By Bon Bergstrom GoodKnight: Arwen Joy GoodKnight was the daughter of Glen GoodKnight, founder of the Mythopoeic Society, and me, Bonnie Bergstrom; a humble autistic newbie to your world in 1968. As Glen was considered a person of true value by this community, our daughter was and is considered a person of interest. I am stepping up to the plate to share about us here.
Our daughter’s life was cut short by a confluence of terrible circumstances on January 21, 2025, two weeks after our mutual home was utterly firestormed in Altadena. (The day after a certain inauguration we were demoralized by.)
Arwen was born to us on April 21, 1972, having skipped Hitler’s birthday by one day and having landed on the birthday of both John Muir and Queen Elizabeth II; not too shabby. We all went on to share a number of delightful experiences in that which we all call Fandom.
Arwen debuted in our community as one of two infants born the same day and were entered in the 1972 Westercon Masquerade as Romula and Rema, future founders of the Romulan Empire. A gentle German Shepherd served as Mother Wolf. (Richard Finder, daughter Ariel)
On her first birthday she found herself held in the kindly arms of DeForest Kelley at a Star Trek Convention in Los Angeles. I imagined dialogue…”Dammit Jim, I’m an Internist, not a Pediatrician!”
Later that same day we teamed up with Arwen’s virtual God-Mom Sherwood Smith, a fan-friend since 1968, in line for the gigantic Equicon masquerade that was looming that evening. We won the Popular Vote award. Baby Arwen and I were slathered in lizard makeup, and Sherwood was our slavemaster, an aristocrat from an alien Star Trek planet. She had concocted some genius script out of her own head whilst waiting in line to go on stage. What a gal; she gladly designed and executed a number of courtly costumes for Arwen to wear at more than a few events.
Ultimately, Arwen didn’t feel cut out for our milieu, and decided to go her own way, into the fine arts. Music…Piano, Clarinet. Even played at Cello. Ceramics, painting, music theory. Music, arts, novels of contemporary popular culture. A cultural maven! Being born a self-starter like her father, she was able to facilitate her acceptance into such exalted places as Interlochen, teen classes at Art Center School of Design in Pasadena, Rhode Island School of Design. She had such power that I never understood. Far beyond anything I had never achieved. Uncanny child, not even a 4.0 GPA graduate. But then she was the daughter of the self-starter Glen GoodKnight.
As for the Rhode Island stint…we joked big time about how I prayed that she wouldn’t wake up some morning having sculpted the Horror in Clay. I kept a silly stuffed Cthulhu in our library as a touchstone.
Despite all, she became an accomplished…PASTRY CHEF. In Urban Boston. Grill 23 and Bar, right across from Boston Common from the State House. Where politcos, celebrities and even the Kennedys dined. The experience in ceramics translated to baking. Wow.
As for the rest….Arwen and her father shared an undiagnosed inheritable sleep disorder, a parasomnia. Sleep walking, sleeptalking, nightmares, insomnia. Edgar Allen Poe stuff. A tendency to self medicate with substances, tendency towards suicidality. No hint of any treatment plan, ever.
It contributed to loss of life. That is all I will say. Mental illness kills. Watch yours, please take care!!!
I thank the many of you fen for all the great times over the years; may we continue to experience all the goodness we have shared together! You have added to so much magic in my life, our lives.
Yours with love, Bon Bergstrom GoodKnight