Biography:

Writer. Born– November 19, 1911, Birmingham. Parents– John Saunders and Nettie Young (McCrory) Counselman. Married– Horace B. Vinyard, November 13, 1941.  Children– One. Education– Alabama College for Women for one year; University of Alabama for two summers; correspondence courses in journalism from the Newspaper Institute. Reporter for the Birmingham News; instructor in creative writing at Gadsden State Junior College and at the University of Alabama. Founder, publisher, and editor of Verity Publishing Company. Began writing at an early age; best-known story, “Three Marked Pennies,” was written at age fifteen.  Wrote more than four hundred poems and stories; 68 published in the Saturday Evening Post; contributed stories to Weird Tales, Ladies Home Journal, and Good Housekeeping. Many dramatized on television. Writings translated in at least eighteen languages.   Edited “Year at the Spring” magazine, 1977-80. Lecture at writers’ gatherings throughout the South.  Member American Penwomen and National Fantasy Fan Federation. Fellow of the National Endowment for the Arts, 1976-77.  Received an award from the National Fantasy Fan Federation for short story “Overture.” Died November 13, 1994.

Source:

Mrs. Horace Vinyard, Gadsden, Ala.

Publication(s):

African Yesterdays.  Gadsden, Al.:  Verity Publishing, 1975; revised edition, 1977.

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Supernatural.  Verity, n.d.

The Eye and the Hand. S.l.; s.n., 1978.

The Face of Fear and other poems. Pensacola, Fla.; Edilon Press, 1984.

The Fifth Door.  Strange Books, 1982.

Half in Shadow.  Sauk City, Wisconsin: Arkham House, 1978.

Move Over–It’s Only Me.  Verity,, 1975.

Papers;

The Hoole Special Collections Library at the University of Alabama holds a collection of the papers of Mary Elizabeth Counselman.