Great Depression. She became an avid follower of Zionism and in 1936 moved with her mother to New York City where she attended Morrows High and attended Zionist summer camp. She lost interest in Zionism when the Soviet Union made a pact with the Nazis in 1939.

Merril met Dan Zissman is 1940 and the two married and moved in with his parents. She worked as a waitress and other odd jobs and in 1942 became pregnant with her first child, named Merril Zissman. When Dan was drafted she became a navy wife, traveling with her husband to Navy bases across the country. when her husband was discovered as a Troskyist, he is sent overseas to fight in the war. Left behind in New York city, Merril met Johnny Michel, Bob "Doc" Lowndes and literary agent and editor Virginia Kidd. Merill shared an apartment with Kidd and her daughter and took up ghost writing and research.

Merill and Dan separated in 1945 and she began living with Frederik Pohl. The two married after her divorce. She continued to write, building a career as a professional writer, publishing short stories about sports. Her first science fiction story, That Only a Mother was published in 1945 in Astounding magazine.

Merril gave birth to her second daughter, Ann, in 1950. In the same year, her first novel, Shadow On the Hearth is published along with her anthology Shot in the Dark. She also begins work on another novel, Mars Child also known as Outpost Mars with Cyril Kornbluth. In 1952, her novel, Gunner Cade was serialized in Astounding and she separated from Pohl.

Merill lived with Walter Miller for a few months and her divorce from Pohl was finalized. She married again in 1960 but again separated but never divorced.

In 1967, Merill spent a year in Englad where she edited the anthology England Swings SF. After returning home, she moved with daughter Ann to Canada where she became a Resource Person in Writing and Publishing for Rochdale College, Toronto's "free university." She became a Canadian citizen in 1976. She joined the Writer's Union and until her death in 1997, remained active in science fiction.