James Gunn leans back in his chair
as he speaks, with his legs crossed and hands locked behind a full head of
silver-gray hair. He sits in an office filled with books bearing titles that
promise visions of the future: "The Dreamers", "Star Bridge", and
"The Immortals". Most of the volumes have his name stamped on the
spine. Gunn has written 26 books and more than 100 short stories and worked at
the
Gunn was in the second grade when he found a stack of Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan books in his grandparents' back closet. This discovery lead Gunn to a life-long relationship with science fiction.
Gunn, professor emeritus of English, remembers his father bringing home the second issue of a pulp magazine called "Doc Savage" in 1933, when he was 10 years old. In a Kansas City magazine store, he discovered Amazing Stories, one of the first science fiction pulps.
"It was our form of cheap entertainment during the Depression years," Gunn said.
After serving in World War II, Gunn returned home and finished college at KU. He began writing his own science fiction in 1948.
After submitting his short stories to several magazines and getting rejection letters from famous editors like John Campbell at Astounding Stories, Gunn finally found success.
"A magazine called Thrilling Wonder Stories bought my story for $80 and I thought that was a pretty good deal," Gunn said.
Gunn went back to school to get a master's in English and earned the distinction of having the only master's thesis ever serialized in a pulp magazine. He also published his first novel, "This Fortress World".
"The first one was the most important, because it proved I could do it," Gunn said
In 1955, Gunn moved back to Lawrence and started teaching English courses at the University. After he finished two more novels, he was asked by then-Chancellor W. Clarke Wescoe to be in charge of public relations for the University.
During his tenure at University Relations, Gunn witnessed the campus unrest in the 1960s that culminated in the burning of the top floor of the Kansas Union. Out of that experience came his novel "Kampus".
Because it came from personal experience, "Kampus" remains one of Gunn's favorite novels, although he said it is difficult to have favorites.
"Novels are like family members, you like them for different reasons," Gunn said.
Gunn left University Relations and went back to teaching English in 1970. He taught courses in science fiction and fiction writing until he retired from teaching full-time in 1993. Despite retirement, Gunn still works as the director of the Center for the Study of Science Fiction, a program he started to coordinate various resources for scholars and students of the genre.
"That's the amazing thing about Jim, is that he's been retired for more than 10 years, but he's in the office every day," Chris McKitterick said. McKitterick is a lecturer in English and associate director of the Center.
Through the Center, Gunn teaches a summer course every year called the Intensive Institute on the Teaching of SF.
Gunn started the Institute as a way to give fellow teachers a background in the history of science fiction so that they could teach the subject with more confidence.
"I would get letters from teachers across the country, saying 'I want to teach a class in science fiction, what do I teach?'" Gunn said.
The Institute coincides with the Campbell Conference, a gathering of science fiction writers from around the world that gives awards for the year's best novel and short story.
"He's brought the best writers here, and that's been exciting, to get to meet and talk with them," said Mary Klayder, honors lecturer in English.
Gunn's work in the teaching and scholarship of science fiction has inspired many of his colleagues and former students.
Nate Williams, graduate teaching assistant in English, got out of reading science fiction in college, but rediscovered it later when he discovered that there were scholars like Gunn who studied the genre in a more rigorous way.
"I saw James Gunn give a presentation at a convention in Kansas City, where he talked about a story called 'Cold Equations', and I immediately had to go out and read it, because I'd never heard anyone talk about science fiction that way before," Williams said.
In 2006, Science Fiction Writers of America awarded Gunn the title of Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master, for his lifetime of work in the field.
"That award had as much to do with his writing and teaching as with the people he's influenced," McKitterick said. "I know I wouldn't be the writer I am today if it weren't for James Gunn."
Gunn has a great deal of advice for budding science fiction writers and scholars.
"There's an old saying, that if you can discourage someone from going into writing, you should," Gunn said. "It's a hard career filled with work, rejection, and disappointment, but if it's the only thing that makes people happy, they should go for it."
In return, Gunn's students and fellow science fiction scholars have many things to day about him.
"Jim is a successful scholar, a successful writer, and a successful human being," Williams said. "He's a genuinely good person."
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