Eugie Foster, 1971 - 2014

I only just heard. This is from her Facebook page, dated 27 September 2014:

Eugie Foster, author, editor, wife, died on September 27th of respiratory failure at Emory University in Atlanta.

In her forty-two years, Eugie lived three lifetimes. She won the Nebula award, the highest award for science fiction literature, and had over one hundred of her stories published. She was an editor for the Georgia General Assembly. She was the director of the Daily Dragon at Dragon Con, and was a regular speaker at genre conventions. She was a model, dancer, and psychologist. She also made my life worth living.

Memorial service will be announced soon.

We do not need flowers. In lieu of flowers, please buy her books and read them. Buy them for others to read until everyone on the planet knows how amazing she was.

--Matthew M. Foster (husband)

Eugie Foster wrote the short story "Oranges, Lemons and Thou Beside Me" which I narrated for Pseudopod in December 2006. It's one of the most disturbing stories I have ever read, let alone narrated, causing some controversy in the Pseudopod discussion forum and comments on the blog entry.

In 2008 I wrote reviews of podcast short fiction for TTA Press's now defunct The Fix Online, of which Eugie Foster was the managing editor.

A sad loss indeed, but the fruits of her creative imagination live on. You should check them out.

Eugie Foster

My latest appearance... (repost from other blog)

'Appearance' in the title of this post is metaphorical - you can't see me, but you can hear me reading Stephen Gaskell's story "Everyone Carries a Shadow" in the 50th episode of Pseudopod, the weekly horror podcast.

I enjoy reading for other people, especially short stories, but I appreciate that my voice is only appropriate for some. This is my third reading for Pseudopod, and I'll be interested in the reaction this story garners. My previous two readings were Michael Stone's "Sacred Skin" and Eugie Foster's "Oranges, Lemons and Thou Beside Me" - both of which were extremely creepy (the Foster was also highly disturbing).

I've also read in the past for Pseudopod's elder sibling Escape Pod, my first being Scott Janssens' flash story "Paradox", and subsequently a two-hander with Tee Morris, "Are You Ready For the End of the World?" by Danny Adams. But the story I had most fun with was Steve Eley's "The Malcontent" which he asked me to read for Escape Pod's 50th episode.

(I like stories that operate on more than one level, and "The Malcontent" was one of those - lots of fun, but with deeper meaning evident as the story progressed.)

I've also read for The Time Traveller Show, and for its offshoot Wonder Audio, whose stories are now available for purchase from Audible and iTunes.

And in a fit of enthusiasm I read three chapters of Jules Verne's A Journey to the Interior of the Earth and one chapter of Bram Stoker's Dracula, both for LibriVox.