December 19, 1922 – February 17, 2003
Fan historian, prodigious letterhack and long-term FAPA member, known as The Hermit of Hagerstown. Warner preferred written fanac – he attended very few conventions (though he was FGoH of Noreascon I), no fan clubs and generally discouraged visitors. He lived in Hagerstown in Maryland all his life where he was a journalist for the Herald-Mail.
He was first active in fandom in 1936, and his fanzine Spaceways, which began publication in 1938, is generally regarded as having been the focal point fanzine of the era known as Third Fandom (see Numbered Fandoms), for all that he did not subscribe to the numbered fandoms notion. Starting in 1939 he published Horizons for many years. He published two hardback volumes of fan history, All Our Yesterdays and A Wealth of Fable. A Wealth of Fable won the Hugo Award in 1993 for Best Related Book.
In FAPA, from the 30s until his death, he had an issue of Horizons in all but two mailings, usually 24pp, and from the mid-50s until his death he was a prolific letterhack to fanzines – indeed, people said only half jokingly that if a fanzine’s letter column did not contain a letter from Warner, it almost could not be called a fanzine. His first LoC was to ASF in 1936.
Honors and awards: He won Hugo Awards for Best Fan Writer in 1969 and 1972. Additionally, he won the E. E. Evans Memorial Award in 1969, and was inducted into the First Fandom Hall of Fame in 1995. He was a member of First Fandom. A member of N3F, he was on the Board of Directors in the 40s and won a Kaymar Award in 1978. He also won two FAAN awards for his LoCs.
Contributors: Dr. Gafia
