E. K. (Eldred Kurtz) Means

Eldred Kurtz Means (March 11, 1878 – February 19, 1957) was an American Methodist Episcopal clergyman, public speaker, and author. Born in Taylor County, Kentucky, he went on to serve a long series of church posts across the South, including in Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, Texas, and Arkansas.

Alongside his ministry, he became a prolific contributor to pulp magazines such as All-Story Weekly and Argosy. Many of his stories were later gathered into books, including E. K. Means (1918), More E. K. Means (1919), Further E. K. Means (1921), and Black Fortune (1931).

His fiction centered on African American characters in a fictional Louisiana setting he called Tickfall. Those stories found a substantial audience in their time, but modern readers and reference works also note that they relied heavily on minstrel-show conventions, caricature, and racist dialect writing, which makes his legacy deeply dated and controversial.