MEACHAM, Beth

(1951-)

   US writer and editor who worked first as an sf bookseller before joining ACE BOOKS in 1981, where she developed the careers of Greg BEAR, Orson Scott CARD and Tim POWERS, among others; she also discovered JamesP. BLAYLOCK and oversaw the revived Ace SF Specials. She left Ace for TOR BOOKS in 1984, where as head of sf and fantasy she supervised the company's unusually large sf editorial staff and worked with authors like Card, Kim Stanley ROBINSON and Walter Jon WILLIAMS. In 1989 she resignedas editor-in-chief to become executive editor with a general acquisition brief.With her husband, Tappan King (1950-), she wrote Nightshade * (1976), a novel in the Weird Heroes sequence. She collaborated with WayneBARLOWE and Ian Summers on Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials (1979; rev 1987), and with Summers and Vincent DI FATE on Di Fate's Catalog of Science Fiction Hardware (1980). With Baird SEARLES, Martin Last and Michael Franklin she wrote A Reader's Guide to Science Fiction (1979), and with Searles and Franklin A Reader's Guide to Fantasy (1982). She is perhaps best known to the reading public for editing Terry's Universe (anth 1988), an original anthology in memory of Terry CARR.

   PNH