MILFORD, PA — In 1956, Judith Merril, James Blish and Damon Knight founded the Milford Writers Conference. The goal, according to a press release from the Pike County Historical Society, was to create a workshop and writers’ conference in which published science-fiction writers convened to intensively critique stories and samples from novels—usually works in progress—and to discuss all aspects of SF writing.

It was a peer-to-peer conference with no teachers or students. The conference was held at both The Anchorage, Knight’s home on Old Milford Road, and at Arrowhead, the Milford home of literary agent Virginia Kidd and her husband, science fiction writer and critic James Blish.

Through her work at the conference, Kidd founded the world’s first all-speculative-fiction literary agency at Arrowhead. She was, the press release continued, a mentor for at least three generations of writers and literary agents.

Recalling her contributions to the field, Kidd said, “There was a time when book after book, as signed by the author or editor, and placed and dated, bore the name of the town of Milford.”

She died in 2003.

The Virginia Kidd Agency still operates out of Arrowhead, under the direction of a few agents who had been mentored by Kidd. The preservation of the home itself is upheld by their nonprofit group, the Arrowhead Science Fiction Foundation.

Group members, in fact, attended the recent “Creature Features of the 1950s” dinner-and-movie series. The collaboration, which brought such classics as “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die” to a room full of folks willing and ready to watch, has sparked the decision to work on a permanent exhibit at the Columns Museum. The exhibit would detail the role Kidd and her contemporaries played in popularizing speculative fiction, and the historical roots of science fiction and literary history that were firmly planted in Milford by the writer’s conference.

Accordingly, the Virginia Kidd Agency/Arrowhead Science Fiction Foundation and the Pike County Historical Society will host the 1956 classic “THEM!” on Wednesday, January 18. The proceeds will help fund the creation of the exhibit.

To attend, make your reservation early by calling 570/296-8126.