When Locus Was Younger: 1983 Letter from Robert A. Heinlein
Greetings from beyond the paywall! We have been posting new content monthly on our Patreon Archive Feed – scans of vintage Locus and audio clips from author interviews and more – and wanted to share a little of what that feed looks like by making some of our earlier posts public. Check out this post featuring a letter from Robert A. Heinlein.
In addition to all the benefits of lower tiers, including a digital subscription and other perks, patrons pledging $15+ monthly have access to the Archive content (AKA the Secret History Feed). This includes monthly back issue posts, author interview audio clips, and complete access to the archive of past posts full of unique SF artifacts and ephemera like this letter.
Robert A. Heinlein: “Fairly Polite Tug of War”
Robert Heinlein, who was named the first SFWA Grandmaster in 1974, lived in Bonny Doon CA for a time, a mere two hours south of the Locus office, allowing Charles Brown to travel down to interview and photograph him.
Heinlein and Brown struck up such a friendship that Heinlein eventually gave Locus his personal collection of paperback science fiction and fantasy books, each stamped with his name and address. We’ve kept them lining the walls of one of our Senior Editor’s offices, literally surrounding him with SF history.
The “Ginny” in the above letter is Heinlein’s third wife, Virginia, who played a large role in editing some of his posthumous work and interacting with fans, and she founded the Heinlein Society to preserve his legacy. Both she and Robert maintained contact with Charles Brown and the rest of Locus through the years.
