C.L. Moore 

Author of Judgment Night

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Catherine Lucille Moore was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1911, and from an early age she proved to be a prolific storyteller.

 

Moore discovered the world of science fiction in 1930 through the seminal pulp magazine Amazing Stories, and was inspired to try her hand at this exciting new literary form. In 1933 she succeeded with the sale of her first story, “Shambleau,” to Weird Tales, where it ran as the lead in the November issue. “Shambleau” was an immediate success, winning praise from readers and writers alike (including horror legend H.P. Lovecraft). Moore became a mainstay of Weird Tales throughout the 1930s, turning out fourteen more stories for the magazine by the end of the decade (as well as contributing to several other publications). In 1940 she married science fiction writer Henry Kuttner and began an extended period of collaboration with him. The couple moved to Hastings-on-Hudson, just north of the pulp magazines’ headquarters in New York City, and unleashed a torrent of creativity on the genre’s ever-growing audience. In addition to work signed with their own names, Moore and Kuttner wrote under at least 17 assumed names, of which Lewis Padgett and Keith Hammond were probably the most renowned.

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After 10 years in New York, Moore and Kuttner moved back to Kuttner’s native California to earn college degrees and investigate the screenwriting market. With aid from the G.I. Bill, Kuttner graduated from the University of Southern California in 1954, and Moore followed in 1956. They succeeded in breaking into scriptwriting for both radio and television, but their collaboration ended sadly with Kuttner’s death from a heart attack in 1958. Moore continued to work, writing scripts for television shows like Maverick and 77 Sunset Strip and branching into the mystery genre, but she never again wrote science fiction. She remarried in 1963 to Thomas Reggie, and spent the rest of her life in Hollywood before passing away in 1987. Moore’s groundbreaking contributions to the medium she helped to define, however, were never forgotten. In 1981 she was presented with the World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement, and in 1998 she was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame.