letterhack n.

Must the letter-hacks give themselves those asinine titles? ‘King, of the Poisoned Pen,’ ‘The Macabre One,’ ‘The Mastermind,’ indeed!

Don’t kid yerselves, fellers—the Genial Genius has one of the finest styles of any letter hack around.

Nowadays a letter-hack says things simply, which is, after all, the best way. Take any good story. You don’t find long, stilted sentences with long-winded descriptions (which was one reason I put “The Dimension of Chance” last). So listen and learn, letter-hacks.

Despite the fact that a listing of stories is considered tabu by the best letter-hacks, I'm giving with a few comments on the fiction content.

Dear Sargie: You said it; letter hacks come and go, but the Sarge goes on forever. Well, here’s one letter-hack who came, went, and is coming back.

I see that the old guard is back but as a greatly matured and slightly subdued group of letter-hacks. This column now reflects the rise of stf out of the screwball stage.

If the casualty rate among letter hacks were as rough as you say the same old faithful names wouldn’t appear as long as they do—bless their little ink-smudged hearts.

LETTERHACK — An actifan who specializes in writing letters for zines. One of the simplest and yet the most effective phases of fanac. Give the letterhack a ream of paper, stamps, and one or two other letterhacks for him to argue with, and he will keep happy and tractable for months.

If your ‘fanac’ (activities in science-fiction fandom) are confined largely to reading fanzines and submitting LoC’s (letters of comment), you are likely to be sneered at as a ‘letterhack.’

I look forward to another period of hyperactivity for myself and a new faannish [sic] era to be a member of—if only as a letterhack again.

He wrote so many letters to professional and amateur 'zines that he was fandom’s major ‘letterhack’—well-known, even notorious for his outspoken opinions.