Damon Knight (1922-2002), noted science fiction and fantasy editor and novelist, and master of the short story, in conversation with the hosts of Probabilities, Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, on July 3, 1983 at Westercon San Jose.
Damon Knight, who died at the age of 79 back in 2002, made his mark in the world of science fiction as a short story writer, novelist, and as an editor of several magazines and anthologies, including the Orbit series of 21 paperback anthologies, which ran for over a decade. In a career that stretched from 1940 to the mid-1990s, he wrote seventeen novels, and a long list of science fiction and fantasy short stories. His most famous story, “To Serve Man” became a classic Twilight Zone episode. For those in the field, however, he is most noted for being the founder of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) organization, and the co-founder of the legendary Milford and Clarion Writers Workshops.
The interview began with questions about his start as a science fiction writer, and his entry into a group of leftist science fiction writers known as the Futurians, in the early 1940s, and continued into a discussion of the founding of SFWA, his work as an editor, and his work in early television
After 1983, he would go on to write seven more novels after the interview in the nearly two decades he would go on to live. As with many revered science fiction authors of the second half of the twentieth century, without any new television or film credits, his renown has faded over time, and few, if any, of his novels or anthologies remain in print, though some are available as ebooks.
This interview was digitized, remastered and re-edited in March and April 2021 by Richard Wolinsky. As with most of the Probabilities interviews, this interview hadn’t seen the light of day since it was first aired, and has never been aired or published in its entirety until now.