By Mark L. Blackman: New York fan Ariel Makepeace Julienne Winterbreuke – also known as I Abra Cinii, Ariel Cinii and simply Abby – was found dead in her “Upstate Manhattan” apartment on Sunday, March 8. She was 66. Neighbor and fellow fan Bill Wagner provided the few details available:
Some sad news. New York fan and my direct next door neighbor Ariel Winterbreuke was found dead in her apartment. She had been dead at least a week. A neighbor said the police went down the fire escape to get into her apartment for a wellness check. Reportedly she had recently appeared thin and not looking well. No cause of death is yet known.
Abby, one of the first trans people in Fandom, was phenomenally creative and inventive (she even devised an alien language and way of thought for her fiction called Sartine). She was an apahack (in both incarnations of APA-NYU), an artist, a filker and performer (known for “Imported Sly,” “Unknown is Unending,” and the New York-centric “The Alternate Side” and “Swing Low, Sweet Double-A”), and the author (as Ariel Cinii) of the Touching Lands’ Dance trilogy (The Family Forge, The Organized Seer and The Telepaths’ Song).
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I am deeply saddened that Abby is gone. I first met her at an APA-NYU collation mumble-mumble years ago (where i first learned what RAEBNOC meant and who the O.S.A.A.&C was). Over the years we would cross paths at various cons in the NorthEast and exchange fannish small talk. My lasting memory is when she came to the services for my late wife Lisa Selitzer. She put up with the fluorescent lights in the funeral home to perform a brief ceremony witnessed only by myself. She gestured to the Sky, the Ground, and each of the the Four Winds wishing Lisa Safe Travels.
And now i wish Abby Safe Travels as well 🙁
I knew Abby had told me she had won the money for her transformation from a TV Quiz show. I don’t recall which one. But they did bleep the answer to the question: “What are you going to do with your winnings?”
Robert, it was The $10,000 Pyramid, and – fannishly enough – her celebrity teammate was William Shatner.
Over the years I heard Abby sing in many a convention filk room. Sad news indeed.
I knew Abby. She was a wonderful, joyful person. A fixture at filk sings up and down the East Coast, I enjoyed hanging around with her. She had a very wry sense of humour, and always seem to have a smile and a hug for people.
For a while, she shared her apartment with up and coming writer Stacey Davies who had a short story, “Wordsearch”, published in Pulphouse: The Hardback Magazine issue #6. Stacey killed herself over the Labour Day weekend, while Abby was away at Worldcon. I had been close to Stacey, and I lost touch with Abby after that, since the memory of Stacey’s death was too painful.
I haven’t though of Stacey in years, and only occasionally thought of Abby. This Samhain, I will be honouring both of their memories.
Another old acquaintance here; very hard to believe she’s gone.
If anyone has links to art or fiction, I would like to see.
Hail the traveler!
I don’t have the specific links offhand, but she has four books on Amazon – three as ebooks or print and one as a print-only. I own two pieces of her art, and will try to photo them and post them here later in the week.