George Vanderburgh has been named the winner of the 2019 Munsey Award. Nominated by the general pulp community, George was selected by previous winners of the Lamont, Munsey, and Rusty Awards. The award is a fine art print created by David Saunders and published by Dan Zimmer of The Illustrated Press. It is presented annually to an individual or institution that has bettered the pulp community. Bill Lampkin — winner of the 2018 Munsey Award — presented this year’s award.
Our 2019 Munsey Award winner, GEORGE VANDERBURGH has published over 600 books through his Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, many of them directly related to the pulps. He was largely responsible for finally getting all of Fred Davis’ classic Moon Man stories back into print. And what about his Peter the Brazen series, his five volumes featuring the work of Seabury Quinn, THE COMPLEAT ADVENTURES OF THE PARK AVENUE HUNT CLUB, his Green Ghost set, THE COMPLEAT SAGA OF JOHN SOLOMON, THE ADVENTURES OF THE GOLDEN AMAZON, THE COMPLEAT ADVENTURES OF THE SUICIDE SQUAD, and others? He has also given us numerous collections of detective fiction, including volumes featuring the Thinking Machine, Dr. Thorndyke, and Martin Hewitt. Looking at his website, his future plans include several books reprinting pulp authors who have been unjustly forgotten. Along with the late Robert Weinberg, George served as the co-editor of Arkham House Publishers until the death of April Derleth. A regular attendee of pulp conventions, George has helped both longtime and new fans to collect the tales of some of the most fantastic heroes from the pulps. At this year’s PulpFest, George was part of our presentation, “The Game’s Afoot: Sherlock Holmes and the Pulps.”
Congratulations to George for this most deserved award.
Others nominated for our 2019 award included Mike Ashley, Richard Bleiler, Camille Cazedessus, William Contento, Win Scott Eckert, Ralph Grasso, Stephen Haffner, Rich Harvey, Chris Kalb, Rick Lai, Sheila Vanderbeek, Chuck Welch, Howard Wright, and Dan Zimmer.
Nominations are now being accepted for our 2020 Munsey Award. To make a nomination for this prestigious award, please send a brief essay explaining your reasons for the nomination to PulpFest marketing and programming director Mike Chomko. You can reach Mike at mike@pulpfest.com or via regular mail at 2217 W. Fairview Street, Allentown, PA 18104-6542. Previous winners of the Lamont, Munsey, or Rusty Award are not eligible for the award. Click here for a list of our previous winners.
The deadline for nominations is April 30, 2020. Please click here for additional details. Thanks for your help.
(Pictured above, the Munsey Award was created in 2009 by artist David Saunders, the son of legendary illustrator Norman Saunders. Dan Zimmer of The Illustrated Press and publisher of ILLUSTRATION MAGAZINE produced a limited signed and numbered edition of the award. The PulpFest Committee is indebted to both David and Dan for their generous support of our community.)
