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==Biography==
Sturgeon was born Edward Hamilton Waldo in [[Staten Island, New York]], in 1918. His name was legally changed to Theodore Sturgeon at age eleven after his mother's divorce and remarriage to William Dicky ("Argyll") Sturgeon.<ref>Williams, Paul (1976). [http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/sturgeon/williams.html "Theodore Sturgeon, Storyteller"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20030913021248/http://www.physics.emory.edu/~weeks/sturgeon/williams.html |date=2003-09-13 }}. First published 1997, online. Retrieved 2013-03-26.<br> Quote: "Sturgeon because that was the stepfather's name—he was a professor of modern languages at Drexel Institute in Philadelphia—and Theodore because Edward was the boy's father's name and the mother was still bitter and anyway young Edward had always been known as Teddy."<br> Quote: "To this day, libraries all over the world list 'Theodore Sturgeon' as a pseudonym for 'E. H. Waldo', which is incorrect."</ref>
He sold his first story in 1938 to the [[McClure Syndicate]], which bought much of his early work. At first he wrote mainly short stories, primarily for genre magazines such as ''[[Astounding]]'' and ''[[Unknown magazine|Unknown]]'', but also for general-interest publications such as ''[[Argosy Magazine]]''. He used the [[pen name]] "E. Waldo Hunter" when two of his stories ran in the same issue of ''Astounding''. A few of his early stories were signed "Theodore H. Sturgeon
Sturgeon [[ghost-writer|ghost-wrote]] one [[Ellery Queen]] [[Mystery (fiction)|mystery]] novel, ''The Player on the Other Side'' (Random House, 1963). This novel was praised by critic [[H. R. F. Keating]]: "[I] had almost finished writing ''Crime and Mystery:
Disliking arguments with [[John W. Campbell]] over editorial decisions, after 1950 Sturgeon only published one story in ''Astounding''.<ref name="latham2009">{{Cite book |title=The Routledge Companion to Science Fiction |last=Latham |first=Rob |publisher=Routledge |year=2009 |isbn=9781135228361 |editor-last=Bould |editor-first=Mark |pages=80–89 |chapter=Fiction, 1950-1963 |editor-last2=Butler |editor-first2=Andrew M. |editor-last3=Roberts |editor-first3=Adam |editor-last4=Vint |editor-first4=Sherryl |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y7CNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA80}}</ref> Sturgeon wrote the screenplays for the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'' episodes "[[Shore Leave (Star Trek)|Shore Leave]]" (1966) and "[[Amok Time]]" (1967, written up and published as a [[Bantam Books]] "Star Trek Fotonovel" in 1978).<ref name=isfdb/> The latter featured the first appearance of [[pon farr]], the [[Vulcan (Star Trek)|Vulcan]] mating ritual, the sentence "Live long and prosper"<ref name=IAS_67>Nimoy (1995), p. 67.</ref> and the [[Vulcan salute|Vulcan hand symbol]]. Sturgeon also wrote several ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|Star Trek]]'' scripts that were never produced. One of these first introduced the [[Prime Directive]].
He also wrote an episode of the Saturday morning show ''[[Land of the Lost (1974 TV series)|Land of the Lost]]'', "[[The Pylon Express]]", in 1975. Two of Sturgeon's stories were adapted for ''[[The New Twilight Zone]]''. One, "[[A Saucer of Loneliness]]", was broadcast in 1986 and was dedicated to his memory. Another short story, "Yesterday
Sturgeon published the "first stories in science fiction which dealt with homosexuality, '[[The World Well Lost]]' [June 1953] and 'Affair
Though not as well known to the general public as contemporaries like [[Isaac Asimov]] or [[Ray Bradbury]], Sturgeon is well known among readers of mid-20th-century science fiction anthologies. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s he was the most anthologized English-language author alive.<ref name="Engel_1994">
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| date = November 1, 1998
| quote = Veteran science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon, reportedly the most anthologized science fiction writer of all time, wrote the teleplay adaptation of his own short story for the ABC-TV movie ''Killdozer'' (1974).
}}</ref> Three Sturgeon stories were adapted for the 1950s NBC radio anthology ''[[X Minus One]]'': "[[A Saucer of Loneliness]]" (broadcast twice}, "The Stars Are
[[Carl Sagan]] described "To Here and the Easel" as "a stunning portrait of personality disassociation as perceived from the inside", and further said that many of Sturgeon's works were among the "rare few science‐fiction novels [that] combine a standard science‐fiction theme with a deep human sensitivity".<ref name="sagan19780528">{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/28/archives/growing-up-with.html |title=Growing up with Science Fiction |last=Sagan |first=Carl |date=1978-05-28 |work=The New York Times |access-date=2018-12-12 |page=SM7 |language=en-US |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> [[John Clute]] wrote in ''[[The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction]]'': "His influence upon writers like [[Harlan Ellison]] and [[Samuel R. Delany]] was seminal, and in his life and work he was a powerful and generally liberating influence in post-WWII US sf". He won comparatively few genre awards. (One was the [[World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement]] from the 1985 World Fantasy Convention.)<ref name=SFAwards/>
Sturgeon's original novels were all published between 1950 and 1961, and the bulk of his short story work dated from the 1940s and 1950s. Though he continued to write through 1983, his work rate dipped noticeably in the later years of his life; a 1971 story collection entitled ''Sturgeon Is Alive
He was a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the [[Trap Door Spiders]], which served as the basis of [[Isaac Asimov]]'s fictional group of mystery solvers the [[Black Widowers]]. Sturgeon was the inspiration for the recurrent character of [[Kilgore Trout]] in the novels of [[Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.|Kurt Vonnegut]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.flf.com/mnight/aol_qa.htm |title=Interview with Vonnegut |access-date=2013-04-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980115150204/http://www.flf.com/mnight/aol_qa.htm |archive-date=January 15, 1998 }} "I think it's funny when someone is named after a fish"</ref>
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