Tag: obituaries

R.I.P.: the girl who named Pluto

[podcast]https://edwardwillett.com/wp-content/upLoads//2009/05/the-girl-who-named-pluto-rip.mp3[/podcast] Three years ago I wrote a column about someone I was astonished I’d never heard of until that week: Venetia Phair (née Burney), at the time an 87-year-old retired schoolteacher in Epsom, England. At the age of 11 Venetia suggested the name Pluto for what was then (and for many decades after) considered the …

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R.I.P. Arthur C. Clarke

Arthur C. Clarke has died at age 90. He was the last surviving member of the “Big Three” of science fiction: Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein having gone on before. Those were names to conjur with when I was a kid, and they’re among the primary reasons I write SF today. I regret I …

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RIP, daddy of D&D

I often say that I majored in journalism and minored in art and Dungeons & Dragons in university. D&D, without a doubt, consumed the majority of my free time on weekends. I was therefore saddened to hear today that Gary Gygax, co-creator of D&D, has died.

RIP, daddy of DD

I often say that I majored in journalism and minored in art and emDungeons amp; Dragons/em in university. Damp;D, without a doubt, consumed the majority of my free time on weekends.br /br /I was therefore saddened to hear today that Gary Gygax, co-creator of Damp;D, a href=”http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g8XyHnUHsOBoCofRxK-5waWoAGrAD8V6PL180″has died./a

More on Madeleine L’Engle

John Podhoretz posts a lovely personal memory of growing up in the building in New York where she lived. And here’s one of those more complete obituaries I predicted would quickly appear.

Madeleine L’Engle, R.I.P.

Publisher’s Weekly reports that Madeleine L’Engle has died, and posts a short obituary:Author Madeleine L’Engle died last night in Connecticut, at the age of 89. Best known for her 1963 Newbery Award winner A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels, L’Engle was the author of more than 60 books for adults and young readers, most …

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Tibor Feheregyhazi, R.I.P.

Sad news from Saskatoon: Tibor Feheregyhazi, artistic director of Persephone Theatre, has died. I worked with Tibor twice, in the summer of 2000 on Tent Meeting at the Station Arts Centre in Rosthern, then later that same year at Persephone, when he cast me in Who Has Seen the Wind? He was a wonderful director …

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Lloyd Alexander dies

Lloyd Alexander has died. From SF Scope: Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 30 January 1924, he was a children’s fantasy author for half a century (though he did also write several adult novels). He won the 1970 Newbery Award, and was a National Book Award Finalist, for The High King. His books include three well-known …

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Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

I’ve been asked a couple of times over the last day or so, presumably because people know I write science fiction, about my thoughts on the death of Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Fact is, I don’t have any. I think I hit Vonnegut at the wrong point in my reading life–maybe tried to read him too …

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The party’s over…

…Betty Comden, of the great Broadway team Comden and Green, has died. Mark Steyn reprints an interview he did with her just a few years ago. UPDATE: And here’s Terry Teachout’s tribute to her, which includes a link to an (archived, and it’ll-cost-ya) profile of Comden and Green he wrote in 1999 for The New …

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A science fiction legend is no more

Sad news: Jack Williamson, who has been writing science fiction for almost as long as science fiction has existed as a genre (his first story was published in 1928, his last novel was published in 2005), died today. He was 98. His last novel was The Stonehenge Gate, published last year. I read it and …

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