Meacham, Beth
Entry updated 12 September 2022. Tagged: Author, Editor.
(1951- ) US author and editor, married to Tappan King from 1978. She worked first as an sf bookseller before joining Ace Books in 1981, where she developed the careers of Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card and Tim Powers, among others; she also discovered James P Blaylock and oversaw the revived Ace SF Specials. She left Ace for Tor Books in 1984, where as head of sf and fantasy she supervised the company's unusually large sf editorial staff and worked with authors like Card, Kim Stanley Robinson and Walter Jon Williams. In 1989 she resigned as editor-in-chief to become executive editor with a general acquisition brief.
With Tappan King, she wrote Nightshade Book One: Terror, Inc (1976), a novel in the Weird Heroes Shared World sequence. She collaborated with Wayne Barlowe and Ian Summers on Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials (graph 1979; rev vt Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials: Great Aliens from Science Fiction Literature 1987) (see Aliens; Xenobiology), and with Summers and Vincent Di Fate on Di Fate's Catalog of Science Fiction Hardware (graph 1980). With Baird Searles, Martin Last and Michael Franklin she wrote A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction (1979), and with Searles and Franklin A Reader's Guide to Fantasy (1982), both useful but cursory. She is perhaps best known to the reading public for editing Terry's Universe (anth 1988), an original anthology in memory of Terry Carr. [PNH]
see also: Skylark Award.
Beth Meacham
born Newark, Ohio: 14 November 1951
works
- Nightshade Book One: Terror, Inc (New York: Pyramid Books, 1976) with Tappan King [tie to the Shared World: Weird Heroes: pb/Ralph Reese]
- Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials (New York: Workman Publishing, 1979) with Wayne Barlowe and Ian Summers [nonfiction: graph: Meacham is uncredited: hb/Wayne Barlowe]
- Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials: Great Aliens from Science Fiction Literature (New York: Workman Publishing, 1987) with Wayne Barlowe and Ian Summers [nonfiction: graph: rev vt of the above: Meacham is uncredited: hb/Wayne Barlowe]
nonfiction
- A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction (New York: Avon Books, 1979) with Michael Franklin, Martin Last and Baird Searles [nonfiction: pb/Stanislaw Fernandes]
- Di Fate's Catalog of Science Fiction Hardware (New York: Workman Publishing, 1980) with Vincent Di Fate and Ian Summers [nonfiction: graph: Meacham is uncredited: hb/Vincent Di Fate]
- A Reader's Guide to Fantasy (New York: Avon Books, 1982) with Michael Franklin and Baird Searles [nonfiction: pb/]
works as editor
- Terry's Universe (New York: Tor, 1988) [anth: Terry Carr: hb/Mike Presley]
links
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