Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015)

Feminist science fiction author and linguist Suzette Haden Elgin died on Tuesday, January 27. She was the author of numerous science fiction novels, a poet, and a prolific fan writer. In 1978, she founded the Science Fiction Poetry Association; the Elgin Award is named in her honor. She had a PhD from UCSD in linguistics, and in fact began writing science fiction to pay for graduate school. Her science fiction, especially the Native Tongue trilogy (for which she invented a new, feminist language, Láadan) exercised a powerful influence on feminist science fiction. Her 1969 story (and first sale) "For the Sake of Grace" was the inspiration for Joanna Russ's The Two of Them. She also wrote a series of books on "The Gentle Art of Verbal Defense" and other works of popular linguistics.

You'll find a bibliography of her science fiction here: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?204;
John Clute's somewhat critical discussion of her work here:  http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/elgin_suzette_haden;
and her wikipedia entry (which includes a list of some of her nonfiction writings) here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzette_Haden_Elgin