Preece "began his career as a cub reporter for the Austin Statesmen in 1922, started selling articles to magazines in 1925, and became a free-lance writer and specialist in American and Texas folklore.
Preece's main impact, however, came in his writings on civil rights, not least because of his unusual status as a southern white man supportive of Negro issues.
He described his evolution from prejudice to anti-racism in the August 1935 article "Confessions of an Ex-Nordic: The Depression Not an Unmixed Evil," which appeared in Opportunity, the monthly journal of the National Urban League.
He attributed his change in outlook to the shared hardships of the Great Depression: "I waited in line with other men – white and black who spent their days frantically wandering to obtain the same tawdry necessities.
"[3] Arthur I. Hayman, his collaborator on a book exposing problems in Liberia, wrote that Preece became "widely known as a champion of the race ... particularly ... for his sympathetic studies of the great Negro folk culture.
"[6] While living in Tennessee he worked with the Highlander Folk School, was president and managing editor of New South Features, and staff-writer for the inter-racial magazine Now, and Southern correspondent for Religious News Service.
In later years, Cheryl Cassidy, a friend of Winona Morris Nation, remembered Preece speaking often of "his 'glory days' when he was a passionate writer for 'subversive' publications and fighting with mighty words, for the end of racial prejudice and equal opportunity for all people.
Science fiction author L. Sprague de Camp met and quizzed Preece on November 30, 1951, obtaining biographical material that went into the sketch of Howard in his Science-Fiction Handbook.