One of ours is gone

I was extremely saddened to hear that fellow romance reader Elizabeth 'Lizzy' Benway and her youngest daughter were killed in a car accident last Monday in Florida. It's believed that she swerved her vehicle, trying to avoid debris on the road left by Hurricane Katrina. For those who didn't know her, she was a devoted romance reader who was deeply involved with the online romance community, ranging from AAR cover ballot committee to maintaining a listserve, and she had her own web site: Elizabeth's Book Collections & More where she maintained several lists of sub-genres and types of heroes. It's well known that she was a huge fan of cover models, especially John DeSalvo. So much that she did a lot of work, culling information for Romantic Times and her own web site as well as being the creator of a very popular mailing list for John DeSalvo fans. Although I didn't know her as well as some readers, I knew Lizzy B. from bumping into her online over years [seven years?] at RT, AAR, The Romance Journal, and casual email correspondence. She always kept an optimistic attitude towards highs and lows of the online romance community. She once had me laughing when she responded to my dour complaints [on the Romance Journal message board] about Scottish historical romances with a link to one of her web pages: Louisiana Lovin'. It is lovely to see that fellow readers have already left their messages on her guest book. My thoughts are with her family and friends. Be good, be bad & be safe.