Miriam Allen deFord

American novelist

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 Bulletin. Her short story, A Death in the Family, appeared on the second season, episode #2, segment one, of Night Gallery.

Born in Philadelphia, deFord studied at Wellesley College and Temple University. She later studied at the University of Pennsylvania. She worked as a newspaper reporter for a time. She later described herself as a "born feminist" and was active in the Women's suffrage movement before 1920. A campaigner and disseminator of birth control information to women, she was a member of the Socialist Party of America from 1919 to 1922. During the 1930s, 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. She added, "I am unalterably and actively opposed to fascism, Nazism, Hitlerism, Hirohitoism, or whatever name may be applied to the monster."

Most of her writing focused on mystery fiction and science fiction and she published several anthologies in mystery and crime writing. In 1960, she wrote The Overbury Affair, which looked at events surrounding the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury during the reign of James I of Britain for this work she received a 1961 Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime book. In 1949, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction was created, with Anthony Boucher as editor. He was known for his science fiction and fantasy but also garnered attention in the mystery field as well, which gave his magazine some cross over appeal to mystery writers like deFord. Many of her science fiction stories first appeared in Boucher's magazine and dealt with themes like nuclear devastation, alienation, and changing sexual roles. Her two collections are Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Elsehow and Xenogenesis. She edited an anthology of stories mixing science fiction with mystery called Space, Time, and Crime. DeFord was also a passionate Fortean, and carried out fieldwork for Charles Fort; she is mentioned in his book Lo! Shortly before her death in 1975, Fortean writer Loren Coleman visited deFord 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. She worked for Humanist magazine and she was one of the signatories of the Humanist Manifesto.

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.

DeFord's first marriage was to Armistead Collier in 1915. The couple divorced in 1920.

Little Blue Book No. 197: What Great Frenchwomen Learned About Love (1926)
Little Blue Book No. 832: The Life and Poems of Catullus (1925)
Little Blue Book No. 867: Cicero As Revealed in His Letters (1925)
Little Blue Book No. 895: Astronomy for Beginners (1927)
Little Blue Book No. 896: The Augustan Poets of Rome (1925) (editor)
Little Blue Book No. 899: Rome As Viewed by Tacitus and Juvenal (1925)
Little Blue Book No. 999: Latin Self Taught (1926) (editor)
Little Blue Book No. 1009: Typewriting Self Taught (1926)
Little Blue Book No. 1087: The Facts About Fascism (1926)
Little Blue Book No. 1088: The Truth About Mussolini (1926)
Little Blue Book No. 1174: How To Write Business Letters (1927)
Little Blue Book No. 1847: The Meaning of All Common Given Names (1947)