Appreciation ...

... Diana Wynne Jones | tor.com | Science fiction and fantasy | Blog posts. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)

Diana, like any sensible fiction writer, regarded this rush of academic activity with a complex mixture of interest, embarrassment and perhaps a little ridicule. Actually, make that a lot of ridicule. Diana, as many of the memorials will tell you, was kind, warm, and generous—the web is now teeming with anecdotes from fans who met her at conventions in the 1980s before her travel jinx cut in*—but she was also very witty and sardonic and more than one of us flinched at her comments on our interest. To an extent the academic interest reflected the growing wealth of children’s literature criticism, and fantasy criticism, but again the age profile of the academics interested in her work was noticeable. These too were readers Diana Wynne Jones had grown.