November 19, 1911

Poet and author Mary Counselman was born in Birmingham on this day in 1911. A graduate of Alabama College (which later became the University of Montevallo,) Counselman worked for a time as a reporter at The Birmingham News. She had dozens of short stories published in science fiction and horror anthologies, and in “pulp fiction” magazines such as Weird Tales, and in more mainstream outlets like The Saturday Evening Post. In 1981, she was recognized with the Phoenix Award for lifetime achievement as a Southern fantasy writer. She died in 1995.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Portrait of Mary Elizabeth Counselman. (https://www.findagrave.com memorial page for Mary Elizabeth Counselman (19 Nov 1911–4 May 1994)

Alabama horror author Mary Counselman’s short story “The Black Stone Statue” first appeared in Weird Tales in December 1932. A story of a creature that turns everything it touches to stone, it is unusual for being told in the form of a suicide note by the main character, a sculptor. (From Encyclopedia of Alabama)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.