Emma Tennant (1937-2017)

Writer Emma Tennant, 79, died January 21, 2017 in a London hospital following a long illness. Tennant was known for her feminist and postmodern fiction, and wrote many works of genre interest, including The Time of the Crack (1973; as The Crack, 1978), The Last of the Country House Murders (1974), Hotel de Dream (1976), The Bad Sister (1978), Wild Nights (1979), Alice Fell (1980), The Search for Treasure Island (1981),

Queen of Stones (1982), Woman Beware Woman (1983), The Ghost Child (1984), Two Women of London: The Strange Case of Ms Jekyll and Mrs Hyde (1989), The Magic Drum: An Excursion (1989),  Sisters and Strangers: A Moral Tale (1990), Faustine (1992), and Heathcliff’s Tale (2005). She edited Bananas from 1975-78, where she published work by J.G. Ballard, Angela Carter, John T. Sladek, and other SF writers. She edited anthologies of work from the journal in Bananas (1977) and Saturday Night Reader (1979).

Emma Christina Tennant was born October 20, 1937 in London, the daughter of a Scottish Baron. She attended St. Paul’s Girls’ School, and spent WWII at the family estates in Peebleshire Scotland. She worked as a travel writer at Queen and an editor at Vogue. First novel The Colour of Rain (1964) was not SF and appeared under pseudonym Catherine Aydy. In addition to her numerous novels she wrote autobiographical works, including Girlitude (1999) and Burnt Diaries (1999). She was married four times and had three children. Her most recent marriage was in 2008 to Tim Owens, who had been her partner for decades.