I didn’t start out reading Andre Norton or the Asimov “juveniles”. I read rather rapaciously and omnivorously. Had a library card at a very early age; had an adult card way early as I’d read through the children’s section and clearly knew what I was reading when it came time to prove I could handle “adult” books. So I am told and vaguely remember.

But oh, years later when I started reading science fiction and fantasy and said “no, I never read it as a kid” I stupidly forgot that I had. For I had read A WRINKLE IN TIME, and had loved it beyond belief. I don’t know when I learned it was the first of a trilogy, or learned what a trilogy was. While the other two books were awfully good, nothing matched the OH of the first. I never got past THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE either, but then I hadn’t a clue I was reading an allegory there.

But the OH! Of Meg Murray and her brother Charles Wallace. Oh. How fabulous they were. A smart girl who worried that she would never fit in and that no one outside of her family would like her. The brilliance of the characters, the adventure and imagination unlike anything I’d ever read. Oh. And at some point, I bought the “time trilogy” in a slipcased set, a set I just hauled down from the shelf. The cover art is by Leo and Diane Dillon, whose work some of you know, I have adored for decades and “collect” when I can. The Dillons are picky about what they illustrate.

And then there was Camilla Dickinson, the only fictional girl I ever found whose parents were getting a divorce. We weren’t very alike but it was the only book I found where the character felt somewhat of what I was feeling as MY parents were getting a divorce. I’m sure nowadays there are “Heather’s Mommy and Daddy are divorcing” books all over, but as a kid growing up I the 50s and 60s, we weren’t there yet.

Then there were the sadly wonderful THE SMALL RAIN and A SEVERED WASP. Those were the two books I got autographed by the author. She was a somewhat baffled but ingratiating and lovely special guest at a Lunacon. By the time of that convention, I’d been a fan for years. I’d been introduced to fandom in the bay area – FULL of fabulous wonderful authors and then had relocated to the Boston area. I no longer got TOO nervous around authors; after all, when I had gotten married in ’77, Bob Silverberg was our best man, and the Andersons, the Lupoffs and good grief, Fritz Leiber came. Asimov sent a check. I was hip.

Seth asked me to go get her from a talk she was wrapping up on Friday and lead her to the Green Room. She hadn’t been and it would be a nice tying for her to know it was there in case she wanted to spend time there later on in the weekend. I almost couldn’t do it. I was going to be a nitwit. I was going to babble and my hands were going to sweat. I stuck my courage to the sticking place – whaever the hell that meant – and went and found her and husband, the very nice Hugh Franklin who was looking out for his wife and being Mr. L’Engle that weekend (Franklin was a well-known actor on a soap opera.) They’d not been to a science fiction convention before, it was clear, so I was happy to be their escort. Ms. L’Engle at one point wandered off into the art show. Her husband tried to hurry her along but I said there was no rush – this was all for her convenience, so whatever she wished to do was fine, thank you.

She was as nice as could be and if she noticed my hands were clammy, she never let on. I was a bit surprised that I still could be such a fan girl, after having met so many authors I respected, whose work I loved. I don’t know where I got the nerve to ask her to sign my books but I did.

L’Engle had the ability to start a book with “It was a dark and stormy night” and succeed. As I opened it just now, and started reading again, I was drawn in instantly, as I am every time I read it. And laughed at Mrs. Whatsit complaining of a sprained dignity. And I love the way they talk – Meg, and Charles Wallace and Calvin. Oh, and Aunt Beast! Oh.

Madeleine L’Engle wrote books I wasn’t interested in because I have no interest in faith or Christianity. No matter. She has one of the best and coolest statues in my pantheon of fantastic writers. She wrote with imagination, HUGE imagination. And respect for language and warm with and humor. And a hatred of conformity, stupidity, and the banal. She wrote with respect for intelligence, for being different, for deviating from the norm and with warmth and passion and love. Without preaching or teaching, she looked at everyday people and made them amazing. She died this week at the age of 88. Her death leaves a gigantic hole in my universe.