Jim Avery

(November 11, 1921 – May 10, 1999)

James Sawyer Avery, an early fan from Skowhegan, Maine, nicknamed “Maine-iac,” was active in the 1930s and ’40s. He headed the MSA and was a member of New Fandom.

With Harry Warner, he was a part of the Barbarian Invasion, founded United Publications and was for a time co-editor of Spaceways.

In 1940, he announced his fafiation in a circular entitled: Why I Have Left Fandom:

Many of you whom I number among my friends and comrades in fandom are perhaps wondering what promp­ted me to clear out so utterly and suddenly from the fan world. It is more —- much more —- than a matter of disgust with general circumstances; rather it is an effort on the part of several parties to force me completely out of the fan picture. To them I must bow down.

I am dropping from fandom with a feeling that I have much to lose in friendship, in happiness, and in reputa­tion, Whatever the other fan journals may have to say on the subject, whether good or bad, let the records stand, I leave fandom only under pressure; my slate is clean.

This seems to have been the result of parental pressure after Avery got in trouble by pubbing an article in The MSA Bulletin containing untrue allegations about Street & Smith being near bankruptcy.

However, he was listed in Walt Daugherty's Directory of Fandom (April 1942) and, with Claude Degler, part of Mainecon, Jr. in 1943. He was writing at least the occasional loc as late as 1962, though Warner reported he had little interest in fandom by then.

Avery served in the U.S. Navy in World War II and the Korean War. In 1953, he moved to Hampton, VA. He became a journalist and was wire editor for The Times-Herald till his retirement in 1983. He married Beverly June Winchell and had a son, James S. W. “Red” Avery. In 1965, Harry Warner wrote in a loc to Algol 9:

Jim later collaborated with a non­ fan on his first son, who is Redd Avery, who produced one issue of his own fanzine and has been repre­sented by a few articles in fanzines in recent years.

• Obituary, Daily Press, May 13, 1999.

Fanzines and Apazines:

• Funtasy [1939] (aka Tizzie)
• Spaceways
• Why I Have Left Fandom

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Person

1921—1999

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