Aaron Allston was one of the most popular Star Wars novelists of all time and he was a favorite of my wife, Racheal. At the convention Origins in May of 2012 she was able to meet Aaron. This was a huge treat for her.
Racheal's ambition at the convention was to network, network, network. Or as she put it, "I'm going to network my ass off." She had business cards printed up and put aside her tendency for being shy and put herself out there.
She had graduated Ball State University with a Bachelors degree in magazine journalism. After many discussions with her about trying to find a job, I told her you have to find something that you are passionate about. I said, people who write about sports love sports. People who write about politics write about politics. What do you want to write about?
Her enthusiasm in Star Wars had waned a bit in the years after Revenge of the Sith. Christmas of 2009 I bought her the book "Millennium Falcon" and she read it very quickly. Soon she was going back to the Expanded Universe books she had skipped on over the past few years and soon was caught up. She was once again posting on forums discussing the book.
Tricia Barr of the fangirl cantina and many other note worthy things helped inspire Racheal to create her own blog focusing on female characters in Star Wars and other genres. The Galactic Drift was born and she was slowly meeting many of the great people in the Star Wars community outside of the fan fiction realm.
Racheal had found what she was passionate about and was writing about it.
"I'm going to network my ass off."
I was going for a promotion at work and couldn't drive to Ohio with her to attend Origins. But she was texting me and leaving voicemails about all the people she was meeting. In one voicemail she was perhaps as excited as I had ever heard her. "I got to talk to Aaron Allston for like an hour, it was AWESOME."
She later told me they talked about Star Wars and everything else under the son. She certainly wanted to pick Aaron's mind. Her favorite actor, Harrison Ford was brought up in the conversation and the movie "Hollywood Homicide" was discussed of all things.
Just a month later, Racheal passed away and left us all. There was a huge outpouring of support from all of the people she had touched in the Star Wars community over the years. She had been an avid fan fiction writer and people who only recognized her by her pen name were very saddened by the news, stating they had read her stories. Others she knew through private messages and long correspondences that way.
Everyone from Club Jade, to theforce.net, to Star Wars Books made posts about the loss of a fangirl. It was then I saw in the comments that Mr. Allston had replied to a post, saying he had just met her the month before and was sad to hear this news.
For her favorite author to have given his condolences, I knew it would have meant a lot to Racheal and it certainly meant a lot to me, along with everyone else's comments.
So hearing of Aaron's tragic passing just two days ago was a bit of a shock. Perhaps they are reviewing "Hollywood Homicide" once again or talking about all the silly Episode 7 rumors.
-Joao
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