Afternoons and Dressing Gowns
Just heard via nihilistic_kid that Diana Wynne Jones has passed away.
I was lucky enough to meet her once, at a signing at Forbidden Planet when "The Pinhoe Egg" came out. I took my falling-apart, dogeared copy of "Witch Week" that I've had since I was about ten and read almost into oblivion. I used to borrow it from the library repeatedly before my mum took pity on me and bought me a copy of my own. Reading "Witch Week" was probably one of my formative experiences in fantasy. And "Dogsbody"; I haven't read that for years but I still remember it very clearly. I remember it made me cry.
Her work was always touching, frequently hilarious, and, for YA fantasy, very grown-up. And yes, I have in the past wandered around the house in my dressing gown pretending to be Chrestomanci, and I might do that tomorrow, in tribute.
RIP, Diana. The fangirls of Bristol (and beyond) will miss you.
I was lucky enough to meet her once, at a signing at Forbidden Planet when "The Pinhoe Egg" came out. I took my falling-apart, dogeared copy of "Witch Week" that I've had since I was about ten and read almost into oblivion. I used to borrow it from the library repeatedly before my mum took pity on me and bought me a copy of my own. Reading "Witch Week" was probably one of my formative experiences in fantasy. And "Dogsbody"; I haven't read that for years but I still remember it very clearly. I remember it made me cry.
Her work was always touching, frequently hilarious, and, for YA fantasy, very grown-up. And yes, I have in the past wandered around the house in my dressing gown pretending to be Chrestomanci, and I might do that tomorrow, in tribute.
RIP, Diana. The fangirls of Bristol (and beyond) will miss you.