On Sunday night in Asbury Park, this fantastic group of NJ and NY writers got together to do a Noir At The Bar (they read some of their past, present or future work). I was there to take some pics.
This one was special though. Noir At The Bar Asbury Park was to be one of a number of readings going on around the country and even a few outside the US. We called it Chilled To The Marrow because, while these are normally free, we were all contributing something to be raffled off to help raise money for Evie Swierczynski who has been battling leukemia for the past few months. We were all in for #TeamEvie.
Duane Swierczynski is her dad. Many know him as a top-flight novelist or for his work with Marvel where he penned a Punisher one-shot and also 24 issues of Cable. (I don’t know much about the comic work so I hope I have that right).
I’ve known Duane since 1991 when we were on the same floor in college together, have always followed his work. This was the crime fiction community, near and far, coming together to help one of their own. We had some fun, raised a bit of money. Many of the local Asbury Park businesses did a great job donating things for the raffle. It was great to be part of it.
Early Tuesday morning Evie, 15, passed away.
We’re all just gutted.
Evie’s mom has asked all to honor Evie: Be kind, be loving, be sweet, be funny, be wise, be brave, be a warrior.
This world can be a god-awful place with god-awful things going on around us. The world lost a good person in young Evie. It needs more good people. Let’s all do our part to be the best we can out there.
