Mildred Clingerman

(March 14, 1918 – February 26, 1997)

Mildred Clingerman (née McElroy) was well-known as a science fiction/fantasy writer in the 1950s. She was widely published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction — as well as in slick periodicals such as The Atlantic, Colliers, Good Housekeeping, and Woman's Home Companion.

In 1960, a paperback edition of her short stories, titled A Cupful of Space, was published by Ballantine, her only book during her lifetime. A recent collection of her stories is The Clingerman Files (2017). Her stories have also appeared in several anthologies, including literature textbooks for middle and high school students.

She attended conventions, including the Clevention, where she performed in the chorus of a fannish play.

She was born in Allen, Oklahoma, and moved with her mother and sister to Tucson in 1929. She graduated from Tucson High School, and then attended the University of Arizona. She married Stuart Kendall Clingerman, a construction superintendent, in 1937 and they subsequently had two children, a son and a daughter. During World War II, she worked at a flight-training school while her husband was in the United States Army — the only job she said she ever had outside the home.

Mildred was a charter member and a founder of the Tucson Writer's Club and was active in the Tucson Press Club, serving multiple terms on its Board of Directors. She was also a collector of books of all kinds — especially those by and about Kenneth Grahame -- and of Victorian travel journals.

• Entry in The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.
• Website.

Awards, Honors and GoHships:

• 2014 — Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award

---

Person

1918—1997

This is a biography page. Please extend it by adding more information about the person, such as fanzines and apazines published, awards, clubs, conventions worked on, GoHships, impact on fandom, external links, anecdotes, etc. See Standards for People and The Naming of Names.