A Brief But Telling Anecdote About Sheila Williams

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I was extremely unhappy to learn that Sheila Williams, a dear friend as well as being the editor of Asimov's Science Fiction, has been hospitalized with a brain aneurism.

When bad things happen to good friends, I try to avoid slathering them with abstract praise. Instead, I prefer to relate an anecdote, something scandalous-but-not-too-scandalous, revealing some admirable facet of their essence. 

That's not so easy about the woman Isaac Asimov routinely referred to as "Sweet Sheila Williams." (Asimov had an epithet for everyone. Gardner Dozois, for example, was always referred to as "Chestertonian.") And there's some truth there. Sheila is even tempered and mercifully free of the sharp comments that are all too common among the literary and witty.

That doesn't mean she doesn't think them, though.

I remember sitting in the bar at some Worldcon or other with Sheila and Terry Bisson. We were all drinking but Terry was far, far in the lead. He was talking about his recent experiences as a guest at Volgacon, the only SF conference in the Soviet Union (which fell shortly thereafter) to have foreign guests in attendance.

Winding up his account, Terry said, "I told them: 'I know you guys are all capitalists now. But I want you to know that I still hold to the old ways. I'm still a Stalinist.'" Then he got up and staggered away.

Sheila smiled after him--sweetly, of course--and then leaned forward and confided, "I had such a hard time not saying: 'You and Fidel, Terry."

That's Sheila. As sharp-witted as any of us, but too kind to let us know it.

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You can read Locus Online's account of her hospitalization here.

Above: Sheila's portrait was swiped from the Locus Online account.

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