Monday, February 21, 2005

Leonard Sanders

I saw in the paper today that novelist and journalist Leonard Sanders has passed away. Among other books he wrote a best-selling espionage novel called THE HAMLET WARNING and a well-received historical novel about Fort Worth entitled, well, FORT WORTH. But I knew him best as the book review editor of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram during the Sixties and Seventies. Unlike some book review editors, Leonard never looked down his nose at popular fiction, and his weekly column often touched on some aspect of it. It was through reading Leonard's columns that I learned Robert E. Howard was born in Peaster, Texas, about twenty miles as the crow flies from where I lived. The Lancer paperback editions of Howard's Conan stories had started to come out, and at that time L. Sprague de Camp's intros still said that Howard was born in Cross Plains, which was, of course, incorrect. After reading that column, I had to pay a visit to Peaster myself, so that I could say I had been to the town where Robert E. Howard was born. (There's not much else to say about Peaster, even now. It's your typical wide-place-in-the-road Texas town.) Through reading Leonard Sanders' columns, I also learned that bestselling historical romance novelist Jennifer Wilde was really Fort Worth writer Tom Huff, and that hardboiled spy novelist Philip Atlee was really another Fort Worth boy, James Atlee Philips. When you're a young aspiring writer like I was at the time, it's a real boost to know that writers just down the road from where you live have been successful. It gives you hope, and that's always something young writers need plenty of.

In later years, after I was a published author myself and after Leonard had retired from the newspaper to concentrate on his fiction, we crossed paths several times at book signings and got along well. We weren't close friends, but we were certainly friendly acquaintances. And it was nice to be able to tell him how much I had enjoyed his columns and how one of them had caused me to visit Peaster just to see where REH was born. He seemed to get a kick out of that. I'm glad to have known him.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

Another good guy gone. Too many obits in the blogs this morning!

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry he's gone. I never met him, though I grew up hearing about him (he lived here as a child). He donated books to our school library, and I always wanted to meet him. Now it's too late.

Anonymous said...

Mr. SAnders may have been a decent writer but Mr. sanders as a person was not the kind of man he pretended to be. I knew Mr. SAnders personally and I must tell you he was not a good person.

Anonymous said...

So anonymous, tell me why I should believe someone who hints at things without any credible proof and has yet to master the intricacies of the SHIFT key ?

Anonymous said...

Leonard was a friend of mine. He grew up in Granite, Oklahoma. His mother, Jacque, worked for my father at The Granite Enterprise newspaper as a proofreader. I believe his dad had "Sanders Grocery" across the street from our newspaper offices. Although Leonard or "Sandy" as friends called him, was older than me, I got acquainted with him about 25 years ago. He was a true friend, and positive critic. I miss him.

Anonymous said...

My grandmother has a bible commentary with a signature saying "L Leonard Sanders 1931" and a sticker in the top left corner printed with the words "part of the personal library of Leonard Sanders". is it his?!?!?!