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August Derleth
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==Life== The son of William Julius Derleth and Rose Louise Volk, Derleth grew up in [[Sauk City, Wisconsin]].<ref name="captimes2">"August Derleth Services Wednesday in Sauk City", ''Capital Times'', July 6, 1971, p. 24, col. 2.</ref> He was educated in local parochial and public high school. Derleth wrote his first fiction at age 13. He was interested most in reading, and he made three trips to the library a week. He would save his money to buy books (his personal library exceeded 12,000 volumes later on in life). Some of his biggest influences were [[Ralph Waldo Emerson]]'s essays, [[Walt Whitman]], [[H. L. Mencken]]'s ''[[The American Mercury]]'', [[Samuel Johnson]]'s ''[[The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia]]'', [[Alexandre Dumas, père|Alexandre Dumas]], [[Edgar Allan Poe]], [[Walter Scott]], and [[Henry David Thoreau]]'s [[Walden]]. Forty rejected stories and three years later, according to anthologist Jim Stephens, he sold his first story, "Bat's Belfry", to ''[[Weird Tales]]'' magazine in 1926. Derleth wrote throughout his four years at the [[University of Wisconsin–Madison|University of Wisconsin]], where he received a [[Bachelor's Degree|B.A.]] in 1930.<ref name="captimes1">{{cite news|title=Author August Derleth Dies|date=July 5, 1971|newspaper=Capital Times|page=1, col. 6}}</ref> During this time he also served briefly as associate editor of Minneapolis-based [[Fawcett Publications]] ''Mystic Magazine''. Returning to Sauk City in the summer of 1931, Derleth worked in a local canning factory and collaborated with childhood friend [[Mark Schorer]] (later Chairman of the [[University of California, Berkeley]] English Department). They rented a cabin, writing Gothic and other horror stories and selling them to ''[[Weird Tales]]'' magazine. Derleth won a place on the O'Brien Roll of Honor for ''Five Alone'', published in ''Place of Hawks'', but was first published in ''Pagany'' magazine. As a result of his early work on the ''Sac Prairie Saga'', Derleth was awarded the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship; his sponsors were [[Helen C. White]], Nobel Prize-winning novelist [[Sinclair Lewis]] and poet [[Edgar Lee Masters]] of ''[[Spoon River Anthology]]'' fame. In the mid-1930s, Derleth organized a Ranger's Club for young people, served as clerk and president of the local [[Board of education|school board]], served as a parole officer, organized a local men's club and a [[parent-teacher association]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.derleth.org/autobiog.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080704121500/http://www.derleth.org/autobiog.htm|url-status=dead|title=Derleth, August. "An Autobiography."|archive-date=July 4, 2008}}</ref> He also lectured in American regional literature at the University of Wisconsin and was a contributing editor of ''Outdoors Magazine''. With longtime friend [[Donald Wandrei]], Derleth founded [[Arkham House]] in 1939. Its initial objective was to publish the works of H. P. Lovecraft, with whom Derleth had corresponded since his teenage years. At the same time, he began teaching a course in American Regional Literature at the University of Wisconsin. In 1941, he became literary editor of ''[[The Capital Times]]'' newspaper in [[Madison, Wisconsin|Madison]], a post he held until his resignation in 1960. His hobbies included fencing, swimming, chess, [[philately]] and comic-strips (Derleth reportedly used the funding from his Guggenheim Fellowship to bind his comic book collection, most recently valued in the millions of dollars, rather than to travel abroad as the award intended.). Derleth's true [[avocation]], however, was hiking the terrain of his native Wisconsin lands, and observing and recording nature with an expert eye. Derleth once wrote of his writing methods, "I write very swiftly, from 750,000 to a million words yearly, very little of it pulp material." In 1948, he was elected president of the Associated Fantasy Publishers at the [[6th World Science Fiction Convention]] in [[Toronto]].<ref name="chtr480926">{{cite news |first=Vincent |last=Starett |newspaper=[[Chicago Tribune]] |title=Books Alive |page=4 |url=http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1948/09/26/page/184/article/magazine-of-books |date=September 26, 1948 |access-date=March 7, 2015 |archive-date=April 2, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402182947/http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1948/09/26/page/184/article/magazine-of-books/ |url-status=live }}</ref> He was married April 6, 1953, to Sandra Evelyn Winters. They divorced six years later.<ref name="captimes1" /> Derleth retained custody of the couple's two children, [[April Rose Derleth]] and [[Walden William Derleth]]. April earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1977. She became majority stockholder, President, and CEO of Arkham House in 1994. She remained in that capacity until her death. She was known in the community as a naturalist and humanitarian. April died on March 21, 2011.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sfsite.com/news/2011/03/22/obituary-april-r-derleth/|title=SF Site News » Obituary: April R. Derleth|access-date=March 23, 2019|archive-date=October 23, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201023060750/https://www.sfsite.com/news/2011/03/22/obituary-april-r-derleth/|url-status=live}}</ref> In 1960, Derleth began editing and publishing a magazine called ''Hawk and Whippoorwill'', dedicated to poems of man and nature. Derleth died of a heart attack on July 4, 1971,<ref>{{cite news|title=Author August Derleth Dies|date=July 5, 1971|newspaper=Capital Times|page=1, col. 6|quote=August Derleth, 62, famed Wisconsin author and publisher, died Sunday of an apparent heart attack.}}</ref> and is buried in St. Aloysius Cemetery in Sauk City.<ref name="captimes2" /> The [[U.S. Route 12 in Wisconsin|U.S. 12]] bridge over the [[Wisconsin River]] is named in his honor. Derleth was [[Roman Catholic]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.catholicauthors.com/derleth.html|title=August Derleth - CatholicAuthors.com|website=www.catholicauthors.com|access-date=April 13, 2018|archive-date=March 5, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305010603/http://www.catholicauthors.com/derleth.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In Derleth's biography, Dorothy M. Grobe Litersky stated that Derleth was bisexual, and maintained long-term romantic relationships with both men and women. This assertion has not been verified; no names were given of these romantic partners (in the interest of privacy according to Litersky), and no evidence or acknowledgement of Derleth having a bisexual or homosexual orientation has ever been found in his personal correspondence.<ref name="derlethdeepcuts">{{cite web |last1=Derie |first1=Bobby |title=Derleth: Hawk…and Dove (1997) by Dorothy M. Grobe Litersky |url=https://deepcuts.blog/2020/09/30/derleth-hawk-and-dove-1997-by-dorothy-m-grobe-litersky/ |website=deepcuts.blog |date=September 30, 2020 |access-date=23 August 2022}}</ref>
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