Andrew J. Offutt
Andrew J. Offutt was an American author born on August 16, 1934, in Louisville, Kentucky. He began writing at a young age and pursued higher education, earning B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Louisville by 1955. Offutt worked in various sales roles before transitioning to full-time writing in 1971. He gained recognition in the science fiction community, serving as president of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1976 to 1978 and receiving the Phoenix Award in 1986. Offutt published under several pseudonyms, including John Cleve and Jeff Douglas, and wrote a diverse array of works, including the Spaceways series of adult science fiction novels. He contributed to shared universes such as Thieves' World and penned stories featuring iconic characters like Conan. Offutt's literary influence extended into fantasy anthologies and collaborations with other writers. He lived in Kentucky with his family and continued to write until later in life, with notable works appearing as recently as 2002.
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Andrew J. Offutt
Writer
- Born: August 16, 1934
- Birthplace: Louisville, Kentucky
- Died: April 30, 2013
Biography
Andrew Jefferson Offutt V was born on August 16, 1934, in Louisville, Kentucky. His parents were Andrew J. and Helen Spaninger Offutt, and he started writing when he was eight years old. He attended the University of Louisville, where received B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. degrees by 1955. He married Mary Joe “Jodie” McCabe in 1957, and they had four children: Chris, an author in his own right, Jeff, Missy, and Scotty. Offutt was a salesman for the foods division of Proctor and Gamble from 1955 to 1962, a salesman for National Executive Life Insurance Co. in Lexington, Kentucky, from 1962 to 1963, and the supervisor of three agencies in three cities for Coastal States Life Insurance Co. from 1963 to 1970, when the family was living in Morehead, Kentucky. He became a full-time writer in 1971.
Offutt’s first sale was the short story “And Gone Tomorrow” in 1954 to If magazine while he was still a student at the University of Louisville, although he dates the true start of his professional career to the sale of “Blacksword” to Galaxy in 1959. He was president of the Science Fiction Writers of America from 1976 to 1978, was a frequent guest and speaker at science fiction conventions around the United States, and was the 1986 winner of the Phoenix Award presented annually by the Deep South Science Fiction Convention.
He wrote under the pseudonyms John Cleve, Jeff Douglas, Farrah Fawkes, Baxter Giles, John X. Williams, and Turk Williams. As Cleve, Offutt wrote most of the Spaceways series of pornographic science fiction novels. He coauthored four novels with Richard K. Lyon, a research chemist; edited the Swords Against Darkness series of fantasy anthologies, which featured the best of the new Sword and Sorcery authors of the time; wrote novels featuring characters created by Robert E. Howard, such as Conan and Cormac Mac Art; and was one of the original contributors to the Thieves’ World shared fantasy world anthology series.
His story “Nekht Semerkeht” (an unfinished Robert E. Howard story begun just before Howard’s death that was completed by Offutt), which originally appeared in Swords Against Darkness, was selected for The Year’s Best Fantasy Stories 4 (1978), and “Population Implosion,” which originally appeared in the July, 1967, issue of If, was selected for The Year’s Best Science Fiction Stories: 1968. Offutt had open-heart surgery in 1999. His story “Role Model” appears in the latest Thieves World anthology, Turning Point (2002). He and his wife formerly resided at “The Funny Farm,” a brick house set on three and a half acres of the Daniel Boone National Forest in the Cumberland Mountain foothills near Haldeman, Kentucky.