Jane Speed

Born and raised in Akron, Ohio, Jane Speed (January 4, 1920 - March 5, 1991) was a New York-based radio dramatist and short story writer, active between 1946 and 1980.
Biography
A Lifelong Literature Lover Hones Her Craft
Speed was born Jane Helen Krisher, the only child of William C. Krisher and Helen E. Roush. After graduating from Buchtel High School, she attended first Ohio Wesleyan and then Northwestern University's School of Speech, where she majored in drama; it was during this latter stint that she gained the bulk of her education regarding scriptwriting, both for radio and for film.
Subsequently she worked as a commercial copy writer at WFMJ in Youngstown, Ohio, all the while working on radio scripts, both originals and adaptations, some of which would later go on to be produced and broadcast nationally. It was at the radio station, in the fall of 1942, that Jane would meet her future husband, jazz musician James Speed, an Erie, Pennsylvania native and University of Pittsburgh graduate who'd recently arrived at WFMJ, where he hosted and provided music for a program three times a week.
On March 17, 1943, the two were married. Two months later, her husband was drafted, though in limited service due to poor eyesight; initially, he was stationed within the continental U.S., first for almost a year and a half at Fort Dix, then six months in Canandaigua, New York. Mrs. Speed was able to accompany him to both these locations; moreover, well before the second leg of this journey, the happy couple had become a party of three, with the arrival, in late 1943, of their first child, Jill.
In the spring of 1945, however, the family was finally separated when Jim was assigned duty in Panama. Jane remained with Jill in Canandaigua, where she continued writing and submitting radio scripts. Though a couple of these were sold, the first to actually be produced, "My Sweet Aunt Caroline," would not be unveiled until several months after her husband's discharge, on June 6, 1946. in conjunction with the failing health and eventual demise of her elderly father back in Akron (entailing numerous extended trips back to her home town), all but insured that the writer's block afflicting Speed at the beginning of the eighties would become firmly entrenched in relatively short order. Moreover, the depression engendered by her father's protracted decline would be compounded immeasurably by the posthumous emergence of a fraudulent but temporarily successful challenge to her father's original will. The bogus document was, in fact, far more generous to the erstwhile Miss Krisher than was her father's actual will. Nonetheless, Mrs. Speed' would prove a key participant in the subsequent, and ultimately successful, attempt to reinstate the original will.) Towards the end of the decade, the final nails in the coffin would be hammered home, first by her husband's, and later her own, health concerns. The latter would explode in late February 1991, when Mrs. Speed suffered a massive coronary from which she would not recover. She never did regain consciousness and finally succumbed on March 5 at the age of 71.
Jane Speed was survived by her husband James, her daughters Jill and Barbara, and son David. Her work would survive as well, much as it had during the decade following her final published story, continuing to be reprinted, anthologized and translated throughout the remainder of the 20th century.
Bibliography
Radio
* "My Sweet Aunt Caroline" aired June 6, 1946 on The Carrington Playhouse, broadcast live from New York's Longacre Theatre
* aired November 13, 1947 on Family Theater, hosted by Lizabeth Scott, starring Spring Byington and Ralph Moore
* "Hard Bargain" aired April 7, 1948 on The Whistler
* aired October 14, 1948 on Family Theater, hosted by George Murphy, starring June Haver and Alan Reed
* "Dinner by Candlelight" aired April 2, 1949 on Armstrong's Theatre of Today
* "Second Best" aired March 4, 1950 on Armstrong's Theatre of Today
* "Good Old Annie" aired May 6, 1950 on Armstrong's Theatre of Today, starring Grace Matthews
* "A High Wind in Jamaica" aired August 20, 1950 on , starring Anne Whitfield, John Ramsey Hill, Dawn Bender, Henry Blair and Jeanine Ann Roose.
* "Farewell to Birdie McKeever" aired August 31, 1950 on Hollywood Theater, starring Gloria Grahame
* "Hard Bargain" aired October 23, 1950 on Murder by Experts, produced and directed by Robert A. Arthur & David Kogan, hosted by Brett Halliday
* "A Wonderful Guy" aired January 20, 1951 on Armstrong's Theatre of Today
Television
* "Farewell to Birdie McKeever" aired December 22, 1953 on Your Jeweller's Showcase (starring Marilyn Erskine and Lloyd Corrigan)
Short Stories
* "According to Plan" in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine (March 1963)
* "The Listening Game" in EQMM (December 1963)
* "The Freya of Fire Island" in EQMM (September 1964), reprinted in ' (New York, Random House, 1965), edited by Ellery Queen
* "End of the Day" in EQMM (March 1965), reprinted in With Malice Towards All (New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1968), edited by Robert Fish
* "As the Wheel Turns" in EQMM (April 1966), reprinted in [http://www.worldcat.org/title/miniature-mysteries-100-malicious-little-mystery-stories/oclc/7197020/editions?refererdi&editionsViewtrue Miniature Mysteries: 100 Malicious Little Mystery Stories] (New York, Taplinger, 1981), edited by Martin Greenberg
* "Sounds in the Night" in EQMM (September 1966), reprinted in [http://www.flickr.com/photos/78541842@N07/7371149684/in/set-72157630384557956 Ellery Queen's Mystery Anthology] (Spring-Summer 1972, Volume 23), edited by Ellery Queen
* "Fair's Fair" in EQMM (February 1967), reprinted in (New York, Random House,1971), (New York, Dell Publishing Company, 1973), (Melbourne, Thomas Nelson, 1987), edited by Brian Keyte and Richard Baines, and Ready or Not, Here Come Fourteen Frightening Stories! A collection of fourteen unsettling tales by a variety of authors (New York, Greenwillow Books, 1987), edited by Joan Kahn
* "The Unhappening" in EQMM (March 1969), reprinted in (New York; World Pub. Co.;1970), edited by Ellery Queen
* "The Events Between" in EQMM (June 1972)
* "Who-Dun-It" in EQMM (June 1972) (verse)
* "Just Another Friday" in EQMM (May 1974)
* "Recipe for Revenge" in EQMM (October 1974), reprinted in [http://www.worldcat.org/title/miniature-mysteries-100-malicious-little-mystery-stories/oclc/7197020/editions?refererdi&editionsViewtrue Miniature Mysteries: 100 Malicious Little Mystery Stories] (New York, Taplinger, 1981), edited by Martin Greenberg
* "A Shock of Recognition" in EQMM (April 1976)
* "View from the Inside" in EQMM (August 1976), reprinted in (New York, E.P. Dutton, 1977), edited by Edward D. Hoch
* "Poor Eva" in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine (August 1977)
* "Further Instructions 9 P.M." in EQMM (August 1979)
* "A Lady of Refinement" in EQMM (December 1, 1980)

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