Connie Willis's Blog, page 4

SOME THOUGHTS ON INAUGURATION DAY

Four years ago on the morning after Trump had been elected, I wrote that it felt like the day my mother had died. The world had changed in a terrible way and would never be the same.

“Oh, come on,” some people said to me. “It won’t be that bad. How much damage can one man do?” They also said, “Maybe he’ll rise to the occasion, and even if he doesn’t, Congress and the courts and all our other institutions will keep him from going too far off the rails.”

That wasn’t true. Trump turned out to be just as cruel and bigoted and sexist and petty and venal–and treasonous–as we had all thought he was, and the Republicans did nothing to stop him. And as to the damage he could do, we have only to look around us. 400,000 people dead and more dying every day, our alliances destroyed, autocrats encouraged and conspired with, and our own Capitol invaded and besmirched by a violent mob whose goal was not only to kill Mike Pence, Nancy Pelosi, and other elected officials, but to overturn the government and carry out a coup which would put their leader in power forever. And they came within a hairsbreadth of succeeding.

It was both exactly what I had been afraid would happen and far worse than I’d imagined. Seeing the Capitol with broken windows, smashed doors, blood streaked on statues, and feces smeared on the floors and walls was something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime, even having watched Trump in action for four years, so it’s no wonder I’ve been holding my breath ever since January sixth and especially watching the inauguration, afraid something even worse would happen.

When Biden finished taking the oath of office, I took my first easy breath in four years. I thought of John Adams in 1776 murmuring, “It’s done. It’s done,” after the Declaration of Independence was passed.

I also thought of J.R.R. Tolkien, who had a lot to say about evil and fighting it. “Evil labors with vast power and perpetual success,” he wrote, “but in vain, preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.”

That good was more than apparent watching Joe Biden talk about unifying the country (you can imagine Aragorn making that speech) and watching Police Officer Eugene Goodman, who saved the day during the insurrection, escorting Vice-President Kamala Harris, and watching 22-year-old Amanda Gorman, who had to overcome a speech impediment to read her wonderful poem with its triumphant lines:

“We step out of the shade aflame and unafraid.
The dawn blooms as we free it.
For there is always light.
If only we’re brave enough to see it.
If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

They all reminded me of the Fellowship of the Ring and of Frodo and Sam, of all the people who don’t ask to be heroes, but who rise to the occasion in moments of dire need.
And with their help, and the help of millions of Americans who believe in democracy, we’ve managed to vote a would-be dictator out of office and then, when he refused to go, fought him and his minions and vanquished them. And now we have a sane and intelligent and kind and non-power-hungry person in charge, and he’s appointed sane, qualified, professional people to run the government with him, a government that’s promised to embrace all colors, creeds, and genders.

And no, I know we’re not out of the woods yet, that evil is not permanently vanquished, and that we still have almost insurmountable problems to conquer, but it’s like J.R.R. Tolkien said,

“It is not our part to master all the tides in the world,
but to do what is in us for the succour of these years
wherein we are set uprooting the evil in the fields that
we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth
to tell what weather they shall have is not ours to rule.”

For today we can rejoice that we had that we’re on the right road again!

Happy Inauguration Day!

Connie Willis

CHRISTMAS SONGS FOR 2020

CHRISTMAS SONGS FOR 2020

We were watching MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS last night, and I got to thinking about how appropriate “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” is as a song for this Christmas. “Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” it tells us, “let your hearts be light,” and promises that next year all our troubles will be miles away and out of sight.
It remembers “happy golden days” when we were all together and friends “who were dear to us” gathered near to us, and says hopefully, “Through the years we all will be together
If the fates allow,” and tells us in spite of things to hang a star on the highest bough of the Christmas tree and have ourselves a merry little Christmas now.
In the movie, when Esther sings the song, her family is moving to New York, where she will be separated from the boy she loves, and her little sister Tootie will be separated from her beloved snow people and from the ice man she loves to ride with and from the World’s Fair and everything else she treasures. It’s a truly sad Christmas for them, filled with loss and separation, and a lot like ours, making “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” a perfect song for this year.
I also got to thinking about the song, “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” which was written during World War II and was supposed to be from the point of view of a soldier a long way from home and not knowing if he’d ever see his loved ones again. The song ends wistfully:
“I’ll be home for Christmas If only in my dreams.”
It should remind us that we’re not the only ones to have had bad Christmases, and that some people have had holidays far worse than ours.
Speaking of which, I have a Christmas carol for this year. It’s on our Julie Andrews Christmas album. It’s called, “The Lamb of God,” and it perfectly captures this year:

“Awake, awake, ye drowsy souls
And hear what I shall tell.
Remember Christ, the Lamb of God
Redeemed our souls from hell.
He’s crowned with thorns,
Spit on with scorn,
His friends have hid themselves.
So, God send you all much joy in the year.
So, God send you all much joy in the year.
I know it sounds terrible, but it’s that very irony that’s at the heart of Christmas, and it reminded me that there have been many terrible years in the two-thousand-year-old history of Christmas, starting with the first one, years when tyrants were ascendant and the bad guys won–or seemed to win.
But in spite of them, of all the Herods and Pontius Pilates and Neroes and Hitlers and Trumps, the spirit of Christmas, of kindness and love and self-seacrifice, prevailed. And still prevails. And triumphs.
But Henry Wadsworth Longfellow says it much better than I can:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
I thought as how this day had come
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head,
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep
“God is not dead nor doth he sleep.
The wrong shall fail,
The right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
Merry Christmas to all of you!

Connie Willis

 

REALLY GOOD NEWS FOR THE NEGRO LEAGUES –AND ALL OF US

REALLY GOOD NEWS FOR THE NEGRO LEAGUES

–AND ALL OF US

Yesterday my hero Leroy “Satchel” Paige made the front page of the Denver Post (and probably a lot of other newspapers.) Why? Because Major Leagues Baseball was announcing that seven teams of the Negro Leagues will now be formally admitted to the Major Leagues.

For those of you who don’t know what the Negro Leagues are, or, rather, were, they were the Leagues in which African-Americans played up until 1947 (when Branch Rickey tapped Jackie Robinson to play for the Brooklyn Dodgers) because they weren’t allowed to play in the Major Leagues. The Negro League teams were wonderful teams with amazing players, but they were always considered second-best–and none of their records or statistics were official. But now those teams will be formally admitted to the Major Leagues and their 3400 players considered to be Major League players.
Many of them–Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Willie Mays, Satchel Page–were already in the Major Leagues and Satchel, Josh Gibson, Buck Leonard, Cool Papa Bell, Judy Johnson, and thirty others–are already in the Hall of Fame, so why does this matter?
Well, for one thing, it will stop people saying “Who did they ever beat?” and considering them second-rate players. The answer to “Who did they ever beat?” of course, is that they beat pretty much anybody they ever played, and that included white Major League teams in endless exhibition games.
The players on those teams admitted it. Peewee Reese proclaimed to anybody who would listen that Satchel Paige was the best pitcher he’d ever batted against, Johnny Mize said, “The greatest player I ever saw was a black man. His name is Martin Dihigo,” and white players lobbied for baseball to be integrated long before the owners relented. They knew talent when they saw it.
But too often their opinions were dismissed as just that, opinions, and since there were no official stats or records for the Negro Leagues, people could go on claiming that they were second-best.
No longer. The decision “recognizes the gentlemen who played in the Negro Leagues as equals.”
I’m not sure about that. Many of them, like Cool Papa Bell, Buck O’Neil (who it was my privilege to meet), Oscar Chesterton, Judy Johnson, and the ones I named above, were probably better than their counterparts. And they were playing a grueling season against immense odds and terrible racism.
The players’ records and statistics will also be made official–Major League Baseball is working on it as we speak–and rumors are flying that Josh Gibson may soon hold the record for most hits in a single season. Even if that doesn’t happen, he’ll add lots of hits, Satchel Paige will add 150 wins to his record, and Willie Mays will add hits to his already dazzling record. And all of it will be part of the permanent record.
Everyone who knows me knows my hero is Leroy “Satchel” Paige, who was an amazing pitcher but didn’t get his chance in the Majors until he was nearly at the end of his career when the Majors were finally integrated. Nevertheless, when he finally got to play for the Cleveland Indians, he was named Rookie of the Year and took the team all the way to the World Series. Just think what he could have done if he could have been in the Majors all along. And if he hadn’t had to contend with vicious racism every single day of his career, though he did that with grace and aplomb. And humor.
My favorite Satchel Paige story is the one where he was playing an exhibition game against a white team and some Southern white jerk shouted, “I ain’t playing against no filthy, ignorant, n****r,” and showered abuse on Satchel. Satchel took it all with a grin, but when the player came up to bat, he called the entire team in from the outfield (like a pitcher does when he thinks the batter’s going to bunt) and then motioned them to sit down on the ground. Then he struck the sonuvabitch out. (Sorry for my language, but it’s the only word that applies.)
I love Satchel, and this decision by Major League Baseball made me happy for him and for all the other African-American players of the Negro Leagues. In their decision, Major League Baseball said, “This decision shines a light on the immense talent that called the Negro Leagues home.”
Indeed.
Some people are already complaining that it’s too little, too late,
and that justice delayed is justice denied, which are both true. But it’s still very good news.

Happy holidays!

Connie Willis

COOL DECEMBER SCIENCE STUFF

COOL DECEMBER SCIENCE STUFF

December is going to be just a great month.

Not only will we start to get more light again on the 22nd–Yay!!

But there’s all sorts of neat stuff up in the sky that you should be outside looking at.

First, on the 13th and 14th the Geminid meteor shower occurs.

In Colorado, where I live, it starts around 9 p.m. and goes through 2 a.m.

It occurs because we’re passing through the debris from an asteroid-like object named Phaeton 3200.

There will be between 50 and 150 meteors an hour, and some of them will be brightly colored because of the chemicals burning up in them:

nitrogen and oxygen–red

calcium–purple

iron–orange

magnesium–blue

The best plan is to drive out to somewhere away from the city lights and then either lie down on the ground with your feet pointing south or, if you’re old like me, lean back against the hood of your car or take a lawn chair with you.

It’s supposed to be especially good this year because it coincides with a nearly new moon so the

sky will be nearly dark.

But that’s not the main event.

THAT would be the Great Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.

A conjunction occurs when two planets appear to come very close in the sky. (They’re not actually anywhere near each other. Saturn and Jupiter are over 400 million miles apart.)

A Great Conjunction happens when the two planets get so close they appear to touch or even form one super-bright star. A conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter occurs every four years, but Great Conjunctions are much rarer. One this bright last occurred in 1623, and Galileo saw it. Kepler was alive then, too, and speculated it might have been the Bethlehem star that the Wise Men saw. “And the star went before them,” would seem to indicate the star was moving, just like the two planets are moving together right now. The Great Conjunction before that was in 1226, so you can see this doesn’t happen every day–or, rather, night.

You can see this one on December 21, but you can also go watch the two planets each night as they move closer together. They’re in the southwest part of the sky along the plane of the ecliptic

(the curved line the planets and the moon follow.) They suggest viewing one hour after dark. And you can see it from your own neighborhood. So go out and look at it, and think about how the last time this happened, Galileo was watching.

And speaking of Galileo, you have to see his classic gravity experiment, done this time not from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, but in a giant vacuum tube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyeF-_QPSbk…

If the link doesn’t work, go to YouTube and type in “Galileo’s Famous Gravity Experiment–Brian Cox—BBC2” and that should get you to it.

They use a bowling ball and some incredibly light feathers, like egret feathers, and it’s absolutely amazing to watch.

Happy sky-watching December!

Connie Willis

CHRISTMAS MOVIES TO WATCH DURING OUR PANDEMIC CHRISTMAS SEASON

CHRISTMAS MOVIES TO WATCH DURING OUR PANDEMIC CHRISTMAS SEASON



I love Christmas movies, and I’ve made assorted recommendations for Christmas movies over the years, but this year it seemed like a good idea to list ALL the Christmas movies we watch, just in case you found yourself quarantined
or isolating
or just plain bored,
looking for something new to watch,
and finding yourself afraid you’re going to resort to watching the Hallmark Channel.



Do not do that.
I switched it on while getting some Christmas boxes ready to go,
thinking, “How bad could it be?”



The answer was BAD
REALLY BAD.



So here to save you in the Nick of time (get it? Nick?) our list of Christmas movies that are actually GOOD. My family has spent years accumulating these because once you get past the classics that everybody’s seen, good Christmas movies are few and far between and we had to watch lots of bad ones to find the ones we did. Many Bothans died to bring you this list.



We won’t name any of the ones we hate (THE FAMILY STONE and HOLIDAY AFFAIR with Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum) because that always turns out to be somebody’s favorite, and we’re sorry if your favorite didn’t make it onto our list. It could be because we haven’t seen it or because we didn’t think it qualified for some reason. (DIE HARD is a great movie, but just because it’s set at Christmas doesn’t make it a Christmas movie.)



Every year we try to add a new one to our list.
Last year it was LAST CHRISTMAS
and the year before that, NATIVITY!



But we love watching our favorites, like LOVE, ACTUALLY and THE SURE THING and HOME ALONE and WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING and WHITE CHRISTMAS and ELF over and over.
We assume you love watching movies over and over, too, but if you don’t, we hope you can find a few things you haven’t seen on the list.

Either way, here goes:



THE WILLISES’ MASTER LIST OF CHRISTMAS MOVIES



THE NEW STUFF (sort of):



LOVE, ACTUALLY
ABOUT A BOY
HOME ALONE
WHILE YOU WERE SLEEPING
ELF
LAST CHRISTMAS
A CHRISTMAS STORY
BRIDGET JONES’S DIARY
THE SURE THING
THE SANTA CLAUSE
THE SANTA CLAUSE 2 (a sequel that’s actually pretty good)
YOU’VE GOT MAIL
NATIVITY! (with Martin Freeman)
NATIVITY 2: DANGER IN THE MANGER (with David Tennant)
THE HOUSE WITHOUT A CHRISTMAS TREE
THE HOMECOMING (the pilot for the Waltons)
MIXED NUTS (with Steve Martin and Rita Wilson)



THE CLASSICS:



MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET (the black-and-white version with Edmund Gwynn, Natalie Wood, and Maureen O’Hara ONLY!!!–no other versions!)
THE BISHOP’S WIFE
THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN’S CREEK
WHITE CHRISTMAS
THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (with Jimmy Stewart)
REMEMBER THE NIGHT (with Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray)
CHRISTMAS IN CONNECTICUT (with Barbara Stanwyck)
GOING MY WAY (with Bing Crosby)
MEET ME IN ST. LOUIS
IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE
THE LEMON DROP KID
IT HAPPENED ON FIFTH AVENUE



THE DICKENS’ A CHRISTMAS CAROLS:



A CHRISTMAS CAROL (with Alistair Simm)
THE MAN WHO INVENTED CHRISTMAS
THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL
MR. MAGOO’S CHRISTMAS CAROL
SCROOGED



THE LITTLE WOMENS:



LITTLE WOMEN (with Katherine Hepburn)
LITTLE WOMEN (with June Allyson and Peter Lawford)
LITTLE WOMEN (with Winona Ryder–OUR FAVORITE!!)



THE PETER PANS:



PETER PAN (the made-for-TVmusical with Mary Martin ONLY!)
HOOK
FINDING NEVERLAND



AND FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE (though they can be watched at Christmas, too):



BACHELOR MOTHER (with Ginger Rogers and David Niven)
WHEN HARRY MET SALLY
LAST HOLIDAY (with Queen Latifah)
THE APARTMENT ( with Jack Lemmon and Shirley Maclaine)
OCEAN’S ELEVEN (the original with Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin)
NEW YEAR’S EVE
A LONG WAY DOWN



Oh, and they made a TV movie of one of my short stories, “Just Like the Ones We Used to Know.” It’s called SNOW WONDER, and I think it’s available on YouTube. It’s okay, though they took out all the science fiction parts. but it’s got Mary Tyler Moore in it.



As you can see, this is a lot more than 25 movies, so we sometimes have to skip a few–or watch two a day, but we always watch MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET on Christmas Day and then turn the TV to Turner Classic Movies or whatever channel is running A CHRISTMAS STORY all day long.



Have a merry Christmas
and stay safe and well.
The vaccine’s on its way
and so is Santa!



Connie Willis

Connie Willis News Roundup for November 2020

A roundup of recent news and information on Connie Willis as we near the end of 2020.

See Connie’s Thanksgiving post for Connie’s current status.

Connie’s latest novella, the holiday themed “Take a Look at the Five and Ten”  is in the November/December issue of Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.   For an excerpt of the story go to the Asimov’s website.  The issue is currently on newstands that normally carry it (Barnes and Noble is the one national chain that does).

Connie also read from the story at the virtual MileHiCon in October.

 

 

 

The Signed/Limited edition from Subterranean Press is scheduled to be published  on Nov 30 and you can  pre-order it directly from them to ensure you get a copy.  There will also be an e-book edition of it as well available from most e-book retailors.

Also coming from Subterranean Press will be signed/limited editions of the first two Oxford Time Travel novels, Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog.  No formal  announcement or pre-orders yet for these editions, but they did preview the cover for Doomsday Book.  Expect a formal announcement soon.

As Connie noted in her update, she  has finished her latest novel, The Road to Roswell, which has been sent to her agent.  At her virtual reading at Bubonicon, Connie read from the beginning of the novel.

 

 

WEBSITE UPDATE: ON THE CURRENT SITUATION

WEBSITE UPDATE: ON THE CURRENT SITUATION

I haven’t posted anything recently, mostly because I had a difficult summer and fall. I had two surgeries in a row: an emergency surgery for a herniated disc in my upper back and then four weeks later a knee replacement, and the combination completely laid me low. I know, that sounds like poor planning, but the doctor was anxious to get it (and my ensuing physical therapy) done before the Covid got completely out of hand in our area.

We just made it–Weld County goes red tomorrow, with 45 of our 48 available ICU beds filled–so it was the right decision, but two surgeries that close together really took it out of me, and I’ve been too exhausted to do much more than my exercises and my worrying about the political and pandemical situation.

Speaking of which, I hope all of you are planning safe and socially distant Thanksgivings and Christmases instead of Sturgis-type Super Spreader events. Keep in mind this is not the first time people have had crummy Thanksgivings. Like the Pilgrims, who were nearly starving and had lost tons of their people to disease that first year in America. And in World War II, nobody had a Thanksgiving turkey because they were all being sent to the troops, and there was no Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for three years because the balloons had all been shredded for their rubber, which was vital to the war effort. To say nothing of the British, who spent their holidays in the tube shelters while they were being bombed by the Germans every night. So being asked to stay home and not gather in giant viral clumps doesn’t seem like much to ask.

We always go to Santa Fe for Thanksgiving. Our daughter Cordelia flies in and we have dinner with screenwriter and novelist Melinda Snodgrass and an assortment of great people, including Sage Walker, George R.R. Martin, and screenwriter Michael Cassutt and his family. And then we go to the French pastry cafe in the La Fonda and walk around downtown Santa Fe and have a birthday tea with Melinda at the Chocolate Maven and go to the movies with Craig Chrissinger and the gang from Bubonicon, and it’s so much fun!

This year we’re staying home and doing the whole thing by zoom.

I’m roasting a turkey breast for the two of us (and the dog and cat) and we’re zooming our daughter and then watching PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES and THE ADDAMS FAMILY II and YOU’VE GOT MAIL. We’re having a zoom tea with Melinda. She said she’s baking scones, I’ve ordered clotted cream (which I hope arrives on time,) and Cordelia’s bought lemon curd and some fancy tea.

We’re also watching a movie-by-telephone with Cordelia, since we always go to the movies at Thanksgiving. If you don’t know what that is, it means watching the same movie at the same time and calling each other throughout to comment. We’re going to watch CACTUS FLOWER, which we’ve seen, but Cordelia hasn’t. If you haven’t, it’s a great romantic comedy. Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman trying to look dowdy and failing miserably, and Goldie Hawn. It was Goldie’s first movie, and she won an Oscar for it. And since we usually hit Olive Garden at some point during our trip for their great soup and salad and breadsticks, we may both go get takeout and then call each other while we’re eating.

Oh, and by the way, Zoom has taken off the forty-minute limit on its Zoom sessions for the holidays, which I think is very nice of them. They’ve asked that people not crash the system by not scheduling their sessions for the top of the hour, so we’ll be meeting with people at 3:30, 4:10, etc.

I hope you are planning a similarly safe Thanksgiving. (If you don’t think the virus is serious, you should watch the video of a tormented Rachel Maddow that’s making the rounds. Her partner Susan got it and nearly died, and as she says, it’s something you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy.) A guy we were talking to the other day blithely said, “Even if you get it, you won’t die from it now because they have drugs.” This is NOT true. Two thousand people died from it yesterday, and it’s only going to get worse as the hospitals fill up and the staff gets sick or completely worn out. So wear your mask, keep six feet away from people, and STAY HOME. Please. The vaccine will be here soon, so don’t do anything stupid.

Oh, and thank you for voting! I’m so glad everybody turned out. I can’t tell you how massively relieved I felt for the first time in four years when Biden and Harris won. I feel like we were plunging toward hell, and now we’ve stopped and turned around, and we’re headed the other way. Or as a writer friend of mine put it, “We were falling off a cliff and we managed to grab onto a vine sticking out from the rocks, but it isn’t very strong, and now we’ve got to somehow climb back up the cliff.” But at least we’re not still falling.

Now if Trump will just stop trying to steal the election and go away. I know that’s not very likely. This very morning he’s meeting with Michigan legislators trying to get them to change their votes to Trump, and Rudy Giuliani’s out there spinning nutty conspiracy conspiracies that include everybody from George Soros and Hillary Clinton to Bugs Bunny. I can’t wait for January twentieth!!!

In spite of surgeries, the pandemic, and obsessing about the election, I did manage to get some writing done. I finally finished my UFO novel, THE ROAD TO ROSWELL, it’s now in my agent’s hands! Yay!

It’s about a young woman, Francie, who goes to Roswell to be a college friend Serena’s maid-of-honor. Serena (who has horrible taste in men) is marrying a UFO nut, so they’ve scheduled the wedding to take place during the UFO convention that happens every year in July on the anniversary of the Roswell crash. And when Francie goes to get something from Serena’s car, she’s abducted by an alien and dragged off on a road trip across the Southwest that includes RVs, wind farms, rattlesnakes, chemtrails, casinos, cattle mutilations, a charming con man, a truly annoying conspiracy theorist, a sweet little old lady, a Western movie buff, Las Vegas wedding chapels, and Monument Valley.

I also finished a Christmas story called “Take a Look at the Five and Ten,” which is out right now in ASIMOV’S November/December issue and is coming out in a beautiful edition from Subterranean Press. I worked at the Woolworth’s in downtown one Christmas when I was in college (many, many years ago) and I’ve talked about it ever since, to the point that my family was ready to kill me. So I thought I’d write a story about it instead (with maybe a few tiny embellishments.)

I’m busy now working on my new novel, which is tentatively called THE SPANNER IN THE WORKS and is an Oxford historians time-travel novel. It’s about Oxford and Tintern Abbey and the Inklings and OUR HEARTS WERE YOUNG AND GAY and World War II and eccentric dons and Lewis Carroll and that dreadful drowned statue of Shelley at University College.

We are all fine here, as Han Solo said right before the stormtroopers broke in, and hope you are the same. As Victor Hugo said,

“To give thanks in solitude is enough. Thanksgiving has wings and goes where it must go. Your prayer knows much more about it than you do.”

Stay safe and well and have a wonderful Thanksgiving in spite of everything!

Connie Willis

Heroes of the Pandemic – Dolly Parton

HEROES OF THE PANDEMIC I



DOLLY PARTON

There’s so much bad news these days that I know lots of people who’ve completely given up on trying to keep up with what’s going on because it makes them despair. But the news isn’t all bad, and a couple of days ago, I read about something Dolly Parton did that cheered me immensely.

Dolly Parton is one of my favorite people–and not just because she’s a great singer and songwriter–“Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Coat of Many Colors,” “Here you Come Again”, “Silver Threads and Golden Needles,” The two CDs she made with Emily Lou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, TRIO and TRIO II, are two of my favorite CDs of all time.


She’s also one of the funniest, most down-to-earth people ever. She’s said, “I’m not offended by all the dumb blonde jokes because I know I’m not dumb…and I also know that I’m not blonde,” and “I’m in the public eye, so I don’t care who knows what I get done. If I see something saggin’, draggin’, or baggin’, I get it sucked, trucked, or plucked. I remember when she was hosting the Country Music Awards and her dress split and she had to come out in somebody else’s coat. “Well,” she said, “that’s what you git for tryin’ to stick twenty pounds of mud in a ten-pound sack.”


She’s also a great person, one of those people who came up against all odds out of a poverty-stricken childhood, got rich and famous, and somehow never lost track of where she came from or who or what she was. Our whole family adores her, and her actions this week made us love her even more.


She came out as unequivocally in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. “Of course black lives matter,” she said. “Do we think our little white asses are the only ones that matter? No!”


That alone would make her tops in my book, but she’s also donated a million dollars to the Vanderbilt Medical Center to help fund research into a cure for coronavirus, and she wrote a song called “When Life is Good Again,” about the pandemic. “Be safe,” the lyrics say, “be respectful, wear your mask, lead with love.”


And two years ago she had a feature at one of her amusement parks called Dixie Stampede, but then people told her that Dixie had racist overtones and was an offensive word and associated with the Confederacy, which she hadn’t known. “There’s such a thing as ignorant innocence,” she said, “and so many of us are guilty of that. And I thought, Well, I don’t want to offend everybody…We’ll just call it the Stampede. As soon as you realize that something is a problem you should fix it. Don’t be a dumbass. That’s where my heart is. I would never dream of hurting anybody on purpose.”


Oh, my gosh, there it is in a nutshell: “Don’t be a dumbass.”
It sums up everything. I’ve got to get a bumper sticker with that on it.
And this is only the latest great thing she’s done.


Here are some others:


–Her Dollywood Foundation has instituted a Buddy Program which pays $500.00 to every seventh and eighth grader in Tennessee who finished high school. It decreased the dropout rate to 6 percent.


–Her Imagination Library provides a free book to children once a month from the time they’re born till they start school. She started with her home county in Tennessee, but the program is now worldwide, with 100 million books donated so far. She said, “It came from the fact that a lot of my own relatives didn’t get to go to school because we were mountain people…My own dad couldn’t read and write.”


–When wildfires destroyed Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge (her home town), she held a telethon to raise over 13 million dollars. She also provided $1000.00 a month for six months to families whose homes were destroyed in the fires. She is still helping some people pay for rent, utilities, food, and mental health resources.


–She’s also donated millions to animal rights, HIV-Aids research, and children’s hospitals.


–She has been unfailingly supportive of LGBTQ people, saying “those who criticize and judge LGBTQ people are committing their own kind of sin. The sin of judging is just as bad as any other sin they might say somebody else is committing. I try to love everybody.” When a visitor at Dollywood was stopped at the gate and told to turn her LGBTQ t-shirt inside out because it might offend others, she immediately stepped in, apologized, and changed the policy. “Everyone knows of my personal support of gay and lesbian communities. Dollywood is a family park and all families are welcome.”


–She wrote an Oscar-nominated song, “Travellin’ Man” for a movie about a trans woman called TRANSAMERICA and performed it at the Oscar ceremonies.


–She’s spoken out boldly on the bathroom bans for trans people, saying in her usual forthright manner, “I think everybody should be treated with respect. I hope that everybody gets a chance to be who and what they are. I just know, if I have to pee, I’m gon’ pee, wherever it’s got to be.”


Other Dolly quotes:


–“I’m not God, you know. I believe in God, I think God is the judge. I don’t judge or criticize and I don’t think we’re supposed to.”


–“When I got somethin’ to say, I’ll say it.”


–“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.”


And, finally, she said this, which is practically the best thing I’ve heard yet for getting through our current trials and tribulations:


“When I wake up, I expect things to be good. If they’re not, then I try to set about tryin’ to make them as good as I can, ‘cause I know I’m gonna have to live that day anyway.
So why not try to make the mot of it if you can? Some days they pan out a little better than others, but you still gotta always just try.”


You go, Dolly! You’re a shining light in this dark and dirty world!


Connie Willis

Some Connie Willis News – New Holiday Novella

Connie Willis has a new holiday novella being published this fall.  It will be in the November/December Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine that should be hitting newstands in October.   There will also be a signed and limited hardcover edition published by Subterranean Press in November.  Here’s their announcement:

We’re pleased to present a new novella, Take a Look at the Five and Ten, by long-time SubPress favorite, Connie Willis!      Jon Foster is contributing not only a full-color dust jacket, but endsheets, as well.

About the Book:



Ori’s holidays are an endless series of elaborately awful meals cooked by her one-time stepfather Dave’s latest bride. Attended by a loose assemblage of family, Ori particularly dreads Grandma Elving—grandmother of Dave’s fourth wife—and her rhapsodizing about the Christmas she worked at Woolworth’s in the 1950s. And, of course, she hates being condescended to by beautiful, popular Sloane and her latest handsome pre-med or pre-law boyfriend.



But this Christmas is different. Sloane’s latest catch Lassiter is extremely interested in Grandma Elving’s boringly detailed memories of that seasonal job, seeing in them the hallmarks of a TFBM, or traumatic flashbulb memory. With Ori’s assistance, he begins to use the older woman in an experiment—one she eagerly agrees to. As Ori and Lassiter spend more time together, Ori’s feelings for him grow alongside the elusive mystery of Grandma’s past.



From beloved New York Times bestselling, multiple-award-winning author Connie Willis comes another enchanting science fictional Christmas tale and screwball comedy, Take a Look at the Five and Ten. Readers in the need for a dose of Willis’s humor and heart will want to curl up with this novella for the holidays.



Preorder here: https://subterraneanpress.com/take-a-look-at-the-five-and-ten

Limited: 1500 signed numbered hardcover copies: $40

INDEPENDENCE DAY AND 1776 (THE MOVIE)

In the late 1960s my husband Courtney and I made a mistake we’ve regretted ever since. We were living in Branford, Connecticut, a suburb of New Haven, Connecticut. New Haven is the city where producers try out their plays before they take them to Broadway, kind of the equivalent of revising a first draft. New verses are added to and/or removed from songs, dialogue is honed, and sometimes the entire second act is taken out, shaken thoroughly, and put back in.

Because the play’s a work in progress and because the audience has no idea whether it will actually make it to Broadway, let alone be any good, tickets are readily available and really cheap, and it’s possible to walk in off the street and see a performance.

We were walking past a theater in downtown New Haven when we saw that they were currently in tryouts for the musical, 1776. “A musical about the Declaration of Independence?” I remember saying, to my everlasting shame. “How can they make a play out of that? What a ridiculous idea!”

In our defense, this was a time when they were doing musicals about New York’s mayor and Zorba the Greek, but still, the long and short of it is we passed up a chance to see the original cast–Howard de Silva, William Daniels, Ken Howard, Blythe Danner–in one of the best musicals of all time, and we’ve regretted it ever since.

We’ve tried to atone by watching the movie every year on the Fourth of July, and this year was no exception. It was amazing, though, just how relevant it was this year! It’s ALWAYS relevant, with its dawdling Congress that sits there and twiddles its thumbs instead of acting and its members who only care for “the profitable pound,” but this year I was shocked by how much its issues were OUR issues.

Not only is America in dire straits–“I do believe you’ve laid a curse on North America,” John Adams says, “a second flood, a simple famine, plagues of locusts everywhere,”–they’re dealing with many of the same problems we are right now.

They’re plagued with diseases (“The children all have dysentery, and little Tom keeps turning blue,” Abigail says. “Little Abbey has the measles, and I’m coming down with flu…they say we may get smallpox”) and shortages (sewing pins and saltpeter instead of toilet paper and PPE.)

There are lines that could have been spoken today, like Benjamin Franklin’s saying, “Never has a nation been more recklessly mismanaged,” and there are parallels in the people. We have Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose health we’re praying for, and they had Caesar Rodney, a Congressman from Delaware who was dragged back to Congress from his deathbed to provide a deciding vote.

In 1776, they’re also dealing with critical issues of what they want their country to be and issues of racial justice that are threatening to tear the country apart and may even stop America from being born: “Now you’re calling our black slaves Americans?” the delegate from North Carolina asks John Adams, and Adams replies, “They’re people and they’re here. If there’s any other requirement, I never heard it.”

“They are not people,” North Carolina says. “They are property.”

“No, sir,” Jefferson says, “they are people who are being treated as property.”

And here we are, 244 years later, having that same conversation. On the Fourth two people painted over a “Black Lives Matter” sign on a street, proclaiming, “The narrative of police brutality, the narrative of oppression, the narrative of racism, it’s a lie,” and two days ago when Joe Biden said in his Fourth of July message that all people are created equal, the spokesman for the Republican Party accused him of trying to destroy the Declaration of Independence. “It says ‘All MEN are created equal,’” she said huffily.

We’re in troubled times, just like they were, struggling to deal with life-and-death problems in circumstances “a more generous God would not have allowed,” as Franklin said. And yet, just as in 1776, there’s hope.

On the Fourth, my daughter Cordelia posted a message on Facebook in which she quoted both 1776 and an actual letter written by our second president. She wrote, “Happy Independence Day 2020. The Declaration of Independence indicated that we have the rights to ’Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ 244 years later and we’re still struggling to deliver on this promise to many of our citizens. But as John Adams said, ‘Yet through all the Gloom I can see the Rays of Ravishing Light and Glory.’ We as a country are getting better, and we just need to keep striving.”

“I hear the bells ringing out,” John Adams sings, a paraphrase of that same letter. “I hear the cannons roar. I see Americans–all Americans–free forevermore.”

1776 still speaks to us after over 50 years. Plus, it’s a wonderful musical, funny and suspenseful and heartbreaking. If you’ve never seen it–or were stupid enough to say, “A musical about the Declaration of Independence! How ridiculous!” like we were–please watch it. You won’t be sorry.

Happy Fourth of July!

Connie Willis