My first exposure to the works of Donald E. Westlake was in 1966, when a friend loaned me a copy of THE FUGITIVE PIGEON.  This scatter-brained mystery novel was well-written, witty and totally unexpected; and I began searching for more Westlake, not realizing that much of what had preceded PIGEON was written in a much different style, and often under entirely different names:  Richard Stark was the pseudonym Westlake was using for his series of hard-boiled crime sagas, featuring the amoral master criminal Parker; Curt Clark was the name Westlake employed a few times for science fiction; and so on.  As my book-hunting increased, so did Westlake's literary output and list of pseudonyms.

In 1982, I had decided to spread Westlakian tidings far and wide; and began developing and designing what would eventually become THE PARKERPHILE.  Self-publishing in the 1980s was quite primitive; and THE PARKERPHILE was measured out on my dining room table with a ruler and pencil.  The first draft of each issue was written once in longhand on paper; then typed out on a typewriter, with marks of justification; then typed again with blank spaces to fill in the justification markers -- so basically I wrote each issue THREE times!  A friend of mine who was an artist supplied artwork, for which he was paid copies of Nero Wolfe novels; and the offset printing was done at a vocational school for free, since their students needed the experience.

I distributed by hand, and then by mail, charging only $1.00 an issue; and the 'zine lasted five issues, the last being August-September 1983.  Donald E. Westlake authorized THE PARKERPHILE upon publication of the first issue, and my subscription list included several well-known mystery writers.  But life intervened, and I could no longer keep publishing THE PARKERPHILE.  I rediscovered a few more issues, boxed away for the last 30 years; and it's time to share them with a new generation of readers who have discovered the mayhem and murder of Donald E. Westlake.  ENJOY!

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