Agent Don Congdon died 30 November 2009. Born Donald Keith Congdon on 7 January 1918 in Crawford, Pennsylvania, he’ll be best remembered in sf for being Ray Bradbury’s agent.
Soon after graduating high school in 1935, Congdon moved to New York and got a job as a messenger at the Lurton Blassingame Literary Agency (Blassingame was later the agent for Robert A. Heinlein and Frank Herbert). By 1940, he was representing his own authors while working as Blassingame’s secretary. In 1944, Collier’s hired Congdon away to be the magazine’s associate fiction editor. Less than two years later, Simon & Schuster hired him as an editor. In 1947, Congdon returned to agenting, at the Harold Matson agency, and soon thereafter he signed Bradbury.
In 1983, Congdon started his own, eponymous agency, which is now run by his son, Michael. Some of his other clients included William Styron, William L. Shirer, and David Sedaris.
In addition to agenting, Congdon also edited anthologies in a variety of genres. Some of these include Alone by Night (1961), Tales of Love and Horror (1961), and Stories for the Dead of Night (1967).
Bradbury (quoted in The New York Times) said in 2000, “I married Don Congdon the same month I married my wife. So I had 53 years of being spoiled by my wife and Don Congdon. We’ve never had a fight or an argument during that time because he’s always been out on the road ahead of me, clearing away the dragons and the monsters and the fakes.”
Congdon is survived by his sister, son, daughter, and six grandchildren.