Date: Thu, 26 Oct 2006 11:50:55 -0400
From: Ted White <twhite8 at cox.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Coincidence?
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Elspeth Kovar wrote:

> > So tonight as the weekly meeting of my writers group, The Vicious
> > Circle (so-named by Charles Sheffield decades ago), Richard Moore
> > noticed the printed copy of Alexis's open letter sitting on my
> > table, and we fell to discussing recent events.  By way of
> > explaining them, I told him about Keith Googling Lee in 2002 and
> > what he turned up.
> >
> > "Mighod," said Richard, who is both a SF and mystery fan, but more
> > of a mystery fan, "I remember this woman who turned up *years* ago
> > at a Bouchercon, claiming to be Fredric Brown's daughter!"  He
> > began describing her to me.  It was Lee -- then Lee Uba.  "I don't
> > think anybody believed her," he said.  "It was just a story."
> >
> > And maybe a story that embarrassed her by 2002, when Keith turned
> > it up on Rich's on-line fanhistory Outline.
>
>  On this one I think that she may have been telling the truth.  I'd
>  seen that on Rich's fanhistory around the the same time I was given a
>  copy of From These Ashes.  Testing the waters I made a point of praising
>  one of his stories when she was in the same conversation, saying quite
>  truthfully that I'd never read Brown before.  She had no reason to
>  think that I'd even know about a possible connection, the whole thing
>  about googling not having happened yet.
>
>  She neither claimed the relationship nor did she leap in the way
>  people often do when they're scared of being caught out in something.
>  But she did smile slightly.
>
>  From what was said back before things started getting so very strange
>  around the Gillilands by then she was quite estranged from her
>  family.  It may be that in disowning them, which she's pretty much
>  done, she also disowned that relationship.
>
>  Obviously I have no idea one way or the other but I've had a
>  moderately bullshit detector where she's concerned.  I don't recall
>  any bells going off and had the impression that this one was real.
>
>  BTW, to the best of my recollection it was her being Brown's
>  grandaughter, not daughter.  Being me I don't know the relevant ages.

You're right; my mistake.  Granddaughter it was at Bouchercon, too.

If the claim is legitimate, why did unearthing it upset her so much that
she mounted her campaign against Keith, calling him a pseudo-rapist, etc.?

--Ted White