My first short story, Grieve for a Man, appeared in the August, 1957 Fantastic Universe, Hans Stefan Santesson, Editor. (Always mention the name of the first editor who had the good taste to actually pay you money for something you wrote.)
My short stories and novelettes have appeared in
Asimov's, Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Galaxy, Amazing, other SF magazines, and various anthologies. Since 1988, I've been writing SF novelettes which have mostly appeared in Asimov's. My novels have appeared under the Ace imprint (I WANT THE STARS, THE TREELORD OF IMETEN, FIVE AGAINST ARLANE, THE BARONS OF BEHAVIOR), and the Berkley imprint (REDUCTION IN ARMS).I've edited one anthology, ADVENTURES IN DISCOVERY (Doubleday, 1969), a collection of specially commissioned articles on science by Asimov, Silverberg, Anderson, and other leading science fiction writers of the time.
My first magazine article appeared in the April, 1964 issue of a science fiction magazine called Worlds of Tomorrow. The editor, Frederik Pohl, had circulated a memo saying he was looking for non-fiction for the magazine and I suggested a piece on one of my favorite subjects-- the future of the city. The publications I've written for include Kiwanis, American Education, American Libraries, and the Philadelphia Inquirer. The subjects I've written about include arms control, education, home safety, and the performing arts.
In 1966 an engineering professor at the University of Pennsylvania produced two of the first computer-animated films-- a pair of educational films that depicted the behavior of electromagnetic fields and waves. He hired me to write the scripts and that led to a part time job as a science writer for the University of Pennsylvania News Bureau. The stint at the News Bureau eventually led to a lot of freelance "business writing" or "corporate writing"-- reports, brochures, newsletters, pamphlets, press releases, etc. for clients such as the University of Pennsylvania publications office, Wharton Graduate, private companies, and the National Health Care Management Center. The subjects I've written about include medicine and the life sciences, pollution control, home decorating, home maintenance, social work, special academic programs, and resources for people with disabilities.
My closest approach to best seller status was a comic book on shop safety. DOING IT RIGHT was distributed to several million high school vocational arts students under the sponsorship of the United States Air Force-- which shows you where you can end up when you start writing science fiction.
The commercial market for essays is almost nonexistent. In the late 70's, a Philadelphia editor named Dan Rottenberg improved that situation by converting a neighborhood newspaper, the Welcomat, into a "forum" exclusively devoted to opinion pieces. (Never mind the name of the paper-- it reached 80,000 people in Philadelphia's very affluent downtown residential neighborhood.) I started selling Rottenberg pieces on various subjects around the time I bought my first computer in 1984.
In 1988, I was magically transformed into a music critic and turned out seven years of a weekly Welcomat column "Classical, Baroque, etc.", reviewing three or four Philadelphia music events per column. Since then I've been a music critic and arts writer for two other Philadelphia weeklies, a regional arts magazine called Seven Arts, a national online guide to the arts called CultureFinder, the Philadelphia guide posted by CitySearch, and Philadelphia magazine. For a look at my current efforts as a reviewer, visit the Broad Street Review, an online publication sponsored by Philadelphia's University of the Arts and edited by the same Dan Rottenberg who edited the Welcomat.
Born April 19, 1936
November 1957-- Met Sara Wescoat, religious writer and editor from Amarillo, Texas, in center city Philadelphia coffee house.
November 19, 1960-- Married Sara Wescoat.
April 1964-- Became father of Christopher Purdom, now
Chris Purdom, a software Principal Architect currently working for the world's largest online retailer.September 1987-- Christopher Purdom marries Barbara Lamond.
October 1992-- Grandson, Benjamin Jonathan Purdom born to Christopher Purdom and Barbara Lamond Purdom.
September 1994-- Granddaughter, Rachel Lamond Purdom born.
September 14, 2006-- Sara Purdom dies after five months in home hospice care as a late stage Alzheimer's patient.
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