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Remembering Jo ClaytonFebruary 14, 2008 This was going to be a February 13 blog, but it works pretty well for the 14th. On Valentine's Day my thoughts usually turn to kick-ass get-back-at-the-lover-who-done-you-wrong songs, in part because they're usually more fun to sing than the other kind. When I passed by on my way home, the little parking lot in front of Morrice the Florist was jammed with last-minute bouquet buyers, and when I stopped at Cronig's to get a few things there were more flower-wielding shoppers in the express line than usual. Here's a Valentinish story that still inspires and moves me 10 years later. Yesterday something kept nudging at the back of my mind: Something's significant about February 13 but I can't remember what it is. The 14th is Valentine's Day, the 15th is Susan B. Anthony's birthday; what happened on the 13th? Yesterday was rain-and-windy to the max; the mud at the barn was so thick I had to rock Uhura Mazda out of her parking place before I could leave. Doing chores I remembered: February 15 was Jo Clayton's birthday as well as Susan B. Anthony's, and Jo Clayton died on February 13, 1998, exactly 10 years ago. Jo was a fantasy and science fiction writer. I never met her in person; I knew her only through her books and on the Science Fiction RoundTable on the old GEnie online service. On GEnie I told her and some other buddies about a sign I had seen and snapped a picture of in Vineyard Haven:
Jo was the one who observed that a "temporally closed" motel would make a perfect retreat for writers with impending deadlines: you could take as long as you needed and still turn your manuscript in on time. Jo was a prolific writer and something of a recluse. In July 1996 she fell in her Oregon apartment and hurt her hip. Her hip got worse; she was in too much pain to move, eat, or contact anyone. Friends noticed her absence from her online haunts; another Oregon writer who'd never met Jo went to her apartment, found her, and brought her food. Jo was hospitalized and shortly thereafter diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an aggressive bone marrow cancer. For the last 18 months of her life she lived at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital, at the heart of a virtual network of international friends and supporters. She finished the book she was working on and started another. She painted and drew and participated in myriad conversations on GEnie and in real time. When Jo passed on February 13, two days before her 59th birthday, we held a wake on GEnie. It went on, as I recall it, for several hours, with friends and fans dropping in as they heard the news, telling Jo stories and moving on. Novelist Brenda Clough's wonderful account of Jo's rescue and its aftermath can be found on Jo's website.
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