Anne McCaffrey, RiP

Anne McCaffrey was... I'm not sure anyone who wasn't there can understand what she meant to me, to female fantasy readers my age and older. She was one of the first women to make it "big" as a genre (SF/F) writer, openly, with no apology for her gender. She was the first to hit the New York Times list. [and, I am reminded, the first woman to win a Hugo and a Nebula]. She wrote huge books, filled with incredible things, and short stories that could make you cry and think (at the same time), and if I didn't always agree with her on everything, I admired the hell out of her.

And then when I was at Ace I got to work with her, first as her editor's assistant, and then later as her editor. She was fierce, and strong, and smart, and fearless, and she inspired me to never take shit I didn't deserve, or apologize for work I believed in.

I haven't seen her much in the past decade - a convention here or there. I knew that her health wasn't good, and the news today didn't surprise me. But it saddens me, that I will never hear her laugh again. She was one of those people with a full-bodied laugh, nothing held back.

Farewell, Dragonlady. Clear skies.

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I got the news that Anne had passed, and sat on it for a while, not wanting to be the first one to say anything, before confirmation. When I saw others starting to talk about it online, I posted a farewell. I'm still not sure if I did the right thing - should I have waited for an Official Annoucement? And yet, Anne was ours, too. Readers and writers alike, we owe so much to her....it seemed wrong not to share the news, in a way that did not infringe on her family's grief.