Today we remember the birthday of the late Dean Ing (June 17, 1931 – July 21, 2020.) He was a master of writing science fiction novels and techno-thrillers. His novel The Ransom of Black Stealth One (1989) was a New York Times bestseller. His nuclear war survival novel Pulling Through is considered a survivalist classic. Ing was a member of the Citizens’ Advisory Council on National Space Policy. He wrote more than 30 novels, and co-authored several novels with his friends Jerry Pournelle, S. M. Stirling, and Leik Myrabo. He also authored articles on preparedness topics, for Mel Tappan’s P.S. Letter. Like Tappan, Dean Ing made his home in southwestern Oregon.
I had the pleasure of meeting Dean and chatting with him for more than 20 minutes, at a science fiction convention in San Jose, California. As I recall that was in 1988 or 1989. Sadly, that was the only chance that I had to meet him, before he passed away. Dean Ing was one of my inspirations for writing my first novel. He was quite a guy, with a witty sense of humor. One of the funny things that he mentioned to me was that he and his wife had consecutive entries in the Ashland, Oregon phone book. At that time, those entries read:
“D Ing
L Ing.”
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On June 17, 1775, the Battle of Bunker Hill began.
June 17th is the birthday of Libertarian economist Harry Browne (June 17, 1933 – March 1, 2006.)
This is also the birthday of musician Red Foley (born, 1910, died September 19, 1968).
June 17th is also the birthday of novelist John Ross, who was born in 1957. He is best known as the author of the novel Unintended Consequences.
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Today we present a guest article by our friend Arkadiusz Sieroń. It is not part of the SurvivalBlog non-fiction writing contest.
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More than $725,000 worth of prizes have been awarded since we started running the writing contest. Round 101 ends on July 31st, so get busy writing and e-mail us your entry.
We presently have an open editorial calendar for feature articles, starting next week. So any article that you write and send us soon will likely be posted within two weeks.
Remember that there is a 1,500-word minimum, and that articles on practical “how-to” skills for survival have an advantage in the judging.