I will miss Niki as well. I first met her in 2001, but didn't really get to know her until I roomed with her and Janet in 2006 at the last Brooklyn DSF. Even though I hadn't seen her and Janet since then, we all spoke on the phone several times (the last being maybe just over month before) for an hour or more at a time! When Nik was on the line, she told me about living in her little town, their pets, the local cuisine, and her other interests. I wish I had a recording of these calls, because it's still very hard to believe that (like another friend of mine who passed away a couple of months ago) I will never get
to speak to her again.
My impression was that she was very quiet and thoughtful, and that she and Janet were a good match, for all they were so different. She would speak at length and with an amiable wit on the phone. Niki and Janet were on their way to convincing me to visit down their way at some time in the near future. Fate had other plans, unfortunately.
I will also miss new works from her--- insofar as DS fan-fiction goes, she didn't write so much about the supernatural or "special FX", more about the effects of that mysterious and horrible influence of the newly-released Barnabas had on bystanders. In the case of the Willie stories, on people Willie encountered: victims he was made to entice, friends he discovered in spite of his overbearing Master breathing down his neck. She detailed the mundane work Willie did, reminding one that if he screwed up even one detail, he'd get a thrashing or worse. At the same time, she caught the tiny glimmerings of the reluctant vampire's equally reluctant return to humanity.
Her take on the subject was compassionate without being sentimental, and the close details gave one the feel of what it was like to live in a small, isolated town in the 1960s. Things a typical suburbanite even back then wouldn't consider, though kids in my age group would have had parents who lived through the Depression, like how poor fisherfolk and factory workers would heat their homes in a backwards village in Maine which hadn't changed much since before the Depression.
Truly, this was a person who was stolen from the world before she had a chance to show that world yet more of what she was capable.
Niki was also well-regarded by many in her area, as these articles I've found will attest:
http://www.aikenstandard.com/Local/1216Nidifferhttp://www.aikenstandard.com/EditorsCorner/1216-editorsnoteThese are articles about her (non-DS) book about the Graniteville train wreck, UNNATURAL DISASTER, which didn't kill many people, but had a great effect on the area:
http://www.aikenstandard.com/EditorsCorner/1216-editorsnotehttp://www.wrdw.com/home/headlines/2168862.htmlThis site has a pretty good, large reproduction of her original photo of the wreck as appeared in AP news outlets worldwide in 2005 (scroll down page):
http://www.nationalcorridors.org/df/df01102005.shtmlOver those years, I did have some pictures that included Niki, from the Fests. Having just done some re-scans and adjusting older pictures (some of which, in their older forms, are on the Yahoo WillieLoomislist site) I present 2 views, one of Niki and John Karlen looking at the "Sweet Bird of Youth" programme, and the last one from the 2006 banquet.
Lorraine B.
