Neil Gaiman's Touching Post About Jody's Scott's Passing

(from the Jody Scott site)

Here's is the legendary Neil Gaiman on Jody Scott's passing - posted to his site on April 3rd, 2007:

Jody Scott is dead - she died on Christmas Eve. I only met her once, in the UK, in 1984, when she was over to promote the Women's Press edition of I, Vampire, and I liked her very much indeed - partly because I liked her books, I, Vampire and Passing For Human. I thought it a pity that she had real trouble getting her other books published. On her website she says of herself: 

Ms. Scott attended Daniel Boone grammar school, Senn High, North Park College, Northwestern U. and U.C. Berkeley before crying out in clear, ringing tones: "Enough of this crap. If you wanna be a writer never, NEVER go to college or you'll come out a brainwashed zombie who offends nobody but writes like everyone else or as Monty Python used to say: 'Dull, dull, dull!'--the L's sounding like W's." Our subject then worked as a sardine packer, orthopedist's office assistant, Circle Magazine editor (knew Henry Miller and Anais Nin), artist's model at Art Institute Chicago, factory hand, cabbage puller (in Texas where I was arrested with my buddy Don Scott for hitchhiking and slapped around then thrown in jail for eight days; how stupid can "The Law" be? Its reasoning was: my gay friend {close pal of Leonard Bernstein and Tennessee Williams} had long hair, therefore we must be criminals), blue movie maker, headline writer for the Monterey Herald (that's where I got my spare, lean style), bookstore/art gallery owner, vacation land salesman and at many other fascinating trades, spent six months in Guatemala (in Antigua enjoyed a night alone with Gore Vidal at his house both madly talking) and now lives in Seattle in a falling-apart house choked with ivy and blackberry brambles a stone's throw from Puget Sound and is the winner of the America's Ugliest Couch contest upon which I write every day from 9 AM to 2 PM Pacific time. If you'd like more, send in that check in any amount but HURRY PLEASE! This offer, like its author, ends soon. 

And she was right, and it did. Steve Jones and I used to send her occasional cheques for her poem in NOW WE ARE SICK, but I doubt they were enough. 

Now I'm going to take the dog for his second walk of the day, and I really hope that nobody dies this time.