From: pkelman@ilap.com
Subject: MISC: In Memoriam - Judith Merril
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 1997 12:20:09 -0400


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In Memoriam - JUDITH MERRIL
The grande dame of science-fiction, Judith Merril, passed away in Toronto on
Friday Sept.12 at age 74. She had a history of cardiac illness. Merril came
to Toronto in 1968 from New York, where she was born, as a vocal opponent of
the Vietnam War. By that time she already had two decades of success as a
speculative, or science-fiction writer and anthologist. She served the
Writer's Guild of New York and during her career acted as a mentor to many
young writers who became today's SF authors including William Gibson, author
of Neuromancer.

Judith Merril was a pen name. She was born Josephine Judith Grossman in New
York on Jan. 21, 1923, and grew up in Philadelphia. Earlier, she wrote under
the name Cyril Judd with fellow author Cyril Kornbluth. Merril married
author-editor Frederick Pohl in 1949. They were divorced in 1953. her
contemporaries included ray Bradbury and Gene Rodenbury.

I'd known Judy for nearly a quarter of a century. In 1975 I had the
privilege of co-authoring with Judy Canada's first SF play based on a
collection of her early works. The play called HEADSPACE which I also
directed under her watchful eye, was a Psychic love-story which took place
in outer space, was produced by Theatre Passe Murraile of Toronto. In recent
years Judy made valuable contributions acting as a critic and advisor to my
activities in the field of Virtual Reality - she was always quick on
supplying a "reality-check". She was a great Lady, a pioneer of
science-fiction, one of the intellects of our time and a tough-minded
humanist. She will be missed.

A private memorial service for friends and family will be held on Sept. 20
in Toronto. Contributions in Merril's memory may be made to the James
Tiptree Memorial Fund, which provides an annual award for feminist writing
in science
fiction.

Paul Kelman
pkelman@ilap.com
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