I learned yesterday of the death of Phyllis Benjamin, long the President of the International Fortean Organization.  She had been battling cancer; a stroke in January had further debilitated her.  She died last Friday, on March 9.

Phyllis organized many Fortean conventions, under the names of FortFests and FortNites.  John Keel invited me to my first one, where I performed a ventriloquism routine about alien abductions that he’d seen me do at Caroline’s Comedy Club.  I went on to give many talks in the following years.

INFO dwindled as the years went on: due partially to declining popular interest in the subject (rising anti-intellectualism and the reductive scientism of the “skeptic” movement helped), and partially to the internal squabbles inevitable in any group (and which, parenthetically, I avoided).  On my last appearance there, in 2011, Phyllis inducted several of us into the “Fortean Hall of Fame.”  The photo above shows her handing Bob Hieronimus his certificate; I hope he doesn’t mind that I scanned a picture from his site.  Here’s mine.

Like many whose brains are conducted along Fortean lines, Phyllis did many things.  In her younger years, she worked as an illustrator; more recently, as a travel agent.  She was also a poet and playwright; wrote a long-running column, “Nous,” for the INFO Journal; and contributed to the Fortean Times, Fate, and other magazines.  She had been working on a Fortean children’s novel, which, if I remember correctly, had the working title of The Bronx Irregulars.  She adored the work of John Keel, John Michell, and Tom Waits.  I hoped to post here some of her contributions to the INFO Journal, but my box of back issues is in storage upstate.  I’ll add some later.

Her funeral is tomorrow, March 14, at 11 am.  Her husband, Al Rosenzweig, asks that you pray, meditate, or think of her then.

(Posted by Doug Skinner)