Adventures In Writing

I'm Getting To Write An Avenger Short Story!

I grew up reading the Avenger novel series. There were originally 24 books published between 1939 and 1942. When the series was reprinted in the early 1970s, after the success of Doc Savage and The Shadow, it was so popular that Ron Goulart was hired to write 12 more of them.

(This is the first cover of the 1970s paperback series. I still remember buying it off the spinner rack.)



Richard Henry Benson was an adventurer. Then his wife and daughter were taken from him and killed. His suffered a breakdown that left his face dead and pasty gray. He found he could move it into any shape he wanted to, and even mold it into the likeness of other people. He became the man of 1000 faces, a crimefighter with a singular style.

(This is the original 1939 pulp cover.)



Moonstone Books is doing an anthology of new stories, and I get to write one of them. I found out about the anthology while I was in San Diego. I also learned that the anthology was closed.

That was a bummer. But I held out hope anyway and sent emails off to the appropriate people to express my interest.

That was the first of August. Now, at the end of October, I got contacted and am officially going to write one of the stories. I also get paid a few hundred bucks. How cool is that?

My persistence paid off in a dream coming true and a paycheck!

(This is the cover to the DC Comics take on the character. By Joe Kubert, no less.)


That's what writing is all about, folks. Dream and reach for it. There's no replacement for that.