Autographs - Thomas Disch

Thomas Disch

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Science Fiction authors

I have autographs from 14 science fiction authors, on 28 paperback SF books, one non-SF book, and one business card. (Update 2026: I've since grabbed a few more, so the below list now has more than fourteen authors.)

With some exceptions, I can no longer remember where I got each autograph. Almost all were collected in the 1970s and early 1980s. Here are four locations where I got multiple SF autographs:

• A woman who was planning to publish an SF magazine organized a series of evening sessions at USC with SF writers. There were just a handful of us who regularly attended, so the talks were quite informal. I loved them, and gathered quite a few autographs, too. I do specifically recall Harlan Ellison and Larry Niven. Maybe A.E. Van Vogt. We also took a group field trip to Forrest J. Ackerman's Hollywood home, the Ackermansion.
  
• An event at UCLA's Ackerman Union with several SF authors on stage, including Theodore Sturgeon and Robert Silverberg, maybe also Roger Zelazny.
  
• Once (or was it twice?), I hung around outside the annual SFWA Nebula Awards Banquet with a bag of books, collecting autographs. I remember Ray Bradbury. I also remember Robert Heinlein, who looked so frail in his wheelchair with an attendant that I couldn't bring myself to bother him and ask for his autograph!
  
• Book signing events at A Change of Hobbit bookstore.

Here's an alphabetized link list of the SF autographs I have:

• Ann Bernath
• Ray Bradbury
• Ted Chiang
• Arthur C. Clarke
  
• Samuel R. Delany
  
• Thomas Disch
  
• S. B. Divya
• Cory Doctorow
  
• Richard J. Doyle
• Harlan Ellison
  
• Philip José Farmer
  
• Frank Herbert
  
• T J Klune
• Rachael Kuintzle
• Fritz Leiber
  
• Ashish Mahabal
• Christine Morett Moran
• Larry Niven
  
• John Scalzi
• Robert Silverberg
  
• Norman Spinrad
  
• Theodore Sturgeon
  
• A. E. Van Vogt
  
• Roger Zelazny
  

(Complete index of autographs)

Autographs - Larry Niven

Larry Niven was one of the authors who came to the informal USC SF series I attended. Because we were a short distance from USC's Doheny Library, I remember Niven telling us that he was a descendant of the Dohenys.

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Howard Cruse

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I always loved Howard Cruse's Wendel.

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Stuart Timmons and Harry Hay

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Stuart Timmons is a personal friend. When The Trouble With Harry Hay was published, Stuart as biographer and Harry Hay as subject jointly signed the book at a bookstore event.



Stuart talked about and signed Gay L.A. at a get-together of our book discussion group. Stuart has attended the group irregularly. On this occasion, he brought a laptop computer and narrated a slide show about some of the stories in the book.

(Note: Years later, I got the co-author's autograph as well.)

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - MeatMen cartoonists

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A Different Light bookstore held a mass signing event for several of the contributors to this book. I've always loved cartoons and comic strips, both mainstream and not. This collection ranges from innocent to X-rated.



The above spread shows autographs by Gregoire, Jerry Mills, and Tim Barela. Of course, hand-drawn cartoons such as the one here by Mills are always a treat.



The above spread has an autograph by Sean and two autographs by Brad Parker. Parker's drawing on the left was printed in the book, and he added the personalized caption. Then, on the right, he drew the creature as I watched, and autographed it. Of all the autographs I collected that day in this book, the two by Parker are my favorites.

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Nancy Freedman

I knew Nancy Freedman through her husband and frequent writing partner, Ben.

Ben Freedman interviewed and hired me as adjunct faculty at Occidental College, where I continued to teach part-time for 33 years. I met Nancy socially on several occasions. When The Seventh Stone was published, she again visited Oxy and signed the book for several of us. Ben's faculty office and mine were both in Fowler Hall, and adjacent for part of the time.

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Ivy Bottini

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I think I first knew Ivy Bottini through the successful "No On 6" battle to defeat the 1978 Briggs Initiative. Later, in the 1980s, I worked with her and others to organize several conferences at Occidental for Whitman-Brooks (an LGBT organization of that era).

In 1990, Ivy was my real estate agent who helped me look for and then buy my first house, where I still live today.

P.S. See also this about Ivy's biography.

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Harlan Ellison

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Harlan Ellison was one of the authors who came to the series I attended at USC. Explanation of the first autograph above: At the end of the evening, I was juggling his two books and some other papers and asked for his autograph. He didn't have a pen, so I pulled a pen out of my pants pocket, used my teeth to pull off the cap, and, pen cap in teeth, handed him my pen.

(Index of autographs)

Autographs - Andrew Hodges

First, some background: Since my college days, I have always been interested in Alan Turing and his work. His premature death by apparent suicide always made me wonder whether he might have been gay. By 1981, there were a couple of published mentions that he was.

In his May 1981 Metamagical Themas column in Scientific American, Douglas Hofstadter wrote, Turing "was homosexual and was much persecuted for it. In the end it apparently got to be too much and he killed himself."

A few months later, when I found an email address for Hofstadter, I wrote and asked him about his sources. (Yes, I've been on email a very long time!) He replied, "A fellow named Andrew Hodges, in London, is writing what will probably be the definitive biography of Turing, and it will give all the details ... Why don't you write to him? His [postal] address is ..."

I struck up a correspondence with Hodges, and after his book was published in 1983, I helped arrange some of his speaking engagements about it in the U.S. He even stayed in my apartment in L.A. one time.

By the way, this is the centennial year of Turing's birth. There are many activities. Click here for details.

(Index of autographs)