"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.

The Connie Willis.net Blog
(Note New Location)

The Original Connie Willis.net Blog Archive

DASFA Meeting

Renovation (69th WorldCon)
Program Participant
Reno, NV
Aug 17-21, 2011

World Fantasy Convention 2011
Toastmaster
San Diego, CA
Oct 27-30, 2011

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