Peggy Rae Sapienza

davidlevine said to me once that fannish friendships are years long and weekends deep. That describes a number of friendships for me, but especially so my friendship with Peggy Rae, whom I just learned via Facebook that we lost yesterday. I met Peggy Rae at one of the Baltimore conventions. I'm pretty sure it was Balticon; it might have been a Worldcon. It was so long ago now--before I moved to Seattle--that my memory is uncertain. But we met, we made a pretty instant connection, and then we'd see each other at conventions whenever we could. She was ebullient, was Peggy Rae, enthusiastic, always interested and interesting. Generous. Empathetic. Funny. Marvelously capable, she chaired WorldCons and participated in convention-running like no one else. She helped build the science fiction community in a way not a lot of other folks have done.

My memories of her are not specific, partly because my memory is pretty lousy, and partly because Peggy Rae was always an emotional experience for me. A cloud of good feeling and fun. We saw each other at some convention in the last couple of years; I don't remember which one. It may have been OryCon or Norwescon. She invited me then to contribute a story to the World Fantasy anniversary anthology. I told her that most of my published short fiction that I was really, truly proud of was more SF and horror than fantasy and she said she didn't care; she just wanted me in there, so I sent her a contribution which she enthusiastically accepted. More recently, we were talking about getting together at this year's Potlatch. Then she announced that she was going in for heart surgery, specifically a valve transplant.

I realized earlier last week that I hadn't heard from her or her husband John and sent along a note to find out how she was doing. This morning, I saw the news that she'd passed away; apparently she'd never properly recovered from the surgery. Peggy Rae was such a big force in fandom, chairing conventions and just being this amazing, loving presence. Her loss is huge in the community.

I was so looking forward to seeing her at Potlatch. When that didn't work out, we said we'd see each other at WorldCon. I'm so sad about her death. Even though we saw each other maybe once a year, maybe for just an hour or two, I'm going to miss her. Weekends deep, but decades long.

ETA: John Scalzi eulogizes Peggy Rae at Whatever.