In Memoriam

My close friend and mentor, Nikki Busch, died unexpectedly on my mother’s birthday, April 25, 2023. I am grateful for social media, as I have a record of our conversations, including the wisdom she so generously shared with me.

I was privileged to speak at Nikki’s memorial service hosted by the LGBTQ+ Editors Association on June 1. Here’s the text of what I shared:

Nikki Busch sent me a wave via Facebook Messenger at 9:08 p.m. on April 22, 2021. It was the first of thousands of messages we’d send each other over the course of nearly two years.

Earlier that evening, we’d interacted at Mark Allen’s Freelancers Happy Hour. It was our first time seeing each other live, although we’d crossed paths in online spaces in the months I’d been working as a freelance editor. In our text chat, Nikki noted that she wasn’t a fan of crowds, even online, and she’d attended a virtual coffee chat earlier in the day, so she was peopled out.

But she had energy enough to touch on the conflict that led to the disaffiliation of the Editors’ Backroom from the larger Editors Association of Earth Facebook group. Always one to challenge the status quo, Nikki commented, “I’m still in EAE. I want to see how long it takes for them to kick me out.”

Even before we became friends, I knew Nikki as dedicated and determined. She was first and foremost a romance editor, but she took on fantasy and science fiction to make ends meet. She enjoyed good books and was proud of helping authors write better stories. She’d often be up and working before the sun rose so she’d have time to take Max, “her kid,” as she called them, to an appointment or to visit her mother.

Nikki was a woman of principle. She always fought for the underdog, particularly in the areas of socioeconomics and gender and sexuality. We shared a frustration with editing rates, the insensitivity of editors and authors to social justice needs, and the failure of editing organizations to address issues of systemic racism and other oppression.

I like to think that we were a team. Like me, Nikki struggled with low self-esteem and social anxiety, especially around our wealthier colleagues, and she was a private person; she used a background filter on Zoom so no one would see the one-bedroom apartment where she lived with her wife, Barb. During meetings we attended, she’d message me with her thoughts and comments, sometimes snarky, sometimes supportive. When something was a significant issue, I’d bring it up to the group, and Nikki would back channel me with her thanks and admiration, saying I was braver than she was.

But Nikki was brave, and over the years I knew her, she blossomed. She joined the EFA’s Diversity Initiative group in January 2022 and argued for policy changes that helped low-income members, and then she joined the EFA membership committee a few months later. She started showing up on Zoom calls without filtering the background. And she made her opinions and beliefs known. Sometimes unrelentingly, if the situation warranted.

“Guess I inherited it from my father,” Nikki explained in one of our chats. “He was a teachers' union VP. I walked the picket line with him when I was a kid.”

The EFA’s Discussion List inspired much of Nikki’s ire and scorn. Ignorance and insensitivity expressed by list members influenced her views of the organization. One particularly egregious post exhibiting transphobia prompted Nikki to take action. “I couldn't hold my tongue (or fingers) and wrote a response,” she said.

Later, she remarked, “A few people have contacted me privately to express thanks for my response to that post. I am not too happy with the EFA mods' response. It's sort of a ‘good people on both sides’ kinda response. I hate that we have to settle. No one should have to settle to exist.”

Nikki didn’t settle. She kept learning and striving for better. She attended the inaugural Neurodivergent Publishing Conference earlier this year and had a blast. I always got the feeling that while Nikki recognized she had ADHD, she was interested in learning more about it for Max. But the NPC ignited Nikki’s interest in neurodivergence for herself, and she started showing up in ND spaces as her full self. She was becoming comfortable with the way her brain functioned and the idiosyncrasies that stemmed from it. Nikki’s quirks made her a better editor and business owner, and they made her a great friend.

Nikki and I grew especially close this past year. She’d make a post on Facebook saying she was going radio silent and no one should message or call her, but then a while later she’d message me to express her exasperation about something or other. Nikki didn’t pull her punches when she was upset with someone or a situation.

In her private conversation, she could be curmudgeonly, but she was also generous. Nikki took great delight in serving as the membership coordinator for the LGBTQ+ Editors Association. She freely shared her business savvy and editing knowledge in the Red Pen Resort Discord server, and when I needed access to a contract earlier this year so I could rewrite mine, Nikki didn’t hesitate to send hers over. Additionally, Nikki was my unofficial co-host in the EFA’s Clubhouse chats. And when I was bullied out of an author space and an editors club, Nikki propped me up, reminding me that I already had all the tools I needed to succeed. In return, I had the dubious distinction of introducing her to the phrase “thirst trap.”

I don’t know that Nikki ever knew how much of a difference she made in my life, although I tried to express my gratitude frequently. I’m sure she didn’t know how much she meant to the editing community as a whole. She’d be thoroughly embarrassed by all this attention. But I hope our memories and our love and admiration for Nikki will be a balm to her family members and loved ones. And I hope that we will follow Nikki’s example by using our privilege to advocate for the underserved and marginalized, and, to adapt her business slogan, build better communities.

Thank you.