RIP Fred Patten (1940-2018)

Early this morning, I received news that Fred Patten passed away at the age of 77 on Monday, November 12th. My relationship with Fred Patten was only through email correspondence, but if ever I had a personal, professional editor, it was Fred. 

I first became acquainted with Fred when I asked him if he would review Opal Wine for me and I was delighted when he said yes. The result was a wonderful review and one I am both grateful for and proud of and you can read it here.

Sometime later, he asked me to consider contributing to an anthology he was collecting and unfortunately life events prohibited any work toward his vision. However, in the ensuing anthologies, I worked with Fred on contributing three titles:

• To The Reader..., published in the anthology Gods With Fur (2016)
• The Shrine War, published in the anthology Dogs of War (2017)
• In Search of the Creators, published in the anthology Exploring New Places (2018)

It was The Shrine War that served as the biggest challenge to my career and Fred and I corresponded frequently over its creation. Throughout all the dialogues I had with him, Fred always remained professional, friendly, and polite and his recommendations for edits were always correct.

It was a delight working with Fred. He taught me a lot and I am very grateful that he was the one who inspired me to write The Shrine War. Up until now, Coventry House that was published in my Opal Wine collection has always been my best-known work. I believe that if my extended version of The Shrine War is ever published, that is the novel that will make my career and it will be dedicated to Fred Patten's memory.

In closing, a jaw-dropping list of his accomplishments is found here.