Thu 29 Mar 2007
John F. Carr on MICHAEL E. KNERR
Posted by Steve under Authors , Obituaries / Deaths Noted[25] Comments
After the review was posted, I continued trying to find out more about Knerr, eventually coming across several Internet postings about him by John F. Carr. Carr is a science fiction writer and editor with a long list of credits on the Internet Speculative Fiction Data Base.
Carr’s recent endeavors have largely been in conjunction with the SF (and occasional mystery) writer, H. Beam Piper, keeping his work in print and writing several stories and novels in Piper’s “Lord Kalvan” series. He recently finished a biography, H. Beam Piper: A Biography for McFarland & Company, which will be published next year. There’s a connection between Piper and Knerr, which Carr addresses in his reply to me, after I was able to get in touch with him:
You came to the right person, as I knew Michael – not very well, but better than probably any other writer left alive. Michael’s middle initial was E., and while I’m not familiar with Travis, according to his son, it’s Mike’s book. He wrote a number of books for Monarch and Pinnacle in the late 50’s and early 60’s. In 1962 he went to Southern California, where he wrote a number of soft-core porn books for various outfits, like Uptown Books – all pretty harmless in today’s vernacular! I have a copy of The Sex Life of the Gods, and it’s pretty typical hackwork… Better than some, but not up to the stuff Sturgeon and Farmer were doing a few years later.

Mike was in many way Beam’s protege, and his closest friend during his last few years in Williamsport, Pennsylvania before Piper shot himself on November 9, 1964. They met at a local Williamsport writers’ group in 1959 and they spent a lot of time together talking about writing and drinking. Mike was absolutely devastated by Beam’s suicide. In fact, he blamed himself for not realizing that Beam needed help. The truth was that Mike was married, with two young sons and working full time as a reporter, and had neglected, for these very good reasons, his friend Beam Piper.
I’m sure Piper understood, and his problems were far deeper than any small loan would have addressed. Piper was a very private man and would have never burdened a friend with his personal or financial problems. He took what he thought was the only sensible way out of what he saw was a closed box — a stalled career, the recent death of his friend and long-time agent Kenneth White, a bad case of writer’s block and no money. He was too proud and self-sufficient to ever go on relief!
I first heard about Mike Knerr through the offices of Ace Books and my then editor Beth Meacham, when Mike called her, extremely irate over my factual errors about his “best friend, H. Beam Piper” in my introduction to the Piper short story collection, Federation. I told Beth to have Mike call me direct and we had a good conversation; I told him that I was only writing what other people had told me that Piper had said about his ex-wife and other factual errors. After Mike calmed down, he admitted that Piper “told a lot of bullshit about his past” and we ended the conversation on a good note. We corresponded and he provided me some information on Beam’s life and quotes from his diaries, which he had in his possession.
After our talk Mike discovered the “lost” Fuzzy novel (Fuzzies and Other People) in one of the trunks that he’d taken from Piper’s apartment mislabeled in a box as “second pages.” In lieu of payment (Ace Books offered him several thousand dollars — Mike called it “blood money”) for the “lost” Fuzzy book — Mike stuck a deal whereby he would write a biography of Beam based on his first-hand knowledge and Piper’s diaries which ran from 1955 to his death. Ace agreed and he sat down and over the next several years wrote the book Piper. Unfortunately, when he turned the book in Ace reneged and told him they were no longer interested. He was about to destroy it when I called to obtain his permission to quote his letters for the article, “The Last Cavalier: H. Beam Piper,” I was writing for Analog Science Fiction–Fact magazine.
Mike was mad as hell, and I managed to calm him down a bit and told him it would be a crime if he destroyed Beam’s legacy in a fit of pique, since he had the only copy of the diaries. Instead, I suggested that he send me a copy of his Piper biography for safe keeping. You could have knocked me over with a paper clip when three months later it arrived in my P.O. Box! He sent me the original manuscript; I know that because it was backed with several other manuscripts (a lot of old timers did this to save on paper). I am certain that I have the only copy in existence…
I lost contact with Mike in 1992, when he was living in Sausalito with his third or fourth wife. He was a good looking guy, and a great man for the ladies. He moved around a lot, and did the typical writer’s gigs, worked at Sylvania, a local newspaper, etc.
See the attached photos. In person, he had a raspy voice and a violent demeanor, like one of his own anti-hero protagonists! He wasn’t someone you’d mess around with.

His books, like The Violent Lady (Monarch, 1963), were pretty good for the time and the outfits he wrote them for. He really wanted to write historical novels based in Central Pennsylvania, but couldn’t sell them. His agent was Kenneth White, who died in 1964, which is when Mike decided to cut back his writing to hobby status, although he would have never put it that way!
I talked to his son recently and he told me his father was born on May 31, 1936 in Williamsport, PA (where Piper was based in the early 60’s, which is my connection). He was a hunter, civil war re-enactor, horseman, built flintlock rifles, and loved boats and sailing.
Mike was a former newspaper man (the Shamokin newspaper) and in 1973 moved permanently (except for a short time in Woolrich, PA) to Southern California, specifically Alameda, Sausalito and L.A.
Here’s the list of titles his son gave me of Knerr’s works: The Violent Lady, 3 Willing Females, The Sex Lives of the Gods, Heavy Weather, Sasquach, Suicide in Guyana, Brazen Broads, Operation: Lust, and Travis. He isn’t sure if this list is complete, probably not since many were written under pseudonyms and/or were lost in his many moves…

Mike Knerr died in 1999. I don’t have the actual date, just a note from his son that he died at age 64.
This is about the sum total of my knowledge of Mike, except that I liked him even though he was a rough cob – I sure as hell wouldn’t have wanted him as an enemy!
NOTE: A chapter excerpted from The Last Cavalier, John’s biography of H. Beam Piper, has been uploaded to the original Mystery*File website. Entitled “California Dreamin’” and largely in Mike Knerr’s own words, it describes his experiences writing soft-core porn in California before returning to Pennsylvania, and the time he spent with H. Beam Piper in Williamsport before the latter took his own life.
August 16th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
Mr. Carr
Thanks for putting in the pics of dad. Two short stories were published in Louis L’Amour
mags. I’ll see if I can get the issue, and dates.
Daniel W Knerr
August 29th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
Dad wrote at least one article in Louis L’Amour Magazine (July ’95) under Brent Hart: “The Six Hundred Pound Nugget.” Hart was the last name of his second and last wife, correcting a previous inaccuracy. I also am in possession of an original Brent Hart manuscript which he indicates wanting to get published in “Western magazines.” Not sure if that ever happened.
In November 2000, Monty Melville a friend of Dad’s since age 12, sent me a manuscript originally called “Firebrand” but at some point changed to “Devise Not Evil.” Monty thinks it could be published. I thought it was good, but then I liked Travis too.
Apparently Dad’s first manuscript sent to a publisher was “Jim Hayward – Frontier Scout,” written in ink on both sides of the paper, according to Monty. Ha, reading on he states he was also there when they sent it back!
So, what did you ever do with the Piper manuscript? We could add it to the blue trunk Dan hinted at once we re-inherit it from his second wife.
CMK
December 17th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
I just stumbled across this quite by accident, and also noted the comments from Chris and Danny (my nephews). Mike was my brother, and while I didn’t follow his writing career very much, I can tell you a good deal about him. He was not as mentioned, a violent man. He had a defensive demeanor and talked like he didn’t give a rat’s butt what he said, but that was just his way. I don’t ever recall him getting into any physical confrontations at all.
I see Chris corrected the number of wives Mike had also. I had met Mindy, his second wife on several occasions and as a matter of fact, I was just getting around to pay them a visit shortly before he died in 2000. We did not correspond much in our adult life as we had very little in common as far as conversation goes, but we did have a good time when we got together and recalled old times.
If I can be of any help in his personal (non-writing) life let me know.
To Chris and Danny…. If you read this. Hi and take care and yes I’m still riding my Harley.
December 20th, 2007 at 11:34 am
John–Contact me thru my email address, or my regular mailing address. I can tell you more then anybody about Mike. I knew H. Beam Piper and was there when Mike and I joined a startup writers club in Wm’sport. Mike and I shared an intetrest in writing. If you want to know more about Michael Edward Knerr– contact me.
Email; threecardmonty2@aol.com or 8333-94th Ave., Largo, Fl. 33777
February 15th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
I knew Mike. A great guy. A blunt talking fella. We were early friends during his time as a client of Forrest J Ackerman. I, at one time, contracted for a book of his. And the book SEXLIFE OF THE GODS was sold to the same publisher and at the same time as one of my books, “Blues for A Dead Lover” for which my father did covers for both books. The “SEXLIFE” was one of his sci-fi things, done especially for this book.
Charles Nuetzel
March 28th, 2008 at 8:52 pm
I stumbled upon this site last year looking for my Father (I changed the spelling of Knerr) and was a bit bummed by his passing. I’m 32 and never thought to seek him out until my wife became pregnant. I thought maybe he’d like to know. I’ve never seen him before, so it was like a kick in butt when I saw that photo. He looks almost exactly like me.
Anyway, I thought I’d write and say thanks for the photo. If any of you Knerrs out there have any more, I’d love to see them!
E. M. Knear
March 28th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
erikknear@hotmail.com
October 13th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
Alameda and Sausilito are definitely not in southern California. We are in northern California on San Francisco Bay, several hundred miles away from L.A. One of the things a good writer does, John F. Carr, is check the facts. I knew Mike Knerr from being in the same writer’s group with him in Alameda but just as an acquaintance. I loved his writing and helped critique it at our meetings.
October 15th, 2009 at 8:53 pm
I first met Mike Knerr in a writing group in Alameda, CA in probably 1995. When he introduced himself to the group he said he had published seventeen books “a while back,” and that he was working on some new material. He read the opening pages of his newest novel, set in the Old West. Someone was opening an old trunk on page one, finding engaging artifacts from an old friend’s past. If this was his first draft, I may as well dump the ink out of my pen and go home.
As I got to know him, I noticed he didn’t say much about his published books: this made me very curious. One Saturday morning a friend and I went to breakfast at a popular place in town. During the half hour with our name on the wait list, we wandered across the street to what I thought was a regular used bookstore. But it was a specialty store, dealing only in vintage paperbacks. They were all in cellophane sleeves so the price tags didn’t mar the art covers. They were categorized alphabetically by author, so just for fun, I went to the Ks. Imagine my surprise and great luck to find one book by M.E. Knerr, called Port of Passion. The cover showed some female wearing only Scheherazade pants with a couple of strategically placed twinkling stars.
Taken aback by the sticker price, I offered to pay half and we struck a deal. Back to the restaurant with us, me gingerly transporting the Crown Jewels on some imagined sterling tray. I was almost afraid to open the cellophane bag. No coffee or maple syrup stains would touch a page at this point in the book’s life.
That afternoon I called Mike and asked, “Are you sitting down? I want to read you something.” He said “Shoot.” He was, after all, writing Western novels.
I read, “She was giving me hell in Spanish and enjoying it as much as I was.”
“Where’d you get that?” he growled.
”What do you mean?” I asked, all honey-dripping innocence.
“I wrote that. Where’d you get it?”
I told him about the bookstore, the cellophane bags, and the lofty price tags. The proprietor of the store had told me those books were collectors’ items because of the art covers, not to mention that they had survived forty-odd years. Mike didn’t know any of that. He was sure the seven odd books he still had were the sole remaining proof that he had supported himself while living on a sailboat in some marina in Southern California. When the money got low, he hauled out the typewriter, put on the coffee and got to work. He said he spent as little time as possible on these books; one pass through the typewriter was all they got. He took the manuscript to his publisher, which changed with the wind direction, and bolted over to the bank to cash the check. He was getting somewhere in the neighborhood of $600 per manuscript. This was in the old days when you sold all rights. If his book were reprinted in another language, he got nothing else. There were very seldom second editions. His books spent three months on a rounder in a drugstore or liquor store, and then disappeared. He could live for months on the revenue from one book.
Port of Passion was the only one of his books in that particular store. One book wasn’t going to sate my curiosity, but I couldn’t exactly travel the world on the quest. That’s why God made eBay.
It became my mission to find as many of his books as I could. It was easy with a Saved Search. Over the years, Mike had loaned some of his personal (and singular) copies to friends. Some of these books never returned, some disintegrated. Over the next few years, I found some for my own collection, and found some that he had lost and wanted back. He told me my copy of Port of Passion was better than his and he wanted to trade me. I told him no, and made him autograph the one I had bought. He said he never did that, and if someone sent him a book to autograph, he just hand wrote a note on paper and sent it back with the unsigned book. I said I didn’t care, and sign here, kid. He wrote “Be careful what you write, it will come back to haunt you.” According to Mike, I have the only autographed book extant.
Contrary to what one might assume from his gruff exterior and abrupt manner of speech, Mike was a highly intelligent, learned professional who researched his material in books as well as experientially. He said he went up to the Gold Country and crouched over streams of frigid spring runoff. Although I never saw him at work, I had no trouble believing he ate his own sourdough biscuits, shot game, and mended the holes in his jeans and made deerskin boots. He flew planes, rode horses, sailed boats and asked friends to tell him the difference between Sidereal astrology and the modern western stuff. He was all excited when he was accepted into Western Writers of America, based on having published Sasquatch.
He and I, and by extension, his wife and I were friends for the rest of his life. Sometimes we went to dinner, or they came to my house for my Derby parties. Mike didn’t like crushed ice or mint leaves in his juleps. He would have preferred I didn’t sully the bourbon with anything, much less the ingredients of the old family recipe. He’d rather drink beer out of the bottle.
As far as him being a violent person, forget it. He talked tough, even when he was feeding squirrels out of his hand. “Take it, you little bastard.”
A couple of years running, I watered the plants on their patio when Mike and Mindy went to the Western Writers of America annual meeting.
One day his wife called me from some convention a couple of hundred miles away, and asked if I had talked to Mike lately. I said no, that I had called the other day and he hadn’t returned my call, which was highly unlike him. Even though I had the key to their house, his wife called another friend who lived closer for the grim task of checking in to see why he wasn’t answering the phone. It was too late.
Mike’s best work was never published. In the immortal words of E. B. White, Mike Knerr was “a good friend and a good writer.”
September 19th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
I stumbled upon this site by accident. It brought tears to my eyes to see the amazing pics of my uncle Mick. He was rough around the edges but always a sweetheart to me. I loved hearing about his life out west, it was so different from ours in PA. I miss him dearly, and was so proud of all he did. I have a daughter with amazing writting talent and I always tell her it came from Uncle Mick!
February 12th, 2012 at 8:09 pm
I am reading a copy of “Sasquatch” that I have had for many years and never read. But due to a back injury thought I would catch up on my old books. This guy was a hell of a writer. Even though the covers looks way out there – his writing is very in depth with great characters. I will search out some of his other books. Sorry to hear of his passing.
April 17th, 2013 at 7:50 pm
Amazing, just found Sex Life of the Gods selling for triple digits, just downloaded a kindle version AND someone recorded a copy of it.
not sure if dad is rolling over in his grave or laughing his ass off….yes I am – he’s laughing his ass off (gruffly of course)
February 28th, 2014 at 5:16 am
Interesting article, and writer’s life.
If anyone else has info on the life and writings of Mr. Knerr, please contact me at my website- http://www.cosmoetica.com, as I have ideas about making a fictionalized Michael Knerrlive in a series of books I am doing in which he might be a minor character, based on the real Knerr.
Any info on his life, adventures, and/or writings, is appreciated.
email: cosmoetica@gmail.com
March 24th, 2017 at 1:44 pm
John Carr,
Wanted to try and contact you about having a bunch of books (maybe 10) that H. Beam Piper owned not authored, with some annotations, etc. and one signed to him from Theodore Sturgeon in 1949.
Was wondering if any of them might be worth anything.
Chris Knerr
November 5th, 2017 at 4:57 pm
Hi Chris,
Just ran across you note. Send me an e-mail at otherwhen@aol.com and I’ll give you my thoughts about your Piper-owned books.
John F. Carr
July 16th, 2018 at 8:44 pm
Hi Chris,
I would be interested in those books, contact me at mail @ crhhome.com
March 29th, 2019 at 12:08 am
Very interesting information on Mr. Knerr, many thanks for putting this up, Mr. Carr.
Also, regarding some of Mr. Piper’s previously owned books, I’d be interested in them also. As a firearms collector, I wish I could find some of the items from his collection, but I’m sure those are untraceable by now.
July 27th, 2022 at 3:33 pm
Do you happen to know how much H. Beam Piper personal journal is worth? I recently got a hold of one of his journals and have been researching and reading as much as I can about him. So interesting
May 8th, 2024 at 6:35 pm
I’ve never seen 3 Willing Females save for one pub’d by Novel by Matt Sartone–an alias?
May 8th, 2024 at 9:08 pm
I would say yes, almost positively. The title is right, and so is the publisher.
May 9th, 2024 at 1:31 pm
Interesting, Steve. So, then do we add Thrilling Tortures by Matt Sartone to the list (also a Novel from 1962)?
May 9th, 2024 at 5:56 pm
I’m inclined to say Yes, but a better answer is probably Probably. And I don’t suppose there’s any way to say for sure.
BTW, there is a image of the cover of this one, on Amazon, at
https://www.amazon.com/Thrilling-Tortures-Matt-Sartone/dp/B001QXIYHG
for as long as the link lasts…
May 21st, 2024 at 5:42 pm
Well Steve, someone will have to read a Sartone and see if they can ID the writing style.
Above Charles Nuetzel mentions that he “contracted for a book of his [Knerr’s].” In Charles’ memoir, he writes that that happened when Knerr came back out west and Charles was at Rubicon…but then Rubicon went bust! Add that mystery title to the list.
“Encounter in Eros” a short by M.E. Knerr ca. ’66 is headed my way–more to come.
May 31st, 2024 at 9:35 pm
“Eros” is a Mike Travis story from Men’s Digest.
October 28th, 2024 at 2:24 pm
[…] One such writer in this game was Michael E. Knerr. […]