Memorial service for Jennifer Swift

Posted by: Scott    Tags:      Posted date:  October 3, 2009  |  No comment


I received an email this morning from Jennifer Swift‘s husband Timothy Bartel containing the details of her memorial service. He wrote:

The place, date and time of the main memorial service for Jennifer Swift (7 March 1955 30 September 2009) have been arranged:

Magdalen College chapel, High Street, Oxford

Saturday 7 November, 11.00 a.m.

The date has been chosen in part to accommodate mourners from distant places, as airline tickets are usually much cheaper if bought at least thirty days in advance.

The service will be a sung Mass.

Jennifer’s remains will be cremated at the Oxford Crematorium, Bayswater Road, Headington, Oxford, at a date and time to be arranged. A brief, informal service will be conducted in one of the crematorium chapels.

As Jennifer made a substantial contribution to the work of so many charitable organisations, not least with her journalism, her family requests that donations should be made to one or more of these organisations in lieu of flowers. As I sift through her records, I shall compile a list of these charities and send it to you in due course.

I won’t be able to make the transatlantic trip, but I’m passing on this information for those who can or who already live nearby. (more…)

Requiescat in pace Jennifer Swift

Posted by: Scott    Tags:  ,     Posted date:  September 30, 2009  |  No comment


I woke this morning to learn that Jennifer Swift, whom I’d met in 1979 when we both attended the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop in East Lansing, passed away this morning at 1:15 a.m. after a rapid decline. Her husband, Timothy Bartel, wrote her many friends to pass on the sad news. A memorial service will be held in Oxford, with details to be provided later.

Jennifer had a wonderful laugh. She was intelligent, witty, and grew into a talented writer. She published excellent stories in Amazing, Asimov’s, F&SF, and Interzone. She’d also written articles and essays on bioethics for The Guardian, New Scientist, The Daily Telegraph, and other publications.

Soon after Clarion, Jennifer emigrated to Oxford with her husband, and due to the transatlantic nature of the friendship, we mostly kept up on the details of each other’s lives via e-mail. We only managed to get together in the flesh twice since Clarion, both times in Glasgow, both meetings involving lengthy meals in Indian restaurants. It was odd that these two lunches—in 1995 and 2005—only came about due to the scheduling of World Science Fiction Conventions. Last time we were together (which is when I snapped the picture below), we joked that we hoped we wouldn’t have to wait until a 2015 Glasgow Worldcon to see each other again. Sadly, that next meeting will never take place, at least not in this world.

Jennifer will be much in my thoughts today.

JenniferSwiftRIP (more…)