I don’t believe that I have ever written about the Curiosities Column in "Fantasy and Science Fiction" magazine. If you are not familiar with "Fantasy and Science Fiction", you should take a look next time you are at a magazine stand. The magazine has a long held reputation for publishing new Science Fiction. They have a “Curiosities” page which is written by different people almost every issue. 

I contacted them when I was getting ready to print NEQUA. I wrote a one page overview of NEQUA, which appeared in 2013, in the July - August issue. I got some good contacts out of that article.

Since I am now getting ready to reprint “The Moon is Inhabited” by “Columba” who was born Annabell Krebs, and married a Culverwell. I contacted "Fantasy and Science Fiction" again and they said it was O.K to submit a Curiosities Column on “Columba” and her writing. I just received notification that the page on Columba will appear in the 2017 May –June issue.   

It was really an up hill battle to reconstruct Annabell’s life. To start I only had the name “Columba” which appeared on the front cover of her book "The Moon is Inhabited". There wasn't any information in the book, so finding information on her was the proverbal needle in the haystack. With Columba I was not sure what haystack to start looking in and for awhile I didn’t know if there even was a Columba needle to find.  Maybe it was just a big prank. I tried author lists, science fiction lists, and the National Archives. I tried “Chronicling America, the National Endowment for the Humanities website, which has digitized thousands of newspapers. There was nothing on “Columba”.

One day I was trying to find prices for some art work that my wife owns. As a fluke I typed in Columba and three drawings came up which were attributed to “Columba" Krebs. There was a very close resemblance between the people in the drawings and the illustrations, which are found in my copy of “The Moon is Inhabited”. The name Krebs led to Culverwell, her married name and the National Archives listed an Annabell Krebs Culverwell. It was all down hill from there. Four months had passed since I first started looking for Columba.