Five Mars SF/F writers share the same birthday

Thanks to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database, one of my favorite bibliographic tools, I just learned that five Martian science fiction and fantasy writers were born on this day in history:

• Carl L. Biemiller (1912-1979), author of the children’s book The Magic Ball from Mars (1943), the text of which was reprinted in Forrest J Ackerman’s Martianthology (2003).

• Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008), author of the influential hard science novel The Sands of Mars (1951).

• Willis E. McNelly (1920-2003), co-editor of the anthology Mars, We Love You: Tales of Mars, Men, and Martians (1971) and author of the essay “Linguistic Relativity in Middle High Martian" (1968).

• Randall Garrett (1927-1987), author of the short story “The Man Who Hated Mars” (1956) and “On the Martian Problem” (1977), a letter from character John Carter to author Edgar Rice Burroughs explaining how he was able to travel to the Red Planet.

• Philip K. Dick (1928-1982), author of the novels Martian Time-Slip (1964) and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965).