Name: SIMAK, Clifford Donald Aged: 83
Born: August 3, 1904 Where: Millville, Wisconsin
Married: Agnes Kuchenberg When: April 13, 1929
Died: April 25, 1988 Where: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Interred: Lakewood Cemetery, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Awarded: International Fantasy Award for novel, City (1953). Hugos for "The Big Front Yard" (1959 Novelette); Way Station (1964 Novel); and for "Grotto of the Dancing Deer" (1981 Short Story). The 1976 SFWA's award of Grand Master. Nebula for "Grotto of the Dancing Deer" (1980 Short Story). 1973 First Fandom Hall of Fame.

A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Simak moved about the midwest during the 1930s until he finally ended up in Minneapolis with a job working for the Minneapolis Star. He stayed there through 1976, becoming news editor of the Star in 1949.

Clifford was one of those great, innovative SF writers that the 1950s had in abundance (although he began selling SF in the early 1930's). He may be even more popular in the UK than in the US. Simak loved to use 'doors between dimensions' as a device to allow his characters to move about the universe. City will likely be Simak's hallmark book, but there are many highly notable such as Time and Again and Cemetery World.

Disturbed by Kingsley Amis's New Maps of Hell, Simak revealed a side of his personality in a letter to PITFCS: "I feel that by and large he (Amis) has committed a gratuitous insult against the entire field. But I am convulsed with glee over his dubbing me 'science fiction's religious writer.' I should hope that the Recording Angel will make due note of this to balance against my lifetime irreverence of everything ecclesiastical."

Simak was also a highly acclaimed writer of Horror Stories, winning the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mine here.

BIOGRAPHY: Who Was Who in America, Vol IX, p328
and Science Fiction Writers, Scribners 1982

OBITUARY: Associated Press, Wednesday, April 27, 1988

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