DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Fantasy Magazine, v. 4, issue 4, whole no. 28, February-March 1935

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Fantasy Magazine, v. 4, issue 4, whole no. 28, February-March 1935

Page 94

94     FANTASY

WHY I USE A PEN NAME
by FEANCIS FLAGG

I've been asked many times why I use a pen name in writing scientifiction and weird tales, and it seems, so I've been told, that the readers are interested in getting the low-down on such matters regarding their favorite authors, good, bad, and indifferent.
Francis Flagg is, I think, a good pen name. However, I did not coin it out of a fertile imagination. It was my brother's Christian name. He was named after some relatives resident in the New England States, lo, those many years diggers of rocks out of flinty soil, which is the extent of my knowledge of them. Not for them, however, did I adopt the name, but because I envied my brother the possession of such a "poetic" handle. Henry George Weiss (my real name) might be a good, practical name, maybe, but lacking in the higher vibrations. Flagg, now, Francis Flagg—how it lilts! Yet it wasn't the lilt that decided me to adopt it. For me the lilt was in my brother, and thru him, in the name. A combination, you see.
My brother Francis was younger than I by two years and—I liked and admired him. He was the strong, silent and all-conquering type. Handsome enough, with a strong face, light hair, gray eyes. Shorter than myself but far stronger. The young giant, I used to call him; dynamite in a slim package.
I think I'll tell his story, because it explains more than anything else why I took his name. It is a short story and worth the telling. At eighteen he went overseas; he fought at Cambrai and Paschaendale; was slightly wounded in the flesh of one arm; was with the army of occupation in Germany until the summer of 1919; came home—to marry.
She was a simple country girl; sweet and good but perhaps without much education. Loveliness is a matter of taste; so we shall not dwell on that. Be that as it may, they married, and were superlatively happy. I do not think two people could have been more happy than those two in their simple unaffected lives. He worked in a ship-building yard for eighteen months until one by one the ships slid down the ways with no more keels to lay and the workers laid by their tools and were laid off. He was a good worker and worked till the last; but the last time came. There was a depression round 1920-1, you know, and work hard to get. The few savings went, the girl-wife was going to have a baby, and—But there is no need to touch on everything; suffice it to say that he got a job at last—twelve hours shoveling coal for a gas company six to six nights, eighteen dollars a week for seven twelves a week. That's eighty-four hours, if you're slow on figuring. This was in 1922. The doctor said she was all right. Maybe the doctor knew they hadn't much money. He'd been working two weeks when the labor pains came on her, a couple of weeks sooner than expected. But

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94 FANTASY WHY I USE A PEN NAME by FEANCIS FLAGG I've been asked many times why I use a pen name in writing scientifiction and weird tales, and it seems, so I've been told, that the readers are interested in getting the low-down on such matters regarding their favorite authors, good, bad, and indifferent. Francis Flagg is, I think, a good pen name. However, I did not coin it out of a fertile imagination. It was my brother's Christian name. He was named after some relatives resident in the New England States, lo, those many years diggers of rocks out of flinty soil, which is the extent of my knowledge of them. Not for them, however, did I adopt the name, but because I envied my brother the possession of such a "poetic" handle. Henry George Weiss (my real name) might be a good, practical name, maybe, but lacking in the higher vibrations. Flagg, now, Francis Flagg—how it lilts! Yet it wasn't the lilt that decided me to adopt it. For me the lilt was in my brother, and thru him, in the name. A combination, you see. My brother Francis was younger than I by two years and—I liked and admired him. He was the strong, silent and all-conquering type. Handsome enough, with a strong face, light hair, gray eyes. Shorter than myself but far stronger. The young giant, I used to call him; dynamite in a slim package. I think I'll tell his story, because it explains more than anything else why I took his name. It is a short story and worth the telling. At eighteen he went overseas; he fought at Cambrai and Paschaendale; was slightly wounded in the flesh of one arm; was with the army of occupation in Germany until the summer of 1919; came home—to marry. She was a simple country girl; sweet and good but perhaps without much education. Loveliness is a matter of taste; so we shall not dwell on that. Be that as it may, they married, and were superlatively happy. I do not think two people could have been more happy than those two in their simple unaffected lives. He worked in a ship-building yard for eighteen months until one by one the ships slid down the ways with no more keels to lay and the workers laid by their tools and were laid off. He was a good worker and worked till the last; but the last time came. There was a depression round 1920-1, you know, and work hard to get. The few savings went, the girl-wife was going to have a baby, and—But there is no need to touch on everything; suffice it to say that he got a job at last—twelve hours shoveling coal for a gas company six to six nights, eighteen dollars a week for seven twelves a week. That's eighty-four hours, if you're slow on figuring. This was in 1922. The doctor said she was all right. Maybe the doctor knew they hadn't much money. He'd been working two weeks when the labor pains came on her, a couple of weeks sooner than expected. But