Writers Tricks of the Trade SPRING 2017 ISSUE 2, VOLUME 7 | Page 37

LAST WORD
The following two obituaries were brought to our
attention, and were worthy of giving these two authors a
last word.
Chet Cunningham produced an amazing amount of
published books across so many diverse genres.
Irma Mann was a leader ahead of her time. Her early
career in journalism and TV production led to establishing
a leading marketing and advertising firm in a time with
few women executives.
Author Churned Out Hundred of Books
Chet Cunningham 1928-2017
When Chet Cunningham submitted a novel in 1972, he got a letter back from the publisher, Pinnacle Books.
“While this is not the best western I’ve ever read,” an editor wrote, “we’ve decided to publish it.”
That was good enough for Mr. Cunningham. With three children, and a wife suffering from multiple sclerosis,
he needed income. By his own count, over nearly five decades, he produced 375 published books, including
Westerns, thrillers, a motorcycle maintenance manual and handbooks for suffers of sciatica and irritable bowel
syndrome. He occasionally wrote romance novels under the pseudonym Cathy Cunningham.
“He pretty much wrote whatever somebody would pay him for,” said his son, Greg Cunningham.
He didn’t wait for inspiration to strike. “A carpenter doesn’t not go into work because he has carpenter’s
block,” said his daughter Christine Ashworth, also a novelist. “He considered writing a craft, and he just did it.”
His novels typically take readers directly to the action. On the first page of his “Scream Vengeance,” a detective
looks over a corpse and says, “It could have been a suicide if her hands weren’t tied behind her back and her ankles
not tied together with panty hose.”
Mr., Cunningham died March 14 at his home near San Diego. He was 88.
~James R. Hagerty
Talents Saved Her from a Life of Leisure
Irma Mann 1933-2017
In her late 20s, with two children to look after, Irma Mann thought she was destined for a suburban life of
tennis and mahjong in Newton, Mass. Her father, Martin Fisher, a partner in the New York real estate firm
Fisher Brothers, believed women shouldn’t work, she said.
The boredom set in. S he went back to college at 33 and finished her degree in English literature and music
at Emerson College. Searing for her niche, she concluded, “I could write. Not brilliantly, but pretty well,” as she
put it. That talent led to a newspaper job, then an appointment to work for Guy Francis Sargent of
Massachusetts in the 1970s.
She talked her way into a job heading marketing for Sonesta International Hotels Corp. She later founded
her own marketing company and worked with clients including the Sheraton and Four Seasons hotel chains.
She liked to wear cowboy boots under her black Armani slacks and once commissioned a portrait of herself by
Andy Warhol. Ms. Mann died February 14 at her home in Boston. She was 83.
~James R. Hagerty
W RITERS ’ T RICKS OF THE T RADE
P AGE 29
S PRING 2017