Work and beliefs Born in
Philadelphia, deFord studied at
Wellesley College and
Temple University. She later studied at the
University of Pennsylvania. She worked as a newspaper
reporter for a time. She later described herself as a "born feminist" and was active in the
Women's suffrage movement before 1920. A campaigner and disseminator of
birth control information to women, she was a member of the
Socialist Party of America from 1919 to 1922. During the 1930s, deFord joined the
Federal Writers' Project and wrote the book
They Were San Franciscans for the Project. Interviewed for the
League of American Writers pamphlet
Writers Take Sides about the
Spanish Civil War, deFord expressed strong support for the
Spanish Republic. She added,
"I am unalterably and actively opposed to fascism, Nazism, Hitlerism, Hirohitoism, or whatever name may be applied to the monster." Writing career Most of her writing focused on
mystery fiction and
science fiction and she published several anthologies in mystery and crime writing. In 1960, she wrote
The Overbury Affair, which looked at events surrounding the murder of
Sir Thomas Overbury during the reign of
James I of Britain - for this work she received a 1961
Edgar Award from the
Mystery Writers of America for Best Fact Crime book. In 1949,
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction was created, with
Anthony Boucher as editor. He was known for his
science fiction and fantasy but also garnered attention in the mystery field as well, which gave his magazine some cross-over appeal to mystery writers like deFord. Many of her science fiction stories first appeared in Boucher's magazine and dealt with themes like nuclear devastation, alienation, and changing sexual roles. Her two collections are
Elsewhere, Elsewhen, Elsehow and
Xenogenesis. She edited an anthology of stories mixing science fiction with mystery called
Space, Time, and Crime. DeFord was also a passionate
Fortean, and carried out fieldwork for
Charles Fort; she is mentioned in his book
Lo! Shortly before her death in 1975, Fortean writer
Loren Coleman visited deFord and interviewed her about her earlier interactions with Fort and her trips to
Chico, California, to investigate the case of a
poltergeist rock-thrower on Fort's behalf. She worked for
Humanist magazine and she was one of the signatories of the
Humanist Manifesto. ==Death==