Anne

We've lost Anne McCaffrey.

I never had the opportunity or the privilege to meet Anne in person, but she influenced me enormously as an author. I've been reading her novels almost all my adult life, and I've never stopped; this week I'm working on The White Dragon. Over the years I have read editions of Crystal Singer, Restoree and Powers That Be so many times that they fell apart and I had to go get new copies. I also have at least one copy of every book she's ever written. Probably two or three; I have shelves of lending copies.

At the beginning of my career Anne read the manuscript that would become my first published novel, StarDoc. She wrote a beautiful letter with her thoughts about it, and provided a lovely quote for the cover. That's the sort of kindness and generosity that you can only hope to pay forward, because you can never pay it back.

As for me, I'm going to get an early start on Thanksgiving and say thank you, Anne. Thank you for all the amazing novels you wrote, for your kindness to me and so many other writers, and for bringing so much wonder and delight to the world. Your time here was not wasted. And I pray with all my heart that you have a safe journey to the next place, and there dwell in beauty and peace.