Sasquan (Worldcon 2015) Schedule for Connie and Cordelia Willis

Connie recently suffered a bite from a bat as well as an injury that required some surgery.  She is recovering and will be able to make it to WorldCon in Spokane.  Here's links to the two updates on the ConnieWillis.net blog.

July 20 - Website Update - Injuries

August 3 - Surgery Update

Connie has written several new updates written over the last month.  They are available to view on the ConnieWillis.net Blog.  Links to the individual entries in order are as follows:

June 6 - Website Update: D-Day Edition

June 7 - Website Update: Limberlost

Jun 16 - Website Update: Nebula Awards Weekend I

Jun 17 - Website Update: Nebula Awards Weekend II/Chicago

April 2015 Update

An Update From Connie Willis

                  LOCUS AWARDS 2013

I just got back from England, so I thought this year the theme for the Locus Awards should have an English flavor.

Well, that, and the fact that Liza told me I couldn't spend the whole time talking about PRIMEVAL like I did last year.

"What's PRIMEVAL?" did you say?

(explanation)

Well, anyway, one of the things I was so impressed with in England
was how old everything was.

In Glastonbury we ate in an inn that was opened in the 800s.
We drove through the New Forest--where, by the way, Connor and Abby
ran into the fake dinosaur in that one episode--sorry--

Anyway, everything had this really impressive history.

The New Forest was established in 1066, and when we went to Winchester Cathedral we found out it had been built in 1093 to replace the old church, which had burned down.

And it set me to thinking about LOCUS.
So I started asking people what they knew about its history and they said, "I don't know. 
Didn't Charles N. Brown decide to do a fanzine about science fiction
and print it out on a mimeograph machine or something? 
And win about a million Hugo Awards?
And make people wear Hawaiian shirts at the Banquet?"

And I realized I should fill you in on the actual history of Charles N. Brown and LOCUS.

LOCUS was founded in 1126 by Charles N. Brown,  then a friar at Oakland Abbey in Sherwood Forest,  where he painstakingly copied out the magazine by hand and illuminated the illustrations himself.

The fledgling magazine faced enormous obstacles:
1--the populace couldn't read
2--the Sheriff on Nottingham kept trying to shut him down
and 3--except for that part of BEOWULF with the dragon in it,
there was no such thing as science fiction.

Friar Brown did not let that stop him.
He worked tirelessly to jump-start SF, lobbying Chaucer to include "The Wyf of Betelgeuse" in his Canterbury Tales,

suggesting to Richard II that he shout, "My Westeros, my Westeros,
my kingdom  for somebody who'll tell me how THE GAME OF THRONES ends!"

and trying to convince Anne Boleyn that she should forget about Henry VIII
who 1--was married
and 2--wore puffy shorts
and write a fantasy trilogy.

Alas, she did not listen to him, and in the ensuing rash of beheadings,
Friar Brown was forced to flee the country,  stopping only to see Shakespeare
in Stratford on Avon and suggest he change Titania and Oberon
into little green men, before sailing off with the explorer James Cook.

It was on one of his many voyages with Captain Cook that Friar Brown first encountered Hawaii. He took to it like a duck to water, abandoning his friar's habit for gaudy Hawaiian shirts and (non-puffy) shorts, though retaining the sandals, and joining the natives in drinking mai-tais and singing "I Want a Little Grass Shack in Kaleakakua, Hawaii."

He suggested Captain Cook do the same, but his advice was once again ignored.

After Captain Cook's death, Charles escaped with the help of Elvis Presley,
who was working as a busboy at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, and hitched a ride on The Black Pearl and then on the Pequod with novelist Herman Melville,
who oddly insisted Charles call him Ishmael.

Charles worked hard to convince Mel (sorry--Ish) that he should write a screenplay instead of a novel and that it should be about a pair of humpbacked whales who are our only link to an alien race and who need to be rescued by Kirk and Spock who have travelled back in time.

Mel--sorry, Ish--said no, but Charles had better luck with Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, who rescued him after he'd been forced to walk the plank and had subsequently caught pneumonia. 

Mary took him home with her to Italy to nurse him back to health.
There, Charles convinced her to stop writing goopy fan-fic about sparkly vampires and write something commercial, like FRANKENSTEIN.

She did, science fiction was born, and Charles hurried to California
to invent the staple and expand the magazine, stopping in England on the way
to infect the Martians who'd invaded London, and try to convince H.G. Wells to turn his account of the invasion into a trilogy called RED MARS, BLUE MARS, and GREEN MARS.

When Wells refused to listen, Charles stuck him in a time machine
and went off to help Alexander Graham Bell invent the telephone
and Marconi invent the wireless so he could call Orson Welles
to tell him WAR OF THE WORLDS would make a really scary radio program.

He also called Hugo Gernsback to tell him to get an award named after himself so Locus could win it, and called Rod Serling to tell him about Mary Shelley's fan fic.

    "Do you think I could make a TV series out of it?" Serling asked.
    "No," Charles said, whispering.  "One, TV hasn't been invented yet, and two, no one with an IQ over 17 would watch it, but TWILIGHT might make a good title."
    "Twilight?" Serling said.  "Nope, not punchy enough."
    "How about the Twilight Area?  Or the Twilight Locale?" Charles whispered.
    "What?" Serling shouted.  "I can't hear you.  Speak up."
    "I can't," Charles whispered.  "My pneumonia came back, and I've lost my voice.  Plus, I'm not allowed to shout.  I'm in a hospital zone."

Rod Serling was so grateful, he sent Charles a mimeograph machine, and the rest, as they say, is history!

Dec 10, 2012 - An update From Connie

Connie Willis Ebooks Available

Books with Cynthia Felice - The three titles Connie co-wrote with Cynthia Felice are being released as e-books by Cynthia.  Promised Land and Water Witch are currently available on the Kindle with Light Raid coming soon.  Editions for the Nook are also in the works.  Click on the images below to take you directly to the Amazon.com web page for each book.

Jan 17, 2012 - An Update from Connie in regards to the Grand Master Award.

Jan 16, 2012 - Connie Willis Named SFWA Grand Master!

Dec 17, 2011 - A Holiday Update from Connie!

    Hi, everybody!
I just got back from the World Fantasy Con, and right before that, Milehicon.  Both were fun.  At Milehicon, the highlight was probably the challenge panel on "Scariest Robot Ever," which I won with my brilliant defense of the Daleks, even though I had already been thrown off the panel.
    Gardner Dozois was the guest of honor at Milehicon, and I got to interview him, which is probably the easiest job I’ve ever had.  All you have to do is say a few key words—"Army," "slush pile," "plastic jumping penis"—and he’s off and running, telling great stories about the awful manuscripts he’s read over the years, or the series of news stories he had to write for Stars and Stripes on the subject of, "Don’t do this, Or You Will Die," or about convention dinners where everyone was so reduced to hilarity that the poor waiter quit halfway through the meal. (He actually made me laugh so hard at one dinner I snorted a piece of lettuce up my nose and nearly killed myself.)
    My favorite Gardner memory is of an Asimov's Award dinner in New York.  It was at a Chinese restaurant, and we were at two big tables.  At the Analog table, they were having an earnest discussion of the space program’s future and at ours (the Asimov’s table) Gardner was displaying his wind-up plastic jumping penis for us—which neatly sums up the difference between Asimov’s and Analog.
    After Milehicon I had two days to unpack, do my laundry, repack, head for the airport again--in a blizzard--and fly off to San Diego for the World Fantasy Convention.  It was held at a beautiful resort with four swimming pools, dozens of rose-lined paths, palm trees, and gazebos and gardens and shady bowers, all of which I felt really guilty about because back home my poor husband was dealing with fifteen inches of snow, broken tree limbs, and no electricity.  For two and a half days.
    I felt really bad.  Not bad enough to leave San Diego, however.  Which I couldn’t because I had toastmaster duties to perform.  (It had nothing to do with the palm trees and the balmy weather, I swear.)
    I saw lots of people—my friends Michael Cassutt and Christine Valada and Len Wein and Melinda Snodgrass (we spent an entire breakfast talking about Primeval), Bob Silverberg, Daryl Gregory, Ellen Datlow, Catherine Montrose, and Bob Vardeman, and met lots of new people.
    I also got to spend some time with Shawna McCarthy, who was my editor at Asimov’s and then at Bantam.  She was an editor guest of honor at the convention, and we spent a lot of time catching up.  The other guests of honor were Parke Godwin and Neil Gaiman (who I know), Jo Fletcher (who I’d never met, though we’d worked together on the British editions of Blackout and All Clear), and the fantasy artist Ruth Sanderson (who I was meeting for the first time).
    One of the highlights of the convention was discussing Primeval with Kit Reed.  I had found out at the International Conference on the Fantastic that she was a fan, and we caught up on Season Four and also discussed our theories about how the resort we were staying at could possibly make it in this day and age. (For the theory we eventually arrived at, see Agatha Christie’s At Bertram’s Hotel.  Or maybe something really sinister, along the lines of Kit’s short story, "The Wait.")
    Another highlight was a "conversation" I had with Neil Gaiman.  "Conversation" is in quotes because it was conducted in a ballroom with 500 people in it, so it wasn’t quite as casual as other conversations we’ve had, but it was still lots of fun.  We’d agreed beforehand we didn’t want to discuss the usual stuff we get asked in interviews:  what are you working on now? etc.
    Instead, we talked about why we write, who we’re influenced by, how exciting that moment is when you discover a writer you’ve never read before, and, oh, just all sorts of things.  One of Neil’s big influences was the Alice books, which he read so many times he can recite them word for word. (I believe him.)  I waxed rhapsodic about Agatha Christie, and we both talked about how important it is to be excited about what you’re writing and not just write the same thing over and over.
    Like all good conversations, it rambled all over the place, and covered lots of ground.  A very fun hour and a half.  [You can see the entire panel HERE on YouTube]
    But probably my favorite thing of the convention was getting to talk to Peter Beagle.  He’s always lovely, and I was so happy he was being given a lifetime achievement award.  He so-o-o-o deserves it.
    I first read his A Fine and Private Place when I was twelve (I was reading my way through the library alphabetically and had gotten to the B’s).  The novel's set in a cemetery and is about a man who lives there, a widow who comes to visit her husband’s grave, a pair of ghosts, and a talking raven.  I absolutely adored it the first time I read it and was astonished to find out it had been written by a twenty-year old.
    I’m still astonished every time I read it (which is once every few years).  Young writers usually have style and imagination but not much originality--and no knowledge of the world.  But somehow Peter Beagle had all of the above, even though he was writing about middle-aged people, grief, the nature of true love, and death.  I believe the term is "wise beyond his years."
    His wisdom, compassion, and decency shine through everything he writes, but they’re all on full display in A Fine and Private Place, plus his brilliant sense of irony.  If you haven’t read it, you definitely need to.


    The fifth season of Primeval started on BBC America on November 12th and is on Saturdays (at 7 my time).  (Warning:  this is a series that needs to be watched from the beginning to get the maximum effect.  The first three seasons are out on DVD, and Season Four is up on YouTube.)
    I’ve watched all five seasons, but we’re also glued to the set every Saturday night, watching it again.
    You’ve all heard me rave about Primeval before.  One of my favorite SF authors, Kit Reed, loves it, too, and so does author and screenwriter Melinda Snodgrass--I got her hooked. (She’s blogged about it.  You can read her comments at her blog, Busted Flush (www.melindasnodgrass.com.)  And lots of people I’ve met at conventions are as addicted as I am.
    I can’t say much about Season Five without doing spoilers, so I won’t, except to say that it’s great--and that, once again, like the end of season three, if the five seasons are all there is, it’s a very satisfying ending, but that there’s also a great cliffhanger to make you desperate to see Season Six.  (I’m always impressed with their ability to do both things at the same time.)
    I can also say this:  the other day I read a review of Season Five, and it set me thinking about the nature of the series and why I like it so much.
    The reviewer was complaining about one of the characters stopping in the middle of trying to ward off a horrible disaster to rescue a civilian.  "You're trying to save the world and you stop to save one girl and her stupid dead girl friend," the reviewer wrote.  "I don't buy it.  The world is much more important."
     But that’s the whole point of Primeval:  the bad guys are always totally focused on saving the world.  They’re certain they’re right, they’re sure that what they’re doing is more important than anything else, and they’re willing to sacrifice anything--and anyone--to reach their goal.
    The good guys want to save the world, too.  ("We'll probably have to save the world before bedtime again, professor!")  But, unlike the bad guys, they never lose sight of who and what they’re saving it for.  They aren’t willing to sacrifice people, principles, or relationships in the name of a Greater Cause.
    They are, however, more than willing to sacrifice themselves to save others, and do so frequently.  They’re willing to die to protect their friends.  And total strangers.  But they always keep it firmly in mind that it’s the individual, the innocent bystanders, the civilians, that they’re fighting for.
    The bad guys talk a lot about "saving humanity" and "the greater good," but never seem to translate that desire into saving specific people.
    I know, I know, sometimes a person or a group of people have to die to save others.  I spent eight years writing about World War II.  But I’m always distrustful when people start saying, "You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs."  For one thing, you can bet the person speaking is not one of those "eggs" he plans on breaking.
    And I can’t tell you how many defenses of Joe Paterno and Penn State I’ve read in the last couple of weeks that talk about how they had to cover up Sandusky’s "shower incident" to protect the football program.  I mean, think how much good Sandusky and Paterno and Penn State have done over the years!
    As Russell Baker says, "Usually, terrible things that are done with the excuse that progress requires them are not really progress at all, but just terrible things."
    What I’m trying to say is that Primeval understands that, and that’s why I love it.  Along with its humor, Lester’s dry sarcasm, the dinosaurs, its lovely sense of irony, and of course, Connor’s being ridiculously adorable!


    Happy Thanksgiving to everybody!  I’m actually descended from Governor Bradford of the Pilgrims (Pilgrims were not Puritans!  People always get the two confused.  Pilgrims wore colors and had a sense of humor.  Puritans didn’t.)  So in my great-great-great something grandfather’s words:
    "They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strength and had all things in good plenty... All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached...and besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides, they had about a peck of meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion."
    and
"Thus out of small beginnings greater things have been produced by His hand that made all things of nothing and gives being to all things that are; and, as one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled hath shone unto many, yea in some sort to our whole nation…"
    and
"All great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficulties, and both must be enterprised and overcome with answerable courage."

And from his great-great-something granddaughter:  Have a happy Thanksgiving!  Watch the Macy’s Parade and eat lots of turkey or spaghetti carbonara (Calvin Trillin’s vote for what we should eat on Thanksgiving) or quinoa or whatever!  And take a sec to think about what you’re grateful for.  For me it’s Starbuck’s eggnog lattes and the new Sherlock series and Kit Reed and my terrific family (including the Pilgrims) and Jon Stewart and the new Muppets movie--and, of course, Primeval.


OTHER STUFF

I did an interview with Adventures in Scifi Publishing while I was at Bubonicon. 


If you are having trouble finding hardbacks of Blackout and All Clear, you might try Broadway Book Mall:
It’s in Denver, so if you want a book personalized, I’d be happy to do that.  Ron and Nina Else, who run the Book Mall, are great.  They also have hardbacks of Passage and my Christmas short story collection, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, plus lots of collectable editions of my stuff and pretty much everything of mine in paperback.

*  *  *

    I'll be going to Cosine in Colorado Springs in January.

                                                 Connie Willis

The December issue of Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine has hit the shelves at Barnes & Noble bookstores and likely other stores that still carry Asimov's . You can read an excerpt of the story on the December issue's page. 



Subterranean Press has release the J. K. Potter cover for the limited edition of "All About Emily" that will be shipping at the end of the year.

    Hi, everybody.  I just got back from the double whammy of Worldcon in Reno and Bubonicon in Albuquerque where I had a great time!

    All of this year's Worldcon, Renovation, was fun, but the highlights were:

    1.  Winning the Best Novel Hugo Award for Blackout/All Clear.  People always ask me if the awards still mean a lot to me, and the answer is yes!  I'm always as nervous and convinced I'm going to lose as I was the first time--when I did lose, to George R.R. Martin, a fact he has never let me forget and which he reminded me of only three days ago at Bubonicon.  And when I win, I'm just as thrilled as I was the first time. 

    This Hugo was especially important to me.  Blackout/All Clear was a labor of love.  I have always adored World War II and especially the London Blitz, and the entire eight years I worked on the book, I was convinced that A) I couldn't do justice to the Blitz and the civilians who played such a critical part in winning the war, B) I was never going to finish the stupid thing, and C) that if I did, no one would like it.

    So winning--and even more important--having so many people tell me what the book meant to them--was wonderful.

    If you're interested, you can see my acceptance speech and/or the entire Hugos ceremony here: www.thehugoawards.org or just google 2011 Hugo Awards Ceremony video. [Direct Link to Ustream of Hugo Awards Ceremony - Silverberg is at the 2:44:00 mark, Best Novel starts at 2:51:00]

    2.  The Hugo itself.  This year's award is gorgeous.  The rocket, created by Peter Weston, was lovely, and the base was designed by a French artist, Marina Gelineau, who designed it in layers of glass in which are embedded the images of prehistoric creatures.  It immediately made me think of Primeval, even though that probably wasn't what the artist intended, and the centipede that poisoned Stephen and the giant bug that nearly killed Connor, and the beetles that overran the lab.  They make it even more perfect--it's my Primeval Hugo!


    Which brings me to the best (and worst) moment of the convention:

    3.  Meeting Paul Cornell onstage after the Hugo Awards.  We were waiting to have our pictures taken and he thanked me for mentioning Primeval in my acceptance speech and told me he'd written an episode for the show (the mammoth episode in Season 2, with that great moment for Lester and the charming interlude with Connor and Abby in the church singing (of course) "All Creatures Great and Small").  At which point my daughter and I totally disgraced ourselves with gushing:  "Oh, gosh, Mr. Cornell, this is such an honor.  I love the show, and that's one of my favorite episodes!  We have it totally memorized," etc.  A total fangirl moment.  How embarrassing!

    I got to have dinner with Paul Cornell and his wife in Bubonicon, where I attempted to apologize and redeem myself, but probably failed.  Well, but it is a terrific show, and the mammoth episode was great!

    4.  The panels.  I was put on an "Essentials of Casino Gambling" panel for some reason, even though my expertise consists entirely of playing nickel video poker, a game whose charms are that you're not being able to lose that much even if you play for days and you are able to draw to inside straights, even though everywhere else in life that's a terrible idea.  It's a terrible idea in nickel poker, too, but all you can lose is a nickel.  And there's a certain excitement in being able to do something so ill-advised and foolhardy.  And if the gamble pays off, you can play for weeks on your winnings.

    The panel also gave me a chance to talk about one of my favorite movies:  the original Ocean's 11 (no relation to the George Clooney ones, except that they rob casinos).  The original stars Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack, and has a devilishly well-constructed script by George Clayton Johnson, an SF author who wrote the novel Logan's Run and some classic Twilight Zone episodes.  When Dean Martin says, "The odds are with the house," he's not just talking about Vegas, and the movie's ending is terrific!

    I was also on panels about "The Big Bang Theory (the TV show, not the cosmological event) and one called "The Geek Gets the Girl," both with Kristine Katherine Rusch, one of my favorite people to be on a panel with.  We had a great time discussing Leonard, Sheldon, Penny and Wolowitz, and I managed to bring up Primeval (Connor and Abby, one of the best "Geek Gets the Girl" romances ever done on TV) a number of times.

    Actually, I managed to bring up Primeval on every single panel I was on.  And at my reading and my kaffeeklatsch.  And on the Stroll with the Stars.  (In case I didn't say this before, Primeval's a great show.  Watch it.  From the beginning.  The first 3 seasons are out on DVD and Seasons 4 and 5 will be on BBC America in January (See earlier updates.)

    5.  Reno.  Back in the day, this was the Divorce Capital of the U.S.  Women came here from New York and L.A. in the thirties and forties to get quickie divorces.  Well, comparatively quick.  It took six weeks to establish residence, which were spent on dude ranches with lots of cute bronco-busters, and then one day to get a no-fault divorce.  (See The Women and Merry Wives of Reno and Maisie Goes to Reno.)

    Nowadays, it's famous for the Mustang Ranch brothel, which all the taxis sport signs for.  It's also known for its wedding chapels and for its casinos, which the two main hotels for the convention were located in.  Which means all meals were eaten in neon- and smoke-saturated casinos with lots of bells and jangling-jackpot sounds.  One restaurant had giant orange jellyfish hanging from the ceiling and the other one enormous nude Roman sculptures which revolved.  (This was still far more tasteful than the creepy statues at Caesar's Palace which move and open their eyes.  That should definitely be Reno's slogan:  More Tasteful Than Vegas.)

    All in all, a very fun convention.

    Bubonicon was a nice, easy coming-down experience from Worldcon (like those special pressure chambers they put you in after deep-sea diving so you don't get the bends by surfacing too fast.)  I was on great panels discussing the end of the world, what writers do in their spare time (I told them I watched Primeval) and the end of the world.  Yes, two "how will the world end?" panels, which were remarkably hopeful and upbeat, even though Hurricane Irene was raging on televisions just outside the room.

    I also got to talk about irony for an hour, which is always fun.  And to see lots of great people:  Walter Jon Williams, Melinda Snodgrass, Ian Tregillis, Joan Saberhagen, and George R.R. Martin, who ordered me to address him as "Number One New York Times Bestselling Author George R.R. Martin, the American Tolkien," and when I refused, said mean (and completely untrue) things about Primeval.

    I'll have an update later about my Rockette story, which is coming out at Christmas, and the novel I'm working on.  And Seasons 4 and 5 of Primeval which Cordelia and I just finished watching.  Oh, my gosh!  Wow!  It's a good thing Paul Cornell's not here.

    In the meantime, end trans. (As Whoopie Goldberg would say.)

                            Connie Willis

"Hi, everybody!  I just got back from Seattle, where I emceed the Locus Awards Banquet, attended the Science Fiction Hall of Fame inductions, and had a great time!

    The Locus Awards Banquet is one of the most fun things I get to do.  It's sort of a cross between the Nebula Awards and a scene from Beach Blanket Bingo.  In tribute to founding Locus editor Charlie Brown, everyone wears Hawaiian shirts.  If you don't, you have to wear a badge that says, "I didn't wear a Hawaiian shirt" and it makes you eligible to win one.  We gave away six really lovely ones this year.

    There's a Best Hawaiian Shirt competition and a trivia competition ("What pilot of a spaceship in a TV series wore Hawaiian shirts until he was dumb enough to agree to be in the movie version and got lunched?"*)

    There are prizes--this year's were Gilligan hats and Gumby flamingos in hula skirts--and the grand prize is a plastic banana inscribed with celebrity signatures.  (It used to be a real banana, till people complained it turned black before they could sell it on eBay.)

    This year in honor of Gardner Dozois's being a Hall of Fame inductee we had a special event:  a Gardner Dozois singalong of all the songs he's taught me and hundreds of science fiction fans.  We sang Emily Dickinson's "Because I Could Not Stop for Death" to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas," (if you don't believe me, try it yourself.  We also sang Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" to the tune of "La Cucaracha," and portions of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" to the theme from Gilligan's Island.  It was very fun.

    Thanks to Liza Trombi, the Locus staff, and my lovely and talented assistant Gary Wolfe, the banquet came off without a hitch, except for major heckling from Gardner and his partner-in-crime Nancy Kress, who were punished by having to wear a grass skirt (Nancy) and a flowered coconut-shell bra (Gardner), though that didn't appear to inhibit them at all.

    Oh, and we gave out the Locus Awards, too, and Blackout/All Clear won for Best Science Fiction Novel.  I was very excited.

    After the awards we all changed out of our Hawaiian shirts and into something fancy and trooped over to the EMP-SF Museum for the Hall of Fame ceremony.  This year Terry Bisson was the emcee, and Harlan Ellison, Gardner Dozois, illustrator Vincent Di Fate, and graphic novel artist Moebius (Jean Giraud) were inducted.

    Neither Moebius nor Harlan were able to come, but  Vincent Di Fate was there, and he gave a charming speech.  And it was my very great honor to introduce Gardner Dozois.  I've sent my speech along so you can see it here [available as a PDF].

    Gardner gave a great speech, everyone got to look at the glass bricks commemorating each of the inductees, and we then all went to a champagne reception in their honor (the inductees, not the glass bricks.)

    And then the next day I taught an all-day workshop on romantic comedy at Hugo House.  And somewhere in there I did a reading with Terry Bisson.

    And then I came home, collapsed on the couch with a cold I'd caught somewhere along the way, and watched episode 4 of Season 5 of Primeval repeatedly.  Only two episodes to go, things are in a terrible mess, and I am worried sick about what's going to happen to everybody. 

    This is such an appropriate comeuppance for me (Primeval, not the cold.)  I've spent years telling readers who were anxiously awaiting the end of some story I'd read part of at a reading or the second part of Blackout/All Clear that waiting was part of the price readers pay--and now here I am!

    Maybe I'd better keep this in mind in regard to my next book, and hurry up and get busy writing it.  As soon as I get over this cold. 

    More later.
                            Connie Willis

SECOND UPDATE

    I'm over my cold, I've been working on my UFO novel, I finished my Rockette story, and now it's only a few weeks till Reno.  There truly is no rest for the wicked.  But at least I'm sane again (comparatively) now that I've finished watching Season 5 of Primeval.  I was so worried about what was going to happen, especially to Connor and Abby, that I literally couldn't sleep nights.

    And now I can't tell you, since I hate people who do spoilers and Season 5 won't be on BBC America till sometime next fall.  But--oh, my gosh!  Season 5 was so good!

    Anyway, as I said, I finished my story, which is called "All About Emily," and which is about a robot who wants to be a Rockette.  It's going to be in the December issue of Asimov's and then Subterranean Press is bringing out a special limited edition, like they have with Inside Job and D.A.  I loved writing this story because it gave me an excuse to do all this research about the Rockettes and Radio City Music Hall, which came this close to being torn down.  But not all stories have unhappy endings, even in real life, something I find I need to remind myself of now and then.

    I'm really looking forward to Worldcon in Reno.  I'm doing lots of stuff there, including panels with Kristine Kathryn Rushch, James Patrick Kelly, Harry Turtledove, and Michael Swanwick.   Here's the schedule as it stands now:

    Wednesday at 4 p.m.--a panel on "The Real Revenge of the Nerds:  Geek as Hero"  (I plan to talk about Connor)

    Wednesday at 6 pm.--a panel on "Nevada as a Setting for SF and Fantasy"

    Thursday at 4 p.m.--a panel on "Understanding Casino Gambling"--(a natural; I am the world's acknowledged expert on nickel video poker)

    Thursday at 8 p.m.--The Liars' Panel with James Patrick Kelly and Jay Lake

    Friday at 1 p.m.--a panel on "Who Is This Robert E. Lee person?--How Much Background Info is Really Needed in Historical SF?"--(they got the title from me--somebody really did ask me once who this Robert E. Lee person was)

    Friday at 3 p.m.--I'm being interviewed, along with Robert Silverberg, Gary K. Wolfe, and Jonathan Strahan, on guest of honor Charles N. Brown.  I only wish Charlie could be there.

    Saturday at noon--a panel on "The Craft of Writing Short Science Fiction and Fantasy"

    Saturday at 3 p.m.--a panel on "The Big Bang Theory--The TV Show, Not the Cosmological Theory" (I plan to talk about Leonard--and Connor)

    Sunday at 11 a.m.--I'm reading from my new novel.

    Sunday at noon--a panel on "Chronological Dissonance:  Modern Archetypes and Morals in a Historical Setting," which sounds intimidating, but is actually about how any of us travelling back in time would be caught as impostors within seconds.

    I'll also be autographing at some point and doing a kaffeeklatsch and some sort of walk with fans, since apparently they're worried that no one will ever go outside the casino. 

    And somehow I am determined to find a little time to play a little nickel video poker and talk to anyone who wants to about Primeval, especially people who've seen seasons 4 and 5.  I'm about to explode from not being able to talk to anybody about it!

    Really looking forward to seeing everybody there! 

                            Connie Willis
 
*Wash on Firefly and Serenity

June 25 - 2011 Locus Awards
Best Science Fiction Novel

    I usually hate January.  It's dark and cold and dark and Christmas is over and there aren't any decent movies to go to because we already saw "The King's Speech" and "Tangled" at Christmas and for some reason people think it's a good idea to release movies about dead children and suicide when you're already depressed, and Congress is back in session and it's dark and the sun is never going to return.

    But not this year.  This year I've loved January--well, not loved it, exactly.  I mean, it's still dark, but from January first there's been something to look forward to every week:  a new episode of PRIMEVAL. 

    My daughter and I are hopelessly addicted to the show, and no, it's not just as a friend of mine said, that Andrew Lee Potts is "ridiculously adorable," although that is certainly true. 

    But this British show (it's on BBC America right now and has been on Syfy) is also really well-written, fast-paced, full of unexpected twists and turns, and very involving.  Everyone we've introduced to the show (we gave it to lots of people for Christmas) has loved it.

    A NOTE OF CAUTION:  If you've never watched PRIMEVAL, don't start watching the new season.  Buy the DVDs of the first three seasons or rent them from Netflix or watch them on your computer first.  In order.  From the beginning.    This is like BABYLON 5 or LOST.  It has to be watched from the beginning. And don't give up if the first few episodes seem like "The A-Team Fights Dinosaurs."  Things will get very interesting very soon.

So why do I like it so much?  Let me count the ways:

     1.  Andrew Lee Potts is ridiculously adorable.  The way this all happened was that I saw the Johnny Depp ALICE IN WONDERLAND (which I liked--sort of), and my husband and I then had an Alice film festival, including the 1930s version (with Cary Grant and W.C. Fields), the 1960s British version with Dudley Moore (which was even worse than ARTHUR), and DREAMCHILD (my favorite movie of all time.)

    When I told my friend Rose Beetum what we were doing, she said, "Oh, then you need to watch the ALICE that was on Syfy." 

    I did, fell in love with Andrew Lee Potts's Hatter, bought the miniseries for my daughter, and she also fell in love and found out that he'd been in PRIMEVAL.  I didn't think Connor could possibly be any better than Hatter, but he was, and we were--and are--completely hooked.  Harrison Ford who?

    2.  The series is really well-written.  It's got foreshadowing (your key to quality literature), interlinking plots, clever dialogue, and stunning reversals.  My daughter bought the DVDs before I did, so she was several episodes ahead of me, and when I got to a particularly surprising turn of events, I called her at five in the morning her time.  "Hello, Mother," she said calmly.  "I presume you've just seen Episode 6."

    "Yes," I said.  "Oh. My. God."

    A couple of days ago a friend called me nearly as early.  "I just watched Episode 6," she said.  "Oh, my God."  And then my brother...well, you get the idea.  And Episode 6 is nothing to what happens in Season 2.

    3.  In spite of all the rampaging dinosaurs, PRIMEVAL is one of the best romantic comedies I've seen in a long time, second only to Jim and Pam on THE OFFICE and of course, Syfy's ALICE.  Or as Connor says, "It isn't every day you meet a potential girlfriend.  And find a dinosaur."

    4.  It's very funny.  Humor's hard to get right, especially when you're killing off characters, but PRIMEVAL strikes just the right note.  Connor's very funny, and Cutter's got a dry wit, but my favorite's Lester, who's the best paper-pushing bureaucrat ever.

    5.  It's really well-written, full of subtlety and nuance.  I know, I know, it sounds ridiculous in a show about dinosaur-hunting in modern-day London, but it's true.  One of my favorite episodes actually explores the whole notion of knighthood--from a medieval knight trying to kill a dragon (well, actually, a dracorex) to a damsel-in-distress trying to save it.  And a kid in a "Working Class Hero" T-shirt trying to rescue a flying lizard from the clutches of e-Bay.  And who knew dragons were actually herbivores?

    6.  The characters are terrific.  When I saw the first episode, I thought, "Okay, we have your curmudgeonly scientist, his love interest, his ex-wife, the handsome action hero, the geeky computer nerd, the hot blonde, the military guy, the government bureaucrat who stands in their way.  Got it."  I thought I knew exactly where this was going (and where it would have gone if this were an American series.)  Instead, nothing turned out the way I thought it would, and everyone revealed surprising--and sometimes upsetting--depths.  Even the dinosaurs.

    7.  Finally, I've been really impressed with the writers' skill in plotting.  At the end of Season 3, they did something I didn't think could be done.  After the third season (those short British seasons of six or ten episodes), the show was cancelled.  Two years later, it's, as they say in their ads, "Back from Extinction," but at the time regular writers knew that last episode was the last one ever.  And it managed at the same time to be one of the most exciting cliffhangers ever and--if it really had been the end of the series--a totally satisfying ending.  Don't see how that's possible?  Neither did I till I saw it.

    DISCLAIMER:  I'm not secretly working for BBC America or ITV or anything, and we're not getting a kickback for all the people we've convinced to buy the DVDs (including the poor hapless clerk who waited on me in Barnes and Noble.)

    But I'll admit my judgment may be clouded by how cute Andrew Lee Potts is, although my husband loves PRIMEVAL, too.  (Though his judgment may be clouded by how cute Hannah Spearritt is.  And Lucy Brown. And Ruth Kearney.)

    Or this could all just be a sort of January Madness brought on by exposure to too much March Hare.  But anyway, it's getting me through till the sun starts coming up at a reasonable time.

    But I think the truth is PRIMEVAL's just a great show.  And I can't wait till next week.

MID-JANUARY UPDATE 2:  A  CORRECTION/RETRACTION

    I told a story on my book tour about how Alexander Fleming's father saved the boy Winston Churchill from drowning.  The story goes that Churchill's father was so grateful that he offered to send Fleming's son Alex to school, Alex became a doctor and discovered penicillin, which then saved Churchill's life again when he got pneumonia during World War II.

    I had read the story years ago in a book about the war, and it had never occurred to me that it wasn't true, but according to Snopes.com and other sources, apparently it's not.  No record exists of Churchill's having nearly drowned or of the elder Churchill paying for Alexander's education, and when asked about it Fleming called it a "wondrous fable."

    It's apparently not even true that Churchill was given penicillin for his pneumonia--instead it was sulfa drugs, though in 1946 Churchill did consult with Fleming about a staph infection he'd had which had resisted penicillin, and the drug was beginning to be used around the time of Churchill's pneumonia.

    In my defense, the story goes back almost as far as the report of Churchill's pneumonia, and the original version (which appeared in Coronet Magazine in December 1944) seems to have been written by a Washington, D.C. newsman, Arthur Gladstone Keeney, who worked in the Office of War Information during World War II.

    It's too bad the anecdote's not true--it was such a great story.  But it's only great if it's true, and apparently it's not.  Sorry for spreading a story that wasn't true, everybody.

    The other part of the story I told, about Captain Michael Burns saving Audrey Hepburn's life with penicillin is true.  I got it from Burns's obituary in the New York Times.

Connie Willis here.  Merry holidays, everybody!

     I love Christmas--the carols, the lights, the cookies, the present-wrapping, the wretched behavior of my fellow man.  Honestly, people behave worse during the "season of good will" than any other time of the year.

    In Starbucks (where I write) the other day, I overheard a man ranting about the laziness of the poor and how their poverty and homelessness were their own fault.  "Are there no prisons?" I wanted to quote at him.  "Are there no workhouses?"

    And then there are our elected representatives, defeating health care benefits for ailing 9-11 responders, filibustering unemployment benefits, and saying things like "We should not be giving cash to people who are basically going to blow it on drugs" (Senator Orrin Hatch) and "...quit feeding stray animals.  You know why?  Because they breed.  You're facilitating the problem if you give an animal or person an ample food supply." (South Carolina Lt. Governor Andre Bauer)  Why don't they just come straight out and say, "Then they had better die and decrease the surplus population?"

    Scrooge is alive and well, and it's depressing to think that a hundred and forty-three years later, the message of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" is still being ignored.

    However, like Scrooge's nephew Fred, I am determined to "keep my Christmas humor to the last," and with that in mind, here are some of my favorite seasonal quotes:

"We shall soon be having Christmas at our throats again."
                        P.G. Wodehouse

"We are having the same old things for Christmas dinner this year...relatives."
                        Mark Twain

"Friends are God's way of apologizing to us for our relatives."
                        Anonymous
   
"There are three things you never want to see on a Christmas present:
         One size fits all.
         Fun for all ages.
         Removes unwanted hair."       
                        Jim Mullen

"Christmas is the day that holds time together."
                        Alexander Smith   

"Christmas is 1940 years old and Hitler is only 51.  He can't spoil our Christmas."
                        Sign in a London shop
                        during the Blitz

"I have always thought of Christmas as a good time; a kind, forgiving, generous, pleasant time; a time when men and women seem to open their hearts freely, and so I say, God bless Christmas!"       
                        Charles Dickens

    I say "God bless Christmas!" too.  Also God bless Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, the Solstice, Festivus, and the whole holiday season!  I hope you have a great holiday, everybody!"

                            Connie Willis

Nov 10 - All Clear Notes and Reference Material - An update from Connie

[ The rest of this update is quite long and I've made it available initially as a PDF which you can read here ]

All Clear Book Tour
 (updated 10-18, 2010)

Connie Willis

There are still a few copies left of All Clear to be ordered from Subterranean Press. 

    When I was on my tour, a bunch of people asked if I could put together a bibliography of the books I used to research BLACKOUT. 
 
    I can't.  There were hundreds of them, many of them obscure books in libraries I visited when I was travelling--and with many of them, I had to read an entire book to glean a line or two I could use.  But here are some of my favorites.

    NOTE:  The books listed here are related specifically to BLACKOUT.  I'll do the ones related to ALL CLEAR--books about Ultra, the Intelligence War, the Christmas raids, the V-1 and V-2 rocket attacks, and VE-Day--when ALL CLEAR comes out.

NO TIME TO WAVE GOODBYE by Ben Wicks
    An in-depth look at the evacuated kids, with lots of reminiscences--and some horror stories--from the kids themselves.  This was my favorite book about the evacuees.

GOOD NIGHT, MR. TOM by Michelle Magorian
    A painstakingly researched and heart-wrenching children's novel about a gruff old man and the boy he reluctantly takes in when London's kids were evacuated to the country during the war.

THE MIRACLE OF DUNKIRK by Walter Lord
    The first thing you need to do when you've got to research something is to find out whether Walter Lord wrote a book about it.  If he did, it will almost certainly be the BEST book written on the subject, as witness DAY OF INFAMY (his book on Pearl Harbor) and A NIGHT TO REMEMBER (the sinking of the Titanic.)  When I was researching PASSAGE, I read everything ever written about the Titanic and can say with absolute certainty that A NIGHT TO REMEMBER is the best Titanic book ever written.  THE MIRACLE OF DUNKIRK is Lord's account of the miraculous rescue of the British Army (and a bunch of the French) from the beaches of Dunkirk and all the events leading up to it.

SPITFIRE SUMMER by Malcolm Browne
    A very good book about the summer of 1940 and the Battle of Britain, when the badly-outnumbered RAF managed to hold off the Luftwaffe with grit, great flying, baling wire, spit, and high humor.  Churchill was spot-on when he said, "Never have so many owed so much to so few," and SPITFIRE SUMMER tells exactly how it happened.

MRS. MINIVER by Jan Struther
    Although you're probably more apt to know about the  movie than the novel, the book is really good, too.  It's a collection of short newspaper pieces on life during the war and the runup to it, told in classic British understated style.  They started out being breezy, domestic columns, but as the war approached, they turned into something else entirely.  I also recommend the Academy Award-winning movie starring Deborah Kerr.

    Some other good movies are:
    MRS. MINIVER
    HOPE AND GLORY--the Blitz from a ten-year-old boy's point of view
    MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS--the story of the Windmill Theatre, which had naked girls and "never closed"
    MISS PETTIGREW LIVES FOR A DAY--a great picture of London on the verge of war
    HANOVER STREET--you knew I'd find a way to work Harrison Ford in somehow, didn't you?  The plot's a bit far-fetched, but the Blitz stuff is great.
    SPITFIRE--the classic 1942 movie which tells the story of the plane that won the Battle of Britain, starring Leslie Howard (Gone with the Wind, Pygmalion) who would be shot down the following year
    DANGER UXB--the high-tension BBC story of a bomb disposal squad; the forerunner to THE HURT LOCKER
    And as far as the attack on Pearl Harbor goes, forget PEARL HARBOR.  Watch TORA TORA TORA, a wonderfully researched and incredibly exciting movie. 

BACKS TO THE WALL by Leonard Mosley
    This was the first book I read on the Blitz, and it's one of the best.  It not only gives you the big picture, but the personal stories of the people caught in the Blitz, from nine year-old Sheila Hardiman, the first person killed, to a bomb disposal expert to a young woman who made the mistake of sleeping with a German and ended up in Holloway Prison.

1940 by Lawrence Thompson
    This book, which takes you through the year of the Blitz month by month, was invaluable to figuring out what happened when (and gives you a good perspective of everything else that was going on in the world.)

THEIR FINEST HOUR by Winston Churchill
    This book, and the other five:  THE GATHERING STORM, THE GRAND ALLIANCE, THE HINGE OF FATE, CLOSING THE RING, and TRIUMPH AND TRAGEDY, are story of the war from the man who ran it, a man who also happened to be one of the great writers of the twentieth century. 

THE HOME FRONT by Susan Briggs
   
    The war from the civilian point of view.  This book has everything you need to know about rationing, the blackout, the Home Guard, Digging for Victory, scrap drives, utility clothing, and gas masks, plus a recipe for Lord Woolton Pie, made from potatoes, cauliflower, and oatmeal.  Yum!

WAITING FOR THE ALL CLEAR by Ben Wickes
    The war from the horse's mouth--interviews with dozens of people who lived through the war, from nurses to Jewish refugees to midwives who delivered babies with bombs falling all around them.

THE M.O. DIARIES
    In the 1930s the British government began a program to find out what the British people were thinking by paying them a shilling a week to write down their "observations" and thoughts in a journal.  I'm not sure what they had in mind or if it was a success.  The important thing is that when the war began, nobody thought to stop it.  The government kept on doling out shillings, and the people kept on writing down their observations.  As a result, we have one of the broadest and most diverse records of how war affects people ever.
    Usually wars are recorded by journalists, politicians, and professional writers, and World War II is no exception.  You can read Virginia Woolf's and C.P.Snow's and Churchill's takes on the war.  But thanks to the M.O. Diaries, you can also read how the war looked to bus drivers and Lyons Corner waitresses and munition factory workers--an absolutely treasure trove of detail. 
    They're collected in a variety of places.  My favorite is LIVING THROUGH THE BLITZ by Tom Harrison.  For women's points of view, there's also WARTIME WOMEN:  A MASS-OBSERVATION ANTHOLOGY, edited by Dorothy Sheridan.

DIGGING FOR MRS. MILLER by John Strachey
    A clearly-autobiographical novel about an ARP post during the Blitz, and one of my favorites.  It's exciting, horrific, and funny, all at once.

ONE FINE DAY by Mollie Panter-Downes
    The collected columns of Mollie Panter-Downes, which originally appeared in the pages of THE NEW YORKER, which is where I first read them, and where I recommend reading them if you can--there, among the ads and theater reviews, you get the full effect of how these must have looked to Americans still not in the war yet.  She's not so much trying to cover the Blitz as record her personal impressions of it, and she's got an incredible eye for detail, as witness her account of Oxford Street after the bombing that destroyed John Lewis.

SO THIS IS LONDON by Edward R. Murrow
    If you don't know who Edward R. Murrow was, you need to rent GOOD NIGHT AND GOOD LUCK, the story of how he stood up to Senator Joe McCarthy when everyone else was afraid to.  But before See it Now and Person to Person and his stellar career as a TV journalist, he was the American war correspondent who did radio broadcasts from London during the Blitz and the voice of the Blitz for most Americans.  SO THIS IS LONDON is the riveting collection of those broadcasts, frequently done under fire, including the one beginning, "As I speak to you now, St. Paul's Cathedral is burning to the ground." 
    You need to hear them if you can, but reading the book's an experience, too.

ST. PAUL'S IN WARTIME by the Reverend W.R. Matthews
    This book, written by the then Dean of St. Paul's, was my Bible for all the ST. Paul's stuff in BLACKOUT and ALL CLEAR.  It's hard to come by, and I wasn't able to get hold of a copy till after I wrote "Fire Watch" (Dave Langford found one and sent it to me, bless him) but it was invaluable in writing the new book, although it failed to give enough details about the stained-glass windows.  To get that, I had to keep asking volunteers until somebody went and got a modern-day version of Mr. Humphreys, who was old enough to remember what I needed to know.
   
THE LITTLE PRINCESSES by Marion Crawford
    This book was written by the governess for Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, and, although it's a memoir, it's also one of the fullest accounts of the royal family's lives and activities during World War II.

And finally,
LONDON'S WAR by Sayre Van Young
    I didn't find this till a couple of years ago.  I wish I'd had it from the beginning.  It's a tour guide to London, but with a difference--this one tells you all the places where things during the Blitz happened, from the buried War Rooms in Whitehall where Churchill drove everybody crazy by going up on the roofs in his pajamas and Wellingtons to watch the raids, to the shrapnel damage on the walls of the Victoria and Albert Museum.  There are also a bunch of walking tours and lots of fascinating side bars.

    And if you should happen to be going to London, you've got to go to St. Paul's Cathedral (natch), the War Rooms, and the Imperial War Museum.  They not only have great exhibitions on the Blitz--the last time I was there, they were doing one on the evacuated kids--but their gift shop/bookstore is to die for and is where I found lots of the above-listed books.
    Good reading!

An Update from Connie!
February 17, 2010

How did you get interested in time travel?

                             Connie Willis

CONNIE WILLIS'S FAVORITE TIME TRAVEL STORIES
 (AND MOVIES)

Connie Willis Guest Blogging on Suvudu

Blackout Book Tour dates announced!

CONNIE WILLIS DONATES PAPERS TO UNC

Connie Willis is donating her manuscripts, her library of editions of her own books, her research books for BLACKOUT-ALL CLEAR, PASSAGE, and other works, her awards, and her other papers to the library of her alma mater, the University of Northern Colorado.  She attended the university (then Colorado State College) in Greeley, Colorado, from 1963-67, where she received a BA in English and elementary education.  The donation of her papers will be celebrated by a reception on February ninth (location and time TBA)  The library plans to digitize her papers and prepare them to be made available to scholars and other institutions.  UNC is also the repository of many of James Michener's papers, including the manuscript of Centennial, and has a display of his papers and a replica of his office.  UNC has also named a dormitory after Connie Willis and Mildred Hansen, the first female editor of the Greeley Tribune.  The Hansen-Willis Dormitory is on Tenth Avenue at Twentieth Street.

University of Northern Colorado Special Collections - Connie Willis

Hall of Fame Inductees and Presenters


Connie with new inductees plaques

Upcoming releases

LA Con IV (WorldCon) Followup

More pictures from the weekend will be posted here soon.  For more pictures from the Hugo Awards Ceremony (which Connie was also the emcee), visit the MidAmerican Fan Photo Archive.

Fans of Connie Willis
Facebook Page

The Connie Willis.net Blog

The Original Connie Willis.net Blog Archive

Sasquan (WorldCon 2015)
Aug 19-Aug 23, 2015
Portland, Oregon US


If you know of any other appearances that you would like me to list, please let me know.

Connie Willis Ebooks Available

Books with Cynthia Felice - The three titles Connie co-wrote with Cynthia Felice are being released as e-books by Cynthia.  Promised Land and Water Witch are currently available on the Kindle with Light Raid coming soon.  Editions for the Nook are also in the works.  Click on the images below to take you directly to the Amazon.com web page for each book.

     
              Water Witch                Promised Land