Audrey Jessup was an extraordinary woman who left behind hundreds of friends. Any writer who came to Ottawa to do a reading will remember her as the smartly dressed woman with the elegant accent and the mischievous twinkle in her eye. She’s the one who always asked the most incisive questions. If she wasn’t in your audience, it was only because she had just swished off to Italy or New York or Norway. Closer to home you may have enjoyed a witty chat with her over a glass of red wine at the Ellis dinner, Bloody Words, Murder on the Maitland, or The Humber School for Writers.

Among Audrey’s many organizational contributions, she was a charter member and past president of Capital Crime Writers, a member of the Ladies’ Killing Circle, and co-chair of Bloody Words V. She co-edited the anthologies “The Ladies’ Killing Circle” and “Bone Dance”. Her stories appeared in Storyteller Magazine, Life Music, all the Ladies’ Killing Circle anthologies and in the Ottawa Citizen. She had been a Crime Writers of Canada member since the mid-nineties, and served on the professional development committee.

She was an energetic volunteer, a tireless supporter of other writers and the arts in general. Check any list of sponsors for literary, theatre, or visual arts groups and Audrey’s name would pop up. Her wit, style, grace and elegance were legendary. She was an incisive thinker, a woman of action and decision, and she could stop you in your tracks with a quick arch of her eyebrow. She was smart, funny and just a little bit dangerous, although she had a soft spot in her heart for romance. We loved her.