Chester Anderson

Chester Valentine John Anderson (1932-1991) was a novelist, poet, and editor in the underground press. Raised in Florida, he attended the University of Miami from 1952 to 1956 before becoming a beatnik coffee house poet in Greenwich Village and San Francisco's North Beach. As a poet he wrote under the name c v j anderson and edited the little magazines Beatitude and Underhound. In journalism he specialized in rock and roll. In that area he was a friend of Paul Williams and edited Crawdaddy! for a few issues in 1968-1969.

He also wrote science fiction, due in part to the influence of Michael Kurland. Anderson's The Butterfly Kid is the first part of what is called the Greenwich Village Trilogy, with Kurland writing the second book (The Unicorn Girl) and the third volume (The Probability Pad) written by T. A. Waters. The novel was nominated for the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Novel. It, and his few other genre works are associated with New Wave (science fiction).