RIP Holly Lisle

My sister just informed me that Holly Lisle passed away in August,
something I was very saddened to hear.

I met her at a Lois McMaster Bujold book signing at a "Waldenbooks"
in Fayetteville NC.  She and her then husband were part of an
enthusiastic group talking back and forth with Bujold, and I gradully
came to understand all of them were in a local SF writers' workshop
that Holly led, "Schroedinger's Petshop".  I came away from the
signing with an invitation to their next meeting which, after some
hesitation as I am not much of a group-er, I attended.

I ended up becoming a full member and enjoying the weekly critique
sessions which Holly chairman-ed, and came to understand the greatest
sin in such settings was "fielding", attempting to defend your work
against every criticism rather than just noting what was not working
for others about your piece and taking it to heart.

Shortly after I joined, Holly broke into publication with _Fire In
The Mist_, and was making regular sales thereafter.  She was a
meticulous background background detail-er, keeping notebooks of
maps, history and character studies for all her settings, and at
the time she was throwing off ideas faster than she could write
them up.  In particular, she had an idea for a North Carolina series
(we were all in North Carolina) involving demons from Hell being
given a second chance (due to a prayer from a pure soul) to make
good on Earth, and in particular in North Carolina.  Her plan was
to write the first book, and plot the rest with those of us in the
group, with other members doing most of the writing for the follow-ups.
This was the "Devil's Point" series, and I had the great privilege
to be chosen for the third book, _Hell On High_.

I had written the final pages for *a* book after seeing the background
and the fact that it would not be a completely happy ending, and
the fact that I wanted to write about spaceships made it into the
actual book, but as I recall the plotting session which went well
into the morning at her Laurinburg home, it frankly consisted mostly
of Holly saying "How about this?" and me saying "Yeah, that would
be great!".

In the middle of writing _Hell On High_, I moved to South Carolina,
and Holly moved to Florida, and apart from finishing the book, and
doing some revisions for the indie publication after the rights
reverted to us, we gradually drifted apart.  Frankly I was probably
a bit embarrassed that after the book was published, my company
started me on a series of death marches, and I basically stopped
writing entirely.

My sister, who is still an active writer, followed Holly's blog and
noticed that it was no longer being updated, and searching the
Internet found that Holly had recently passed, something I was very
saddened to hear.  I owe Holly for opening a fondly remembered chapter
in my life, for her encouragement, and for her believing I could
actually sit down and write a decent book.

RIP

Ted Nolan
--
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..