Obituaries

Japanese writer KENZABURO OE, 88, died March 3, 2023 in Tokyo. Oe won a Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994. Some of his work had genre elements, and he edited anthology Fire from Dream­ the Ashes: Short Stories About Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1985), which also includes speculative material.

Oe was born January 31, 1935 in Shikoku, Japan, and attended Tokyo University. He began publish­ing stories in college, and won ...Read More

Author, editor, and fan Joseph Wrzos, 93, died April 7, 2023. He often wrote and edited under the name Joseph Ross.

Joseph Henry Wrzos was born September 9, 1929 in Newark NJ. He attended Rutgers University, graduating in 1952, and went to graduate school at Columbia University. He worked as a high school librarian, and spent most of his career as an English teacher.

Wrzos was an editor at Gnome ...Read More

Author Rachel Pollack, 77, died April 7, 2023 in New York of cancer.

Rachel Grace Pollack was born August 17, 1945 in Brooklyn NY. She attended New York University, graduating with a degree in English, and earned her Masters in English from Claremont Graduate University. She taught English at various institutions and workshops, including Clarion West, and was on the faculty of the MFA Creative Writing program at Goddard College. ...Read More

Literary agent VALERIE SMITH, 71, died March 2, 2023 following a brief illness.

Smith was born May 6, 1951 in Newburgh NY. She began her career as an agent in the 1970s at the Virginia Kidd agency before going independent. She represented authors including Steven Brust, Emma Bull, Pamela Dean, Debra Doyle, John M. Ford, James D. Macdonald, Madeleine Robins, Delia Sherman, Will Shetterly, and Pat Wrede, among many ...Read More

Author Michael Reaves, 72, died March 20, 2023 in Los Angeles CA. He had Parkinson’s.

James Michael Reaves was born September 14, 1950 in San Francisco CA. He attended the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop in 1972, and his first SF story was “The Breath of Dragons” in Clarion 3 (1973). Some early work appeared under the name J. Michael Reaves. Debut novel I, Alien appeared in 1978, ...Read More

Writer Eric Brown, 62, died March 21, 2023 of sepsis. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2022. Brown was the author of over 50 books, and a longtime SF reviewer for The Guardian.

Brown was born was born May 24, 1960 in Haworth, West Yorkshire. He traveled extensively in Greece and Asia in the ’80s, eventually settling in Berwickshire, Scotland.

Brown’s first work of genre interest was children’s play ...Read More

Writer John Jakes, 90, died March 11, 2023. While famed for his bestselling historical novels, Jakes was a prolific SF and fantasy author early in his career. He published over 60 books in a variety of genres, but became famous with two historical epics: the eight-volume Kent Family Chronicles histories in the 1970s, and the North and South trilogy in the 1980s, which collectively sold tens of millions of copies. ...Read More

Writer Christopher Fowler, 69, died March 3, 2023 in London. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2020. Fowler was the author of over 50 books in a variety of genres.

Christopher Robert Fowler was born March 26, 1953 in Greenwich, London, and split his time between London and Barcelona until his cancer diagnosis. In addition to his fiction career, he was a marketing writer, and founded film marketing company The ...Read More

Publisher, writer, and editor John Teehan, 56, died February 23, 2023 at Rhode Island Hospital after suffering a stroke. He was an editor and the longtime production manager for the SFWA Bulletin, and in 2010 founded The Merry Blacksmith Press, publishing fiction and non-fiction by Tobias S. Buckell, Ron Collins, Tim Pratt, Bud Webster, and others. Teehan was also an author of occasional short fiction, essays, and poetry in the ...Read More

SF writer and illustrator Ray Nelson, 91, died November 30, 2022 in El Cerrito CA. He was a prolific author of SF and mystery fiction and longtime member of fandom.

Radell Faraday Nelson was born October 31, 1931 in Schenectady, New York. He became involved in fandom as a teenager in Cadillac MI. He claimed to have invented the propellor beanie in 1947, and popularized the headgear as a symbol ...Read More

Author Paul La Farge, 52, died of cancer on January 18, 2023. His novel The Night Ocean (2017) was a Shirley Jackson Award finalist.

Paul Bayard La Farge was born November 17, 1970 in New York City, and was a graduate of Yale University. He taught writing at Bard College, Wesleyan, and the University of Leipzig, and from July 2020 was a member of the faculty at Bennington College. Debut ...Read More

Artist Richard Bober, 79, died December 10, 2022.

Bober was born August 18, 1943 in Elizabeth NJ. By his teens he was fortunate to have the well-known artist Lee E. Gaskins as one of his teachers in public school (1957-1958). Bober won a scholarship to the Pratt Institute in 1961, where (as he put it) he “caused general havoc and aggravation to many professors.” By his own reckoning, he was ...Read More

SF writer Suzy McKee Charnas, 83, died January 2, 2023. She was best known for her ambitious works that explored gender, sexuality, and feminist issues.

Suzy McKee was born October 22, 1939 in New York City. She attended Barnard College, where she studied economic history, and then served in the Peace Corps for two years in West Africa before getting a masters degree in teaching at NYU and working as ...Read More

Literary agent Henry Morrison, 86, died November 2, 2022. Morrison’s past clients included Samuel R. Delany, Dean Koontz, Robert Ludlum, Eric van Lustbader, David Morrell, and Roger Zelazny.

Morrison was born in New York and grew up in New Jersey. He got his start at the Scott Meredith Literary Agency before leaving to launch his own agency in his late 20s. He was active in the business for more than ...Read More

Fan and scholar JUSTIN E.A. BUSCH, 63, died October 21, 2022. He was best known in the field for his first book, The Utopian Vision of H.G. Wells (2009), and for his work in fanzines.

Justin Edwin Anton Busch was born April 23, 1959 in St. Louis MO. He lived in Nashville TN as a child before moving with his family to Geneva NY. He earned a BA in ...Read More

Writer and artist JILL PINKWATER, 81, died October 4, 2022 in Rhinebeck NY. She was best known for the illustrations she contributed to her husband Daniel Pinkwater’s books for children. Jill Miriam Schutz was born May 29, 1941 in the Bronx NY, and worked asan artist and teacher. She met Daniel Pinkwater in 1969, and they were married that same year; they subsequently collaborated on more than 50 books, including ...Read More

Author Anne Harris, 58, who also wrote SF as Pearl North, died November 17, 2022 in Ferndale MI after suffering a stroke.

Born May 2, 1964 in Detroit MI, Harris graduated from Oakland University with a computer science degree. They published over a dozen novels and numerous stories, and taught at Seton Hill University.

They began publishing genre work with “Change Is A Dog” (1991). Their books include debut The ...Read More

Author and illustrator Marcus Sedgwick, 54, died unexpectedly in France on November 17, 2022. He wrote more than 40 books, most for children and teens, including many of genre interest.

Born April 8, 1968 in Preston, Kent, England, Sedgwick worked as a bookseller and for a small children’s publisher before becoming a full-time writer.

He wrote several series, including the Dead Days sequence, the Cudweed trilogy, the Raven Mysteries, and ...Read More

French SF writer and professor Anne Fakhouri, 48, died November 9, 2022 following a long illness.

Fakhouri was born March 3, 1974 in Paris. She earned her master’s at the Sorbonne, where she studied tales of King Arthur, and became a professor of literature, teaching in Paris and Rennes, where she lived in her final years.

Her debut YA novel, Le Clairvoyage, appeared in 2008 from L’Atalante, followed by ...Read More

Sue Strong Hassler, 84, died November 9, 2022 of complications from back surgery and COVID. She spent her last days in a memory care unit in Hudson OH. She co-authored Arthur Machen & Montgomery Evans: Letters of a Literary Friendship, 1923-1947 (1994) with her husband, the editor and critic Donald M. Hassler.

Virginia Sue Strong was born July 16, 1938 in Hobard OK and attended West Texas A&M State University. ...Read More

Fan and writer Martin Morse Wooster, 64, died November 12, 2022 in Williamsburg VA, the victim of a hit-and-run. He was attending an ale convention and was struck while walking back to his hotel from the event. He was a regular Locus correspondent, sending us news, letters, and corrections for decades, and will be greatly missed.

Wooster was a founding member of the Potomac River Science Fiction Society (PRSFS). He ...Read More

Artist Ned Dameron, 79, died October 20, 2022 of ALS. Dameron was best known for his book covers and interiors, and for roleplaying game artwork.

A native of Louisiana, born May 7, 1943, Edward Palfrey IV was always known personally as well as professionally as “Ned.” He was born in Rio and grew up in Hammond and Baton Rouge, and while still in high school he apprenticed as a draughtsman ...Read More

Fan J.G. “HUCK” HUCKENPÖHLER, 81, died August 26, 2022 in Washington DC. Huck­enpöhler was active in fandom for more than 50 years, and was the recording secretary for the Burroughs Bibliophiles for over 30 years. He attended his first Worldcon in 1967, and often created the calligraphy certificates handed out at Worldcon Masquerades.

Huckenpöhler earned a PhD in history from George Washington University and was an expert in military ...Read More

SF writer Tom Maddox, 77, died of a stroke on October 18, 2022.

Daniel Thomas Maddox was born in October 1945 and attended the Evergreen State College, graduating in 1975. He earned his PhD at American University, and later taught literature at Evergreen.

He began publishing work of genre interest with “The Mind Like a Strange Balloon” (Omni 6/85) and produced several more stories in the ’80s and early ’90s. ...Read More

Author Albert E. Cowdrey, 88, died August 21, 2022 in New Orleans LA.

Albert Edward Cowdrey was born December 8,1933 in New Orleans. He attended Tulane University, graduating with a BA in 1956 and a PhD in 1971; he earned his MA at Johns Hopkins in 1957. Cowdrey was in the US Army, serving in Germany in the late ’50s. He was a historian for the Army Corps of Engineers ...Read More

Editor and critic Maureen Kincaid Speller, 63, died September 18, 2022 in Folkestone, Kent, England. She had cancer.

Maureen Speller was born in Oxford on March 23, 1959. She was active in UK fandom from around 1980, and was the partner of writer Paul Kincaid since 1986; they were married in 1993, and he survives her.

She founded Acnestis, a UK amateur press association, in 1992, administrating it until its ...Read More

Fan WAYNE McCALLA, 53, died June 14, 2022 in Evansville IN following a long illness. McCalla was a frequent convention attendee and collector, and a close friend of artists Donald Maitz & Janny Wurts. Wayne Leland McCalla, Jr. was born June 20, 1968, and is survived by two sisters, a brother, and nieces and nephews.

While you are here, please take a moment to support Locus with a one-time ...Read More