Gathering all my courage and my poor, hesitant English, I approached Judith and told her, with great enthusiasm, what pleasure she had already given me from the too little I had been able to read of her writings, greatly mourning the paucity of her stories available in French and the difficulties involved in finding them, as they were for the most part scattered in too-rare anthologies as well as in old magazines which were unavailable to me, at the time. The warmth of her welcome and the attention she bestowed on me still ravishes and amazes me in retrospect. Above all else, I recall her smile and also her intense gaze, which grabbed you and never let go, as well as the quality of her presence and her ability to listen. Later, I also discovered the breadth of her intelligence, the peculiar flavor of her sense of humor, her dynamism, her profound humanity and her openness to all that was new and different. After only a few minutes, I felt like we had known each other for years. There and then, we had a long and fascinating chat on Japanese literary SF, translation problems, and the future of Canadian SF, a conversation in which we were soon joined by my friend Serge Mailloux and also by Carolyn J. Cherryh, my other great acquaintance at that convention, who helped at times to bridge the gap between Judith and me through her excellent knowledge of French. I also remember how Judith was sorry to be unable to speak French, a declaration which seemed to me both sincere and kind. I came out of this experience absolutely charmed, amazed and convinced neither the human being nor the writer was less noble and respectable than the other. But I had neither heard nor seen anything yet.

The next day, when we met again, the first thing that Judith did was to hand me, with a smile that I will never forget, two of her books with a gesture so natural, so elegant and so generous that just remembering it today moves me all over again. Now I would be able to read her; her beautiful short stories would be accessible to me. This was a purely magical moment, free and superb, with nothing asked in return, and which left me like the stranded survivor of a shipwreck, drenched with gratitude. What class! This woman was truly a great Lady. Even before I had started to recover, we had resumed our chat of the previous day as if nothing had happened. But such was not the case, believe me. It would be an understatement to say here that I cherish the memory of these moments.

Later, over the years, we met again from time to time, often too briefly, sad to say, but always with equal warmth. Each time, Judith remembered me, even if sometimes many years had passed. On one of these occasions, I gave her a copy of my only book, signed in English, which was, in my view, poor thanks for all the pleasure she had already given me.

My English is better today and the books written or edited by Judith—and especially the two she gave me—fill almost an entire shelf in my library. Every one of them is a joy and a pleasure to me, and now, more sadly, also a consolation. For the nature of consolation is to follow sorrow...

Others will surely be able to speak with more talent, ability and competence than me of Judith's importance in the history of modern SF, of the quality of her work as a writer and editor, of her gift for discovering superlative authors or authors who were "different," as well as non-Anglo-American writers or writers coming from other genres, of the example she was and still remains for generations of women writers by dint of her pioneering position in what was sometimes considered a "men's genre," of her efforts in gathering and shaping Canadian SF written in both official languages, and of all her other accomplishments. Those who were closer to her these past years and who knew her better than me will be able to speak of the woman, of the human being, and of her qualities—of all they shared with her. I will restrict myself to express here my respect and my admiration for the talented writer and editor, and to thank her for these strong and superb stories, for so many moments of pleasure, intelligence, thoughts, reflection, question, subtlety, passion, sensitivity, poetry, beauty, intensity, and emotion, and for so many discoveries made through her intermediary. I am pleased to share with you memories that are dear to me and move me anew.

Our genre and the whole world is poorer without Judith. I am poorer without her.

She was showing the right way for us to follow.

I will report one last anecdote to illustrate the appeal of the lady's works for those who had discovered and explored them, if only in part. A few months ago, after many years of fruitless searching, I succeeded in discovering in the library of Quebec City's Laval University one of the now so rare copies of her novel Shadow on the Hearth, a classic of the age of nuclear terror, renowned as such and celebrated for its merits by critics and commentators alike though it has never, in spite of this unanimous praise, been reprinted, to the best of my knowledge—in itself, a scandal. I will confess that I was, for a moment, almost tempted to steal it, but I restrained myself, thinking of all the other users of the library who would therefore be unable to read it. So I photocopied it all. I wanted it for me, I wanted to be able to read it quietly, to reread it when I wanted to, and, well, I think it was the only way I could do it. That is the kind of passion that the prose and tales of Judith were able to kindle. I think this story would have provided her with some mild amusement…