Deuce has asked me to say a few words about Manly Wade Wellman, and it is a privilege to do so, with this being the anniversary of Manly's passing thirty-five years ago.

Fickle memory is telling me that I discovered Manly Wade Wellman through my local library. Back in the very early ‘80s his run of Doubleday novels filled the shelves there, as did Stuart Schiff's Whispers and Charles L. Grant's Shadows anthologies. It was a glorious time in genre fiction.

There's something unique about Manly's fiction that appealed to me, and it was perhaps the innate dignity and inherent decency of his protagonists, a common thread that runs through all of them. In a time of moral ambiguity and the antihero-types, I found this very appealing. My admiration for his work increased with Who Fears the Devil?, the Arkham House collection that, incredibly, I could still get from the Los Angeles library through an interlibrary loan.

But the topper of all this was the discovery of the two Carcosa volumes, edited by Karl Edward Wagner. Worse Things Waiting remains in my mind possibly the best genre small press book ever published. Its impact on me as a reader and a book guy was enormous; truly the cream of the crop from Manly's pulp fiction years. I had it perpetually on loan from the library until I could locate a copy of my own, strangely enough nearly impossible in the 1980s. It took me years of inquiry to all the name book dealers until I finally procured a copy from (appropriately) Stuart Schiff. It was and remains one of my most treasured books.

Flash forward decades and we are in 2011. My then-new significant other is writer Tracy L. Carbone and, in an effort keep control over her fiction, we hatch a publishing venture we called Shadowridge Press. I never intended the imprint to be much of a vehicle beyond publishing Tracy's work, but circumstances led us into other directions.

Through acquaintances and friendships we became publishers to the likes of Dennis Etchison and Peter Atkins, something I am extremely proud of. And we also became the publisher of Manly Wade Wellman.

Over the years the Carcosa volumes became collectibles, fetching some serious dollars on the secondary market, rendering them all but impossible for most readers to obtain. Books at that price tend to be collectible shelf ornaments in order to maintain their value. I had hopes that I could change this situation, and finally worked up the courage to approach author David Drake, who not only controls the remaining assets of Carcosa (with Jim Groce) but also happens to be the literary executor for Manly Wade Wellman.

I wish I could tell an exciting story of wrestling to secure a deal in getting these books back in the print... but the reality is it was incredibly easy, and dealing with Mr. Drake was one of the most pleasant experiences I've had in publishing. Always quick to respond to inquiries and very open with his insights into questions I had regarding Wellman and Carcosa, we quickly closed the deal with essentially the equivalent of a handshake. The result was the Shadowridge editions of Worse Things Waiting and Lonely Vigils. And without going into specifics, Mr. Drake did something I found to be incredibly generous; a very selfless thing that has certainly earned my respect. An incredibly decent guy.

Small press publishers are like a candle in the darkness, who do what they do out of love for what they publish. It is certainly not for the money. I'm pleased to play a small part in helping to keep alive the legacy of Manly Wade Wellman.