In Memoriam

Memorial Day has come and gone.  The somber and celebratory rites honoring our fallen heroes have taken place in towns and cities across the U.S. in the forms of prayers, parades, bar-be-cues, wreath laying and flag waving.  Fitting, and yet somehow inadequate, tributes to the brave men and women in uniform that died in faraway lands fighting for ideals, or people, that didn't always understand or appreciate their sacrifices.  Three of my favorite uncles were veterans, Duhamel Lopez, Pablo Rosario, and Esmeraldo "Cuquito" Lopez (I'm sure there are more), and while at one time I was too young to fully appreciate  the substance of their military service, I still saw them all as heroes, and I still do.

And while we honored, and continue to honor, our fallen in uniform, there is another group of fallen that I'd like to pay homage to as well.  I'm talking about our fellow writers that passed away in 2018.  Now, before you start getting up in arms about me paying tribute to writers in this way, please Google how many writers (usually reporters) sacrificed their lives in the theater of war doing what they believed in... 26 since 2001 in the war in Afghanistan alone.

But it's not just being a War Correspondent, most writers die far away from any military battlefront.  Yet, the weight and poignancy of a writer's words have sometimes even turned the courses of battles, or started or ended a revolution, or contributed to the making or changing of laws that have improved people's lives.  Books like 1984, Animal Farm, The Good Earth, or Fahrenheit 451 have all served to open the eyes of those being unfairly governed, and have all helped lead to change.  Remember those famous words, "The pen is mightier than the sword" by English novelist and playwright Edward Bulwer-Lytton?  Well, the same is true today.

"Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs." -Pearl Strachan Hurd

And so with the power of the written word in mind, I'd like to include in this blogpost the names of those writers that have passed away this year.  Whether prose or poetry, no matter the genre, no matter if their sacrifices were great or small, they were a part of our greater brother and sisterhood.  They were writers.

Richard Peck, (1934 - 2018)
prize-winning children's author, died Wednesday, May 23, 2018, at his home in New York City, after a battle with cancer, according to the Associated Press. He was 84.

Philip Roth, (1933 - 2018)
the prize-winning novelist and fearless narrator of sex, death, assimilation and fate, from the comic madness of "Portnoy's Complaint" to the elegiac lyricism of "American Pastoral," died Tuesday night, He was 85.

Tom Wolfe, (1930 - 2018)
the white-suited wizard of "New Journalism" who exuberantly chronicled American culture from the Merry Pranksters through the space race before turning his satiric wit to such novels as "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "A Man in Full," has died. He was 88.

Sergio Pitol, (1933 - 2018)
the celebrated Mexican author, essayist and translator and winner of the most prestigious award for literature in the Spanish-speaking world, died Thursday. He was 85.

Anita Shreve, (2018)
the best-selling novelist who explored how women responded to crises past and present in her native New England in favorites such as "The Pilot's Wife," ''Testimony" and "The Weight of Water," has died, she was 71.

Emily Nasrallah, (2018)
Lebanese author and feminist Emily Nasrallah has died following a struggle with cancer. She was 87.

Penny Vincenzi, (1939 - 2018)
British writer Penny Vincenzi, whose stories of romance, rivalry and family secrets topped best-seller lists, has died. She was 78.

Jack Ketchum, (1946 - 2018)
a prize-winning horror and screenplay writer known for such fiction as "The Box" and the controversial "Off Season" and once labeled by Stephen King as likely the scariest writer in America, has died. He was 71.

Ursula K. Le Guin, (1929 - 2018)
the award-winning and best-selling science fiction writer who explored feminist themes and was best known for her Earthsea books, has died at 88.

Walter Skold, (2018)
the founder of the Dead Poets Society of America, who visited the final resting places of more than 600 poets, died Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018, of a heart attack, he was 57.

Peter Mayle, (1939 - 2018)
the British author known for his books set in Provence, France, has died, he was 78.

Julius Lester, (1939 - 2018)
an author, musician, civil rights activist and university professor who made a late-life conversion to Judaism, has died, he was 78.

Well, that's about it for now.  There's no doubt that unfortunately, the list will grow as the year plays out.  I apologize for any writers that I may have missed, especially those who may not have been quite as famous or mainstream as the ones mentioned above.  May they Rest in Peace.  And as for the rest of you, get back to writing.