Former Arkham House editor and current Golden Gryphon Press publisher James Turner died on Palm Sunday, March 28th.
Turner was the third editor of small press Arkham House, founded (in Sauk City, Wisconsin) in the 1930s by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei as a publication vehicle for the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Turner became editor following Derleth's death in 1971, and expanded the publisher's focus from horror to contemporary science fiction with short story collections by many of the genre's leading writers. Books by Michael Bishop, Greg Bear, James Tiptree, Jr., Joanna Russ, Bruce Sterling, and others were published to critical and commercial success in the 1980s and 1990s. At the same time Arkham House maintained its Lovecraft tradition, with revised and corrected story collections edited by S.T. Joshi.
Turner parted with Arkham House in 1996 and founded Golden Gryphon Press, which continued the mix of SF and horror, producing collections by James Patrick Kelly, R. Garcia y Robertson, Robert Reed, and (forthcoming) Tony Daniel, as well as the anthology Eternal Lovecraft, edited by Turner.
We have these appreciations of Turner by John Kessel and Robert Reed. Locus Magazine will publish longer obituary of Turner, along with appreciations by James Patrick Kelly, Michael Swanwick, and others.
