The World Loses Harper Lee

It is with great sadness that I have found out today that Harper Lee has passed away aged 89. Born in the same small town her famous book 'To Kill A Mockingbird' was set, Nelle Harper Lee has lived her life with the same people and wrote that one book about a lawyer who defended a 'black' man who was accused of raping a white girl in a time when people assumed the worse of others. 

Harper Lee grew up in a world similar to Scout and her world in the book. Lee lived next door to Truman Capote and they were best of friends and she lost her mother at a young age, with only her father to bring her up - him being a lawyer as well. He battled a case similar to the one in the book - but he lost it and never practiced law again.

Lee went to university and studied law but didn't finish and decided to write, and this is where 'To Kill A Mockingbird' came out - her only book. Then, last year, she published 'Go Set A Watchman'. 
The people of her town have said that Nelle Harper Lee was a wonderful person to know. She taught the world about how not to judge people until you 'have walked around in their skin'. And how true that is.

The World Loses Jackie Collins

I just found out on Facebook today that well-known actor from the 1960's and author, Jackie Collins has passed away sadly from Breast Cancer aged 77 in Los Angeles.
Born in Hampstead, England in 1937, Jackie Collins - sister of the famous actor, Joan Collins - had help starting her career from her father who was a theatrical agent to the likes of Shirley Bassey, The Beatles and Tom Jones.

Collins was best known for her brilliantly-written books about Hollywood - filled with sex, power and money-hungry violence all through the plot. Not everyone liked them, and some countries actually banned her books from being sold - but she had a huge fan base and sold millions over her 32 book career.

However, when she was diagnosed with stage 4 Breast Cancer more than six years ago, she kept her illness to herself. Over this time, she wrote another 5 books and in an interview she gave five days ago from her Hollwood home, she was said to have lived her live the way Frank Sinatra did - she had done it all 'her way'. 

Jackie was the younger sister of Joan Collins. She leaves behind three adult daughters, Tracy, Tiffany and Rory. Jackie Collins was a brilliant writer, who entertained us all and she will be greatly missed. May she Rest In Peace.

Jackie Collins' Full Article  

The World Loses Oliver Sacks

Today, we lost a great writer, a great Neurologist and a great man who not only touched many people through his books, but through the films made from his books.

The world lost Oliver Sacks.

Oliver Sacks wrote great books about his patients and their medical conditions - which were mainly ones of the brain, ones we didn't really understand and medical conditions science didn't have answers for. However, he made us feel as though we were closer to knowing more about those conditions just by reading his works.

He was famous for the movie 'Awakenings' where Robin Williams played Oliver and he was working with patients who had Encephalitis Lethargica - a decades-long sleeping sickness. He was able to awaken them with a chemical called L-DOPA. However, they woke into a world they did not recognise due to how long they'd been sleeping; the affects in the movie didn't last as long as the protagonist wished.

Oliver Sacks also wrote other books. One is titled 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat'. However, his most recent study has been closer to home - himself. In 'The Mind's Eye' a series of stories, Sacks studies patients with vision problems, he also describes his own experience with ocular cancer treatment with a giddy excitement.

Over the years, his work has been read by many, ridiculed by the scientific community and held in awe by his fans. However, Oliver Sacks has been working hard on making it easier for us - his audience - to look at medical ideas which are technical sound easier through his voice and his works. He was once called the 'poet laureate of contemporary medicine' by the New York Times, however, he sees himself and his life in a completely different way:

'Over the last few days, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts,” he wrote.

“I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written. I have had an intercourse with the world, the special intercourse of writers and readers,' he wrote. 'Above all, I have been a sentient being, a thinking animal, on this beautiful planet, and that in itself has been an enormous privilege and adventure.' 

Oliver Sacks will be missed by everyone who has loved his works, his family and friends alike. May he be at rest now.

(NB: Some of this was taken from the Washington Post website).

The World Loses Tanith Lee

One of my favourite of favourite writers passed away on Sunday, aged 67. 

Being unable to read until the age of 8, when her father taught her to read, Tanith Lee loved the written word throughout her life. She wrote and published her first vignette aged 21. She worked various jobs as a file clerk assistant and librarian while sending out her works to be considered for publication; and her first publications were children's fantasies 'The Dragon Hoard' and 'Animal Castle', published in 1971 and 1972.

In 1975, DAW published her first adult fantasy 'The Birthgrave'.  This company would go on to publish more than 20 of her SFF and horror works during the 1970's and 1980's.

In 1980, Tanith Lee received The British Fantasy Society's August Derleth Award for her book 'Death's Master'; as well as the World Fantasy Awards for the Best Short Story in 1983 and 1984.  She was also the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Awards from the World Fantasy Convention in 2013 and the World Horror Association (WHA) in 2015.

Even though this great author has seemed to have fallen silent over the last few decades, it's not true; as a 'Guardian' interview from 2010 has put through a quote:

'If anyone ever wonders why there's nothing coming from me, it's not my fault.  I'm doing the work. No, I haven't deteriorated or gone insane. Suddenly, I just can't get anything into print.' 

This is something a lot of writers from the seventies seem to have problems with; that they have fallen out of favour in the publishing world in recent times. This unfortunately causes them to drop from out of favour and become forgotten in the publishing circles.  However, there's one thing publishing companies forget about fans... we never forget our favourite writers. 

And, Tanith Lee will be one we will never forget.

Our World Loses Terry Pratchett

Sitting on the backs of four elephants, while they stand on the shell of a giant turtle, being propelled through space is Discworld.  This brilliant creation was from the fantastic mind of Terry Pratchett.  However, I'm sadden to say that I've only just found out he passed away just last night.  

Terry Pratchett fired our imaginations with this brilliantly created world when he published his series of books bringing us into a hilarious storyline filled with characters we could relate to, some we love and some we hated... some we just knew would keep coming back - like Death (one of my all-time favourites.. he had such a dry wit).

However, in 2007, the author was diagnosed with a rare form of Alzheimer; posterior cortical atrophy, which was a progressive degenerative condition.  He continued to write his books and campaigned to make assisted dying legal, as well as giving numerous lectures about his conditions and interviews as well.

His publishers have said Terry Pratchett was one of the brightest and sharpest writing minds.  He'd published over 70 books, enriching this planet like very few before him. His world was filled with parody, wit and a colourful cast of characters inspired from the worlds of folk tales, fantasy and mythology.  His most favoured character - Death - always had his dialogue written in all capitals, and his last tweet was a conversation with this character from his books.

A famous example of Death's dialogue - and wit - would be:  'DON'T THINK OF IT AS DYING' Death said, 'JUST THINK OF IT AS LEAVING EARLY TO AVOID THE RUSH.'

Terry Pratchett's books were filled with Death's very quotable dialogues, which often made people see him in a funny light, making him a favourite character.  However, Terry's passing came through a series of tweets written in the form of his Discworld novels, where Death and Terry started to talk:

'AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.' said the first tweet on @terryondrob.
"Terry took his arm and followed through the doors and on to the black desert and under the endless night." said the second, while the third simply said, "The End."

The World Loses Colleen McCullough

I am saddened to report that Colleen McCullough has passed away just last night in the hospital on Norfolk Island.  

Colleen was a very well-educated woman who worked as a neuro-scientist in the Royal North Shore Hospital and then worked as in a researching role at Yale Medical School for a decade.

It was in the United States she found her passion for writing and wrote her first book, 'Tim', which was soon followed by 'The Thorn Birds'.  Both these books were turned into screenplays.  'The Thorn Birds' was turned in a popular television series, while 'Tim' was turned into a movie in 1979 where Mel Gibson stared in one of his first movie roles.

After 'The Thorn Birds' success, Colleen and her husband moved to Norfolk Island permanently and have lived there since.
While living there, she has produced great books such as 'An Indecent Obsession' and the seven-book historical series 'Master of Rome', which was acclaimed by politician such as Bob Carr, Henry Kissinger and Newt Gingrich.

Colleen published her last works, 'Bittersweet', in 2013.

She has been living with poor health in recent years, losing her sight and suffering from crippling arthritis.

Clifford the Big Red Dog Loses Norman Bridwell

Norman Bridwell was the wonderful creator of Clifford the Big Red Dog.  For those who don't know him - or missed out on reading about his adventures like I did - he was a wonderful creation.  Clifford was most certainly a big bright red dog who was clumsy but good-natured and his stories were of this wonderful dog's curiosities getting himself into trouble - funny trouble.  
Clifford's stories helped children learn about compassion, love and other values parents hoped to instill into them as they grew, but through the eyes of a big red dog.  And Norman Bridwell certainly succeeded in doing this over his life, seeing Clifford was created - or born - in 1963, and had a wonderful friend Emily Elizabeth (a character named after one of his children).

However, I have found out today that Norman Bridwell has passed away sadly aged 86 years young at home on December 12.  

I have a wonderful little toy Clifford dog sitting by my side right now... and if you have any of his books, I think it'd be a good time to get in and read them either to yourself or your children in remembrance of one of the best children's writers around.  This man brought an oversized, bright red puppy dog into our children's imaginations... and I don't think any other dog will ever replace him.  

The World Loses Eric Hill

I'm sad to report that I just read on Facebook that Eric Hill, the author of 'Spot the Dog' books from the early 1980's has passed away aged 86 in California.  He suffered from a brief illness before he died and was made famous for his simple design of a dog called Spot and how his books entertained children in 1980.

'Spot' is still very much a favourite amongst children from all over the world.  And the books are translated into over sixty languages.  I wasn't much of a fan of this author when I was a child, however I found a link to an article about him.

Eric Hill 

We Have All Lost Maya Angelou

This morning, I opened my facebook page to read that one of the greatest authors, poets, teachers and human rights activists has passed away just yesterday aged 86.

Maya Angelou was the first African American woman to rise from a childhood of poverty and into the ranks of recognition in the literary world - and more.  She penned more than thirty books; however she was best known for her ground-breaking autobiography:  'I Know Why the Cage Bird Sings'.  She had a miraid of jobs surrounding the theatre and club scene before writing her first book in the 1970's; and this book brought her name into the literary mainstream.

Tribute to Maya Angelou 

Personally, I had heard of Maya Angelou when I was in high school, however never had the opportunity to read her work.  As years passed by, I found her book on Bookcrossing and ask if I could borrow the book or become a member on a book reading ring.  When I did get to read the book, 'I Know Why The Cage Bird Sings', I found it was wonderfully written and couldn't put it down.  I think we will all miss Maya Angelou for her writing, her poetry and her presence in this world... there will be no other writer or person like her again to grace this planet or time as we know it.

Australia Loses Another Great Writer

Today, I found out that Australia - and the world - has lost another great writer.  However, because I respect her so much and she is Aboriginal (and due to her customs and culture) I won't mention her name.  This writer wrote 'Follow The Rabbit Proof Fence', a story about her mother's survival of a 2000km trek through the Australian desert after escaping from a re-education camp for mix-race children.  This book, and the film it was later turned into, brought into light exactly what our government did to the stolen generation; and how much it affected them and their familes.

I haven't read the book, but I did watch the film; and I was totally shocked at what happened.  There are things in my country's history that I know are horrible, but this has got to be the worse thing that's been documented; and I do hope my government doesn't think of doing this ever again to a race of people who have been here since before the White Man came to its shores.

This wonderful author will be missed.  She passed away on Thursday surrounded by family after she was diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer in September in Perth.  
She is survived by 4 children, 31 grandchildren and 80 great-grandchildren.  Her family had taken her out to Pilbara three weeks ago to say farewell to her ancestral home, as it was her last wish to see the countryside one last time. 

Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence Author Passes Away 

Adrian Mole Loses Sue Townsend

The world has lost another great author too soon.  Sue Townsend, the author of the Adrian Mole 13 3/4 series of books, has sadly passed away aged 68 at her home.

This author has been in my life for as long as I can remember, as I read the first book of the Adrian Mole 13 3/4 series in my early teenaged years about four times; and still found the affair with his lover Pandora Braithwaite adorable.  Even to this day, I have still tracked down the rest of the series over the years and read them; and found them wonderful.

However, I have never forgotten Sue Townsend; and have wondered often how she was doing, and if she was writing another series much like the Adrian Mole series for the new generation of kids out there.
And today, I find that she has passed away at such a young age (well, to our generation anyway).  She hadn't been well, and her health had declined from what I've read.  So, what have you read of Sue Townsend's that has amused you over the years?  Was 'Adrian Mole' the first funny series you read, or was it something you discovered later on in life?  Until my next post, happy reading.

And here's a link to a news article about her from the BBC:

Sue Townsend Remembered 

The World Loses Doris Lessing

I heard today that Doris Lessing passed away aged 94.  What a great age to reach for such a brilliant author; especially one of who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.  However, not a lot of people know about her life.  So, I thought to find a site where there's a proper lot of information and write a tribute to her.

Doris Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Persia (now Iran) on October 22, 1919. Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I, was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925, lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). 
Doris' upbringing was a mix of 'some pleasure and much pain' as she and her brother explored their world around them in Africa.  Her mother was obsessed with raising a proper daughter and so enforced rigid rules and regulations of higiene at home; then enrolled her in a convent where the nuns terrified their charges with stories of hell and damnation.  Lessing was later sent to and all-girls high school; where she dropped out of aged 13 and become a self-educated intellectual.  And she has believed that unhappy childhoods seem to produce fiction writers: 

'Yes, I think that is true. Though it wasn't apparent to me then. Of course, I wasn't thinking in terms of being a writer then - I was just thinking about how to escape, all the time.'

Parcels of books ordered from London arrived to feed her imagination and laying out worlds for her to escape into from her life of where she was living. Her early reading lists included authors such as:   Dickens, Scott, Stevenson, Kipling; later she discovered D.H. Lawrence, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky.  And she also kept her brother awake at night spinning tales of her own as well.

At age 15, Doris left home in flight from her mother and took up a job as a nursemaid.  Her employer gave her books on sociology and politics to read; and all the while his son was sneaking into her room at night.

Lessing's life has been a challenge to her belief that people cannot resist the currents of their time, as she fought against the biological and cultural imperatives that fated her to sink without a murmur into marriage and motherhood.  

"There is a whole generation of women," she has said, speaking of her mother's era, "and it was as if their lives came to a stop when they had children. Most of them got pretty neurotic - because, I think, of the contrast between what they were taught at school they were capable of being and what actually happened to them." 

Lessing believes that she was freer than most people because she became a writer. For her, writing is a process of "setting at a distance," taking the "raw, the individual, the uncriticized, the unexamined, into the realm of the general." 

In 1937, Lessing moved to Salisbury and worked as a telephone operator for a year; and at 19, got married to Frank Wisdom and had two children to him.  However, their marriage didn't last long, with her leaving the family; feeling trapped in a persona that would destroy her if she had stayed.  She stayed in Salisbury and found the Left Book Club where she met Gottfried Lessing.  He was a central member of the group, which was a Communist group; and soon after they met, they were married and she had a son to him.  
By 1949, Lessing had left the communist group and moved to London with her son and published her first book 'The Grass Is Singing' and began her professional career as a writer.

After writing the 'Children of Violence' series (1951 - 1959), a formally buldungsroman (novel of education) about the growth in consciousness of her heroine, Martha Quest, Lessing broke new ground with 'The Golden Notebook' (1962) a daring narrative experiment, in which the multiple selves of a contemporary woman are rendered in astonishing depth and detail. 
Attacked for being "unfeminine" in her depiction of female anger and aggression, Lessing responded, "Apparently what many women were thinking, feeling, experiencing came as a great surprise." As at least one early critic noticed, Anna Wulf "tries to live with the freedom of a man" - a point Lessing seems to confirm: "These attitudes in male writers were taken for granted, accepted as sound philosophical bases, as quite normal, certainly not as woman-hating, aggressive, or neurotic."

Over her long and very interesting life, Doris Lessing has written around 60 books.  She has been a major influence on many people across the world and has left a huge mark on our world.  Her legacy of literature will leave not leave us for generations to come. 
I found all this information on her official website - and took about 3 paragraphs fully from it to paste here as there was so much information there.  And because of this, I'll leave the link for you to read it all here and you can have a look at it... and I'll also put it onto the side bar as well for future reference.  Rest In Peace, Doris Lessing.  

The World Remembers Richard Matheson

It hasn't been until today that I have read that we have lost a wonderful writer from this world: Richard Matheson aged 87 on Sunday.  This brilliant author and screen-writer was one who could creep out anyone with his 'what-if' premises and a lot of his books and stories were turned into films with front-running actors playing the best parts in them.  He drew a lot of his storylines from real-life events as well as made-up stories.  His best-known story, which was turned into a film, was 'I Am Legend' which was one of his earlier stories.  He also wrote the book to 'What Dreams May Come' and 'A Stir of Echoes' both of which became films with Kevin Bacons and Robin Williams playing the lead roles respectively.  
From boyhood, he was a veracious reader he graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School and he served in the Army in Europe in WWII, where another book came from, 'The Beardless Warriors'.  He also wrote a long list of other books and stories as well to shock and scare, all with the 'what-if' idea imbedded firmly in the plot and outline of them all.
And Mr Matheson was also a busy television writer as well.  He wrote for 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents','Star Trek' and especially for 'The Twilight Zone', for which he wrote more than a dozen episodes, including the classic 'Nightmare at 20,000 Feet', where William Shatner starred as a passenger who spies a gremlin which is on the wing bent on crippling the plan.

In The Telegraph, where I'm getting most of my information for this post, I spotted a quote from Stephen King, where he e-mailed a quick note on Tuesday on Matheson, that he "was a seminal figure in the horror and fantasy genres, as important in his way as Poe or Lovecraft." he continues to say in his statement: "He fired my imagination by not placing his horrors in European castles or Lovecraftian Universes, but in American scenes I knew and could relate to. 'I want to do that' I thought, 'I must do that.' Matheson showed the way." 

Richard Matheson is survived by his wife, who he married in 1952, his two sons, two daughters, seven grand-children and two great-grand-children.

Australian Journalist, Peter Harvey Passes Away

Legendary Australian journalist, Peter Harvey, passed away yesterday aged 68, from Cancer.  He had been working as a television journalist for the last 35 years.  During the last four decades, he's covered most of the world's most important and breaking news; from Vietnam through to when the Gulf War first broke out.  He has also been there through quite a few Australian leaders - such as Malcolm Fraser, Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard.  

He has traveled around the globe covering all kinds of stories on every event possible, bringing to us solid facts and being there when new facts were on hand.  

Personally, I've grown up with this reporter/jounalist on my television screen on 60 Minutes every Sunday night.  He's been a part of my life for a very long time; and I don't remember a time when he hasn't been there.  And now, he's passed away and gone, it's a sad time for writers, journalists and anyone in the writing arena.  May Peter Harvey Rest In Peace.

I have put in a couple of links for further reading below. I hope you all find the time to read them.

Peter Harvey Dies After Battle With Cancer 

Peter Harvey Passes Away   

Peter Harvey Has Died Aged 68 

Jane Cortez Passes Away

Prominent performance artist and poet, Jane Cortez, has been lost from the literary world just week from hear failure, on 28th, December, aged 78.  I have only just read this on ninemsn.com.au.  So, seeing I don't know too much about her, I'll leave the news link to tell us more.

Jane Cortez 

Jane Cortez and Her Publications 

The World Loses Bryce Courtney

Late last night, Australia lost another great writer from her ranks - Bryce Courntey.  Born in South Africa and moving here in the 1950's, Bryce was said to have been a born story-teller and a 'latter-day Charles Dickens', with his strong and complex plots, larger-than-life characters, and his ability to appeal to a large number of readers.  Nearly every year, for the last 15, he would write a 600-page book in around six months, year in, year out. To achieve that feat he used what he called 'bum glue', sometimes writing for more than 12 hours a day.  He brought to writing his books the same determination and dedication he showed in the more than 40 marathons he ran, most of them when he was well over 50.

Courtenay, a father-of-three, soared to the top of the bestseller charts with his 1989 debut, The Power of One, which was subsequently made into a film starring Morgan Freeman.
At the time, he was married to his first wife, Benita, who he met while studying journalism in London in 1955. He followed her to Australia, the pair were married in 1959 and had three sons - Brett, Adam and Damon.
Courtenay's 1993 bestseller April Fool's Day, was a tribute to his youngest son.  Damon, contracted HIV/AIDS through an infected blood transfusion in 1991 and died at the age of 24. 
Courtenay continued to churn out bestsellers almost every year for two decades including The Potato Factory and Tommo & Hawk.
As with most of his books, his final novel, Jack of Diamonds, featured a talented young protagonist fighting the odds to reach great personal and professional heights amidst adversity. The novel - Courtenay's 21st in 24 years - drew on his love of music and his own experiences working in a Rhodesian mine as a teenager.
Courtenay  became a Member of the Order of Australia in 1995 and was also honoured with a postage stamp after being named an Australia Post Literary Legend.
Bryce Courtney will be missed by everyone here and around the world in the writing, publishing and reading world.  My heart goes out to his family and friends who are at their darkest moments now; and just know that he's out of pain. 

Herald Sun Tribute to Bryce Courtney 

The World Loses Maeve Binchy

The writing world has been losing a lot of authors of late; and in the last few weeks, we have lost two.  There has been Margaret Mahy from New Zealand, who is known to be a national treasure there; one of my friends - Ged Maybury - knew as a close friend and fellow author when he lived there.  She will be missed by many people of all ages.  Margaret is famous for her children's books - something I didn't know.  Some titles I have found familiar are: 'Organ Music', 'Maddigan's Quest' and I have seen the book cover of 'The Dark Blue 100-Ride Bus Ticket' once when somebody was reading it on a bus.  It looked like a cool cover and I wondered who the author was; and didn't know until I saw it on a site just now.

And now, we have lost Maeve Binchy only last night.  She was 72 years old and had suffered a short illness before she passed away.  Maeve has been famous for many books such as 'Tara Road', 'Circle of Friends' and 'Quentins' - the first two books were made into films.  

It's always sad to lose such great writers as these from our world because we feel as though they've left us only words to remember them by.  However, that's never the case.  What writers have left us - when they leave this world - is their legacy of works, for us to read, to remember and always go back to in case we miss them dearly, so we can talk to them again and revisit their worlds anytime we wish.  This is why they wrote - and why any writer writes - to leave behind a part of our world with you all (as I'm a writer as well) so you can always enjoy no matter where you are, who you are or what's going on in your life.  

We Lose Ray Bradbury

On Tuesday night, Ray Bradbury passed away in Los Angeles aged 91 from a long illness.  He has penned more than 500 books in his lifetime love with sci-fi fiction and has a massive fan base around the world; which spans more than one generation of readers.  He wrote such classics as 'Something Wicked Comes This Way' and 'Fahrenheit 451' which are still read today.

"In science fiction, we dream," he told The New York Times. "In order to colonise in space, to rebuild our cities ... to tackle any number of problems, we must imagine the future, including the new technologies that are required ...

"Science fiction is also a great way to pretend you are writing about the future when in reality you are attacking the recent past and the present."

Bradbury didn't embrace technology or the internet; even though he wrote about the future in his novels and stories.  He called the internet a scam perpetrated by computer companies, was disdainful of automatic teller machines and denounced video games as "a waste of time for men with nothing else to do." 

He was a self-educated man; as he never went to college and read his way through libraries and published his first works in pulp magazines to start with.   In 1950 Bradbury published 'The Martian Chronicles' - a tale of Earthlings fleeing a troubled planet and their conflicts with residents on Mars. It was given a glowing review by influential critic Christopher Isherwood, which Bradbury credited with launching his career.  

In a career spanning more than seventy years, other well-known titles include 'Dandelion Wine', 'I Sing the Body Electric' and 'From the Dust Returned' and he wrote hundreds of short stories as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays and screenplays.  Ray Bradbury will be greatly missed in this world of books and sci-fi as we take off into the future he wrote of.  I have only begun reading his work - and love it completely - and will definitely go hunting for more of his works to read them all.  May he Rest In Peace.

Maurice Sendak Passes Away

Born 10th, June, 1928, Maurice Sendak, the author of many children's picture books - including 'Where the Wild Things Are' - sadly passed away yesterday aged 83.  Born in Brooklyn, NYC, Maurice the youngest of three siblings of an  impecunious dressmaker.  

While everyone in Sendak's family told stories, remembered gruesome fairy tales and Jewish folklore, and drew pictures, his other childhood influence was the cinema.  He had written and illustrated his first book by the age of six; his was a childhood of observing from a window, drawing the children outside – he watched faces, guessed emotions, all his life; as he was a sickly child, constantly quarantined ("I learned early on that it was a very chancy business, being alive") and missing school, so Natalie, nine years older, was always having him "dumped on her", and he remembered both her great love and her demonic rages.  He even put her into the third book of the trilogy of 'Where the Wild Things Are' as Ida.  'In the Night Kitchen', was his most personal book, and his favourite, a tribute to Natalie "who is Ida, very brave, very strong, very frightening, taking care of me" (the "Baby" of the story).

In high school, which he loathed desperately, he worked for All-American Comics, filling in backgrounds and storylines for the Mutt and Jeff strip, and in 1948 he and his elder brother Jack began to make animated wooden toys, which led to his working as a window designer in the New York toyshop FAO Schwarz.

Sendak was 21 or so at Christmas-time, when he decided to "draw his face off", and filled the whole shop-front with drawings from the Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'. It was "like putting a huge hook in the water and waiting for a fish to be caught". A Harper and Row editor, Ursula Nordstrom, rose to the bait, commissioned him to illustrate The Wonderful Farm by Marcel Aymé, published in 1951, and became a lifelong friend. At that time he was getting the only formal art training he ever had, by attending night school at the Art Students League of New York for two years.

Sendak relished the miracle of having survived so long, having always faced up to the "arbitrary nature of life" – his European relatives perished in Nazi camps, his parents never hid from his baby self how close he was to death, and at the age of 39 he had a major heart attack. Pragmatically, he set out to accomplish more in what time he had, and he cared deeply about the life we were bequeathing our children. For this complex man and great artist had "an intense nostalgia, a passionate affiliaton for childhood", and those very accomplishments are the finest of all bequests.

Since 1951 his 90-odd titles have sold nearly 30m copies in the US alone. His renowned work Where the Wild Things Are (1963), with worldwide sales of more than 19m, was a turning point not only in his own career but in the history of children's books.

The World Loses Anne McCaffrey

Anne McCaffrey passed away this week in Ireland at home after suffering a stroke aged 85.  She was the daughter of a retired Army Colonel.  During WWII, Anne attended Stuart Hall, a girls' boarding school in Staunton, Virginia, while her father was in Europe. She graduated from Montclair High School and, in 1947, graduated cum laude from Radcliffe College with a major in Slavonic Languages and Literature.   

Anne helped usher in a new era for women writers of science-fiction and fantasy by being the trailblazer into this mainly male arena.   

She was the first to be given a Hugo Award in 1968 and a Nebula Award one year later. She was also the first woman with a science fiction title on The New York Times Best Seller list in 1978, with "The White Dragon.".  Extremely prolific, she published nearly 100 books, mainly fiction, starting in 1967. She emigrated to Ireland (from America) in 1970. McCaffrey was also a large collaborator. Up until 1990, she co-authored more than 30 books -- 15 with Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. She also co-wrote with Margaret Ball, Mercedes Lackey, Elizabeth Moon, Jody Lynn Nye and S. M. Stirling.  The Science Fiction Hall of Fame inducted her June 17, 2006.

Anne will be greatly missed in the Sci-fi arena; however her work will live on for generations to come.  May she Rest In Peace.