Gene Wolfe is how I got into the SF field. When I was in high school, my father wrote to Pocket Books to find out if the Gene Wolfe they were publishing was the same person as his childhood friend. The answer was Yes. Gene was to be a guest at Norwescon and suggested we meet him for lunch.
That was my first science fiction convention. I was may 15 or 16. A few years later when I was a freshman at the University of Washington, at Norwescon, I heard this amazing woman writer speak and she mention she was a UW professor. So I decided to take her class. That was Joanna Russ.
After I'd taken her classes, Joanna suggest that I go to Clarion West which was just restarting. She sent a postcard to an editor who was teaching that year, telling him she was sending him a student. That was David Hartwell.
Random connections that make our lives
In 1997 I married David Hartwell.