Francis Stevens

Francis Stevens was the pseudonym for Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1884-1948), the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the United States. In 1900, she wrote her first story, “The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar,” which she submitted, on a whim, to the preeminent pulp magazine Argosy. To her surprise, it was accepted and published in March 1904, under her own name. Stevens began writing under the pseudonym Gertrude Barrows Bennett in 1917, after her husband died during a treasure-hunting expedition. From 1917 to 1923, she published short stories and novellas, and then abruptly stopped. It is believed that she died in 1948.