Ross, Joseph
Entry updated 9 April 2023. Tagged: Editor.
Working name of US teacher and editor Joseph Wrzos (1929-2023). He acted as Managing Editor of Amazing Stories and Fantastic 1965-1967 while continuing to teach high-school English full-time in New Jersey. He edited The Best of Amazing (anth 1967), selecting only stories from before he became editor; and Hannes Bok: A Life in Illustration (graph coll 2012). His influence on the field has not been well publicized. He helped Sam Moskowitz with his Robert Duncan Milne collection – Into the Sun and Other Stories: Science Fiction in Old San Francisco, Volume II (coll 1980) – and wrote an article about it in the Winter 1982 Fantasy Commentator. He helped Peter Ruber with most of his projects at Arkham House but may only be formally co-credited on the Seabury Quinn collection Night Creatures (coll 2003). He also compiled the August Derleth collection In Lovecraft's Shadow: The Cthulhu Mythos Stories of August W Derleth (coll 1998) to which he contributed the introduction. Derleth's final sf anthology, New Horizons (anth 1998), was put into its final shape by Ross, who again provided the introduction. He was one of the consulting editors on the newly revamped (from 2012) Amazing Stories.
His name was added, as Joseph Wrzos, to the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 2016. [MA/PN]
Joseph Henry Wrzos
born Newark, New Jersey: 9 September 1929
died 7 April 2023
works as editor
- The Best of Amazing (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1967) [anth: Amazing Stories: hb/Sylvie Selig]
- August Derleth. In Lovecraft's Shadow: The Cthulhu Mythos Stories of August W Derleth (Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1998) [coll: hb/]
- Seabury Quinn. Night Creatures (Ashcroft, British Columbia: Ash-Tree Press, 2003) edited with Peter Ruber [coll: hb/Keith Minnion]
- Hannes Bok. Hannes Bok: A Life in Illustration (Lakewood, Colorado: Centipede Press, 2012) as Joseph Wrzos [coll: graph: illus/hb/Hannes Bok]
links
previous versions of this entry