His first short story, "Rock Diver", was published in the February 1951 issue of "Worlds Beyond", edited by Damon Knight; the magazine had previously published his illustrations. While in New York, he socialized at the Hydra Club, an organization of New York's science fiction writers, including Isaac Asimov, whose work he parodied in "Bill, the Galactic Hero" and its sequels. In the early 1950s, the Hydra Club included writers such as Alfred Bester, James Blish, Anthony Boucher, Avram Davidson, Judith Merril, and Theodore Sturgeon.