Rimel, Duane W[eldon]

   (1915–1996)

   Author of weird and fantasy tales and correspondent of HPL (1934–37). In his letters HPL wrote expansively to Rimel about numerous subjects, offering constant assistance in matters of literary technique. In a letter dated June 17, 1934, HPL includes a segment called “Notes on Writing a Story,” one of several different versions of the essay “Notes on Writing Weird Fiction” (1933). HPL read many of his early stories and revised some of them, including “The Tree on the Hill” (1934; Polaris, September 1940) and “The Disinterment” (1935; WT,January 1937), and perhaps also “The Jewels of Charlotte” ( Unusual Stories,May–June 1935). Rimel published many other stories in fanzines and semi-pro magazines. His poem cycle “Dreams of Yith” ( Fantasy Fan,July and September 1934) was revised by HPL and perhaps by Clark Ashton Smith. In his so-called death diary, HPL mentions revising Rimel’s story “From the Sea” in January 1937, but the story apparently is unpublished and does not survive. Rimel briefly spearheaded the HPL fan movement in the 1940s, luring Francis T.Laney back into fandom and coediting The Acolyte(1942–46). He went on to write westerns and soft-core pornography under pseudonyms. See his memoir, “H.P.Lovecraft as I Knew Him” ( CryptNo. 18 [Yuletide 1983]: 9–11). Much of his weird short fiction and poetry has now been reprinted in The Forbidden Room (Moshassuck Press, 1988), The Many Worlds of Duane Rimel (1988), The Second Book of Rimel (1989), and To Yith and Beyond (Moshassuck Press, 1990).