Former SFWA President Ben Bova (b.1932) died from COVID-19 related pneumonia and a stroke on November 29.  Bova served two consecutive terms as SFWA President from 1990-1992. Bova published his first novel, The Star Conquerors in 1959 and published several novels and short stories throughout the 1960s.  In 1972, he took over the reins of Analog following the death […]

Debra Doyle (b.1952) died at her home from a cardiac arrest on October 31st. She published her first co-written story, “Bad Blood,” in 1988 with husband James Macdonald. Doyle and Macdonald co-wrote all of their works, which included numerous young adult novels. In 1992, they received the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature for the […]

Rachel Caine (b.1962) died on November 1 after being diagnosed with soft tissue sarcoma in 2018. Caine, the primary nom de plume for Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, began publishing novels and short stories in 1990. At one time a professional musician and a corporate communications manager, she began writing full time in 2010. Caine’s work includes […]

Terry Goodkind (b.1948) died on September 17.  Goodkind, who suffered from dyslexia, published his first novel, Wizard’s First Rule, in 1994 after a career as a woodworker and artist. Wizard’s First Rule was the first volume in Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series. Most of his other novels were set in the same world as the Sword of Truth series with two series […]

SFWA member John A. Pitts died on October 3 from amyoidosis.  Pitts began publishing short fiction in 2006 with “There Once Was a Girl from Nantucket (A Fortean Love Story),” co-written with Ken Scholes.  He went on to write several short stories on his own and in 2010 began publishing novels under the name J.A. Pitts with […]

Katherine MacLean (b.1925) died on September 1st. MacLean began publishing science fiction in 1949 when her short story “Defense Mechanism” appeared in the October issue of Astounding.  Her first novel, Cosmic Checkmate, was co-written with Charles V. De Vet, and appeared in 1962 with her first solo novel, The Man in the Bird Cage, appearing in 1971. Although […]

Melisa C. Michaels (b.1946) died on August 30. Michaels began publishing with the 1979 short story “In the Country of the Blood, No One Can See,” which appeared in the January issue of Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.  She followed up with a handful of short stories and the first two novels of her five volume Skyrider […]

Brad Linaweaver (b.1952) died after a lengthy battle with cancer on August 29.  Linaweaver began publishing science fiction in 1980 with the short story “The Competitor.”  His second published story, the novella “Moon of Ice” was nominated for the Nebula Award in 1983 and Linaweaver later expanded it to novel length, for which he won his first […]

Scientist Jack Cohen (b.1933) died on May 6.