Nelson S Bond obituary

Although his name has since slipped from recognition, Nelson S Bond's byline on a magazine was a guarantee of a good story in the 1930s and 1940s. A prolific and often humorous writer, Bond, who has died at the age of 97, was at his best with the short story, once explaining: "One of my axioms of writing has always been that good stories are not written - they're rewritten. I would talk a story into the dictaphone, Betty [his wife] would type it, then I would revise it. The story had to be packed tight together. So I was fair at 10,000 words, good at 5,000 words, and excellent, sometimes, at 2,500. The shorter the Bond, the better the story."

More from Steve Holland in The Guardian.