JOHN KEEL NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING

buy Pregabalin india “The Crisis” was published in the Bowery News, June 15, 1949.  (Some issues were dated; some were not.)  John was nineteen.

“Dusty Feet” appeared in the Bowery News in 1947 (no date, but it was Volume 1, Number 10).   John was 17 at the time; it was one of his first sales.  I assume he was indulging in some poetic license in some of these lines….

The Bowery News, subtitled “The Voice of Society’s Basement,” was aimed at “mission stiffs and hoboes, dock wallopers and pearl divers [dock workers and dishwashers], wingies and plingies [one-armed beggars and panhandlers], smokehounds and canned heat artists [drug addicts and wood alcohol drinkers]”; John contributed occasionally in his teens.  It was originally called the Hobo News, reviving an earlier paper by that name. And here he is photographed by one of the paper’s regulars.

John Keel spent a large part of the ’50s writing for men’s adventure magazines and then reworking the material into his first book, Jadoo. He summed up his experiences in an article for the April 1958 issue of Writer’s Digest: a fascinating look at the young writer, figuring out how to sell his stuff. He’s not writing here for the general public, but for fellow writers; and discusses the different types of adventure stories and the tricky issue of blending fact and fiction to make a sale. He also gives the background for several of his published stories. The article ends with a list of men’s magazines and their rates.

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Another sighting makes it into the papers, this time in the Athens Messenger, December 19, 1966.

Here’s another clipping (a photocopied one; sorry for the quality) from the midst of the Mothman flap.  This one is from the Springfield News, November 30, 1966.  The sightings were just getting started.

This is how John signed a copy of his last book, The Best of John Keel, a collection of his Fate columns, published by Galde Press.  He delayed writing an introduction for it, partially because he was in and out of the hospital, and partially because he was having trouble writing.  Eventually, I ended up writing the introduction, just to get it published.

After the publication of Jadoo, John experienced a classic case of writer’s block.  He wrote an article about it for the Writer’s Digest, in August, 1959.  I’ve posted it over on another page, so please click to read it.  (more…)

In this report for the Ohio, Athens Messenger, Mary Hyre describes a visit to NYC.  She appears with John Keel on the Long John Nebel show, interviews the enigmatic Vivenus, and attends the 1967 Congress of Scientific Ufologists.  We even get a glimpse of the young James Randi, back when he gave talks at UFO conferences.