I was at Capclave last year and didn't know many people and wasn't hugely interested in a lot of panels so I spent a lot of time sitting in the lobby knitting by myself. During one of these lobby knitting sessions, another knitter sat next to me and we got to talking, after a while, some of their friends wandered over, too. Ann was in this group. They started talking about where they were going to go to get a meal and as the decision was being made, Ann asked me if I was coming along. I wasn't, but just the fact that she asked me if I was coming--that she included me in the group--meant the world to me.

Her work was--and is--so very important. She'll be missed. My deepest condolences to her family and friends.

Terri

Sympathies to all those who knew her properly.

Fly with the sparks, Ann.

A reporter interviewed us and then her, and then asked for our names and I recognized hers. I gushed about the Writer Beware website and tried to make the reporter realize that he had stellar interview fodder here, but the reporter was an idiot and printed a lame quote from a teenager about "we all know each other from Renn Faire".

I've since been outraged on her behalf. Her work really deserved a wider audience. She probably just laughed it off.

That marathon stands out as one of the better days of my life, and Ann was a big part of it. She noticed things in the movies - not just funny little mistakes that we could have a laugh at or particularly gorgeous *ahem*... anyhow, she noticed little moments of authenticity that passed me by, and by bringing them to my attention made the movies I had already seen a dozen times seem fresh, and made the new movie leap off the screen.

She was a very perceptive person, with exquisite taste.

And yes, cancer sucks. Death to cancer, forever and ever.

The sheer amount of hard work and decency that WB puts into protecting the naive from scammers and creeps is one of the wonders of the modern world.

As much as cancer sucks, I'm grateful that the manner of her passing allowed her an opportunity to say a farewell, and to give us an opportunity to send her our thanks and love over the past few days. If it felt weird to say "I'm going to miss you" to someone who was still alive, it was only because usually the way things go I end up saying it to everyone else after it's too late to say it to the one person I wish could hear it.

...and because I'm no exception to this reluctance we have, as a society, to acknowledge death's inevitability, I guess.

For those of us who knew and loved her, it was not only her humanity but her deep laughter, and her honesty that shone.

Yeah, she was a solid and popular writer. Kudos and honors for that work. But she put a lot of her career on hold to do a job that needed doing. Thr writers' angel.

She sent her own valedictory, but we were the ones blessed by it.

Goodbye, Annie. You always did fight the good fight

Jane