Monday, June 21, 2010

Marianne Ware 1936-2010




Longtime friend—poet, novelist, and grand madame of belles lettres, the epistolary packin' momma and mentor of countless Sonoma County writers, Marianne Ware passed away this morning on June 21. Marianne was co-founder of the Russian River Writers' Guild —an organization I was part of for over 15 years—and she was an English and Creative Writing instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College.

Marianne wanted to hold an "Awake" while she was still living, but her illness took her too soon. She slipped into a coma soon after she made a decision not to receive treatment for a systemic infection that caused the amputation of her right leg. We don't know what her family has planned for a remembrance service, as she didn't want a memorial service.

There's a short bio of her here.

1 comment:

Steve said...

Hello ALL,

Marianne Ware always generated incredible kindness. I especially appreciated her kindness as a colleague and mentor in the English Department at Santa Rosa, where she mostly just laughed away any pettiness or ridiculousness any of us may have occasionally indulged in. She was generally too wise and too loving to lower herself to such shamelessly tedious nonsense.

Ditto, her involvement in the Sonoma County poetry environs and the wonderful Russian River Writers' Guild she, and I suspect also DB (Yes, Maureen? Doug? Jayne? Jim?), founded. The 3-4 years that I had helping coordinate RRWG with Maureen and David, the three of us filling in for what Marianne had done for decades, were surely some of the most joyful of my 17 years in California.

Always "wise," "warm," and fun loving. And always calm, beatific.

Yeah, Marianne's spirit and person was BEATIFIC. And "Beat," too. And most definitely Beautiful. We all can be abundantly grateful for the beauty that she shared with us and gave us. I miss those years, I miss all of you there, I miss Marianne. I have the warmest, neatest memories of us all, though! They were such glorious, happy years!