Gert Fram

"Gert Fram" is a short story by Orson Scott Card. It appears in his short story collection Maps in a Mirror. This short story was the first piece of fiction Card ever published. It originally appeared in the July 1977 fine arts issue of Ensign magazine under the pen name Byron Walley.

Plot summary

This story is about a clumsy and imaginative thirteen-year-old girl named Susan Parker who is having a very bad day. At school she pokes one of her classmates with a pencil and breaks her teacher's fishbowl. When Susan gets home things go from bad to worse. She continues to make mistakes, knock things over and get into trouble. Although her parents are patient and try not to lose their temper with Susan, she becomes convinced that they and everyone else hates her. Upset with herself, Susan begins writing a short novel called Susan the Jerk using her pen name Gert Fram. Later in the day when Susan’s father goes up to her room to talk to her, she gives him Susan the Jerk to read. Realizing how badly she feels her father tells her how much she is loved and that she is not a “jerk”. When Susan says that she is having a hard time believing this, her father begins to cry and she realizes how much he loves her. Feeling better she gives her novel a happier ending and goes to bed.

Characters

• Susan Parker – Main character
• Gert Fram - Susan’s pseudonym
• Susan’s Father - unnamed
• Susan’s Mother - unnamed
• Jonathan - Susan’s brother
• Annabelle - Susan’s sister
• Vanessa - Susan’s sister
• Raymond - Vanessa’s boyfriend

Byron Walley

In the Question and Answer section of his website Orson Scott Card said that he published the short story "Gert Fram" under the name Byron Walley because he had a non-fiction article “Family Art”, a poem “Looking West” and a short play "The Rag Mission" (published under the name Brian Green) appearing in the same issue of Ensign magazine.^[1] He used the pseudonym in order to not appear to be overrepresented in the single issue of the periodical.

Card later used the pseudonym again while editing Dragons of Darkness, an anthology. Card wanted to include two of his short stories: "A Plague of Butterflies" and "Middle Woman". Both stories appeared in the book, but "Middle Woman" was under the Walley pen name.^[1]

Origins of Gert Fram

In his short story collection Maps in a Mirror Orson Scott Card said that Gert Fram was the childhood pen name of his sister-in-law, Nancy Allen Black, and that while the idea for the story was his own, the character Gert Fram and all the "novels" she wrote (except Susan the Jerk) were created by his sister-in-law as a child.^[2]

Relationship to Gert Fram by Nancy Allen Black

According to Orson Scott Card, although his short story "Gert Fram" was based on his sister-in-law Nancy Allen Black, her young adult book Gert Fram - A Kid's Book for Grown-ups (1991) ISBN 0-9624049-4-2 is not based on his short story but on her own childhood experiences.^[3]

Footnotes

See also

• List of works by Orson Scott Card
• Orson Scott Card

External links

• The official Orson Scott Card website
• "Gert Fram" - available online from Ensign magazine.