June 19, 2020: Monica Stephens

Monica Stephens, who was my companion for more than 30 years and an employee of SJ Games for nearly as long, died early Thursday morning of congestive heart failure as a side effect of chemotherapy. She was 59.

She worked in every department that SJ Games ever had, except (possibly) miniatures casting. She started as a typesetter, back when we had our own typesetting equipment. At various times, she also did layout, print buying, editing, playtesting, accounting, convention support and convention booth work, and landscaping - she was the best tree-trimmer we had. And, with Czar Andrew, she had the thankless and ever-growing task of managing the Munchkin database. (She also helped me make up the first Munchkin playtest set, and she was the very first one to tell me that Munchkin was going to be a hit. She was right.)

She liked nature: flowers, trees, frogs, lizards – even spiders (but not snakes). She shared my love of water gardening. She read science fiction and enjoyed conventions.