RIP: Stef Schwartz
Jul. 3rd, 2025 07:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alibi_shopMy friend Stef (who many people knew as Steven), an unforgettable person, died this week after a lengthy struggle with cancer. I knew Stef for a little over 20 years, as part of a community of lovely people I met soon after moving out west; but after that community became more scattered, we had only hung out intermittently in the current decade—most often in conjunction with various mutual interests like science fiction, graphic design, and Robyn Hitchcock. Of course, as one does, I now wish I had made more of an effort. Here's some advice: if someone keeps inviting you to play board games, even if you're not super into board games, just go!
Besides being a fine writer and printmaker, Stef worked for many years as an organizer of the SF/fantasy convention FOGcon, where I vividly remember two things in particular: 1. us speaking together on a panel that may have been the worst-attended panel discussion of that year; 2. seeing Stef, in their official capacity there, have a very long and very very patient and very very very polite (in the Midwestern way where it may not be immediately obvious that the patience and politeness do not imply sympathy) dialogue with someone who I didn't realize at the time was an infamous Internet troll who had showed up looking for trouble. That soft and precise voice—a velvet glove over an iron personality—and extremely dry sense of humor were unmistakable.
I last saw Stef two weeks ago after they had gone into hospice care, and the voice was diminished, but the rest was the same. At the end of the visit, they told me: "See you in the next life. But... [pause] not if I see you first!" Normally I think that joke would be divided up between two speakers, but I guess they were determined to get it on the record even if I hadn't set it up.
The other very characteristic joke, during an earlier visit, happened when the subject of goth music had come up somehow. (Before quoting this, I should clarify that leukemia was not what finally got them; it had already been defeated earlier.) Stef said: "In hindsight, I now know that I attended a Sisters of Mercy concert while having undiagnosed leukemia. The most goth thing to do!"
Besides being a fine writer and printmaker, Stef worked for many years as an organizer of the SF/fantasy convention FOGcon, where I vividly remember two things in particular: 1. us speaking together on a panel that may have been the worst-attended panel discussion of that year; 2. seeing Stef, in their official capacity there, have a very long and very very patient and very very very polite (in the Midwestern way where it may not be immediately obvious that the patience and politeness do not imply sympathy) dialogue with someone who I didn't realize at the time was an infamous Internet troll who had showed up looking for trouble. That soft and precise voice—a velvet glove over an iron personality—and extremely dry sense of humor were unmistakable.
I last saw Stef two weeks ago after they had gone into hospice care, and the voice was diminished, but the rest was the same. At the end of the visit, they told me: "See you in the next life. But... [pause] not if I see you first!" Normally I think that joke would be divided up between two speakers, but I guess they were determined to get it on the record even if I hadn't set it up.
The other very characteristic joke, during an earlier visit, happened when the subject of goth music had come up somehow. (Before quoting this, I should clarify that leukemia was not what finally got them; it had already been defeated earlier.) Stef said: "In hindsight, I now know that I attended a Sisters of Mercy concert while having undiagnosed leukemia. The most goth thing to do!"
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