The Last Copy of In His Own Words!

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The Locus fundraiser continues apace! As mentioned yesterday, Marianne and I contributed three otherwise unobtainable Dragonstairs Press chapbooks to the cause. The first one up, Brief Essays on Genre, went fast... as Marianne's lovingly-made, hand-stitched, signed and numbered chapbooks tend to do. So they've put up the second chapbook. 

This one is In His Own Words, a chapbook created to mark the dedication of a plaque in Gardner's honor in the Pen & Pencil Club, Philadelphia's venerable journalists club. It was a particularly apt place for the plaque not only because Gardner was a member but because he got his start as a military journalist in the U. S. Army. I assembled all the most pertinent parts from a much longer interview and Marianne made a beautiful chapbook of it. Issued in an edition of 60 and bound in hand-made paper from SriLanka, crafted from recycled elephant dung. Because Gardner would have thoughtthat was hilarious.

 You can find Locus's Indiegogo campaign, chockablock with cool incentives for giving, here.  

And if you're curious about the contents . . .

The chapbook was given out to family and journalists at the unveiling, where I gave a brief talk about Gardner Dozois's career as an award-winning military journalist. You should have seen the journalists' shocked faces when I told his helicopter story! And of course the story behind the photograph on the cover is hilarious. But this being a science fiction audience, I thought you'd be most interested in learning about Gardner's relationship with two giants of the field--John W. Campbell and Isaac Asimov.

Enjoy:  

You also met John W.Campbell, didn’t you?

 

Gardner Dozois: Very, very briefly. Only right atthe end of his life, in fact. I met him for about five minutes. It was at aLunacon in 1971. He died about two months later, in fact, so that was the onlychance I ever got to meet him. Someone with a mischievous sense of humor,probably Damon Knight, dragged me up to meet John Campbell in the huckster roomwhere he was standing.

 

You must understand two things. One, this was at theheight of the New Wave wars, which has receded so far into the past that nobodyeven remembers it anymore. But it was a hot issue of the time. And two, I wasa young hippie freak, of about a hundred and fifty pounds at that point. And Iwould have been wearing my army fatigue jacket, because I didn’t have anythingelse to wear, and probably combat boots, because I didn’t have any other shoes.And probably a pair of blue jeans, and some sort of body shirt. And I had hairliterally down past my ass. Very, very long hair, and an untrimmed beard whichsort of flopped around like a huge flag. So I looked like an Amish person goneinsane. Damon dragged me up to John Campbell, and said, “Here’s a hot newwriter, really good, I want you to meet.”

 

I stuck out of my hand, and he sort of reflexively shookmy hand while cringing back. Before I even said anything, he said, “I like theOld Wave stuff. I don’t like this New Wave stuff. Only Old Wave science fictionfor Analog.”

 

Oh, well, okay, Mr. Campbell, and he said, “Oh, none ofthis New Wave stuff!” He was sort of backing away. “Only Old Wave stuff!” Andhe backed away, crossing himself.

 

That was my one and only meeting with John Campbell.

 

What was it likeworking with Isaac Asimov?

 

Gardner Dozois:Isaac was great to work for. For one thing, he didn’t really meddle with theeditorial content of the magazine at all. Which from my perspective was fine,because most of the stuff I was buying he would not have liked, if he actuallyread any of it. He was smart enough to hire people that he trusted, and thennot interfere with them. Which is very, very rare in today’s society.

 

He would come into the office once a week to pick up theletters, because he answered the letters for the letter column. It was always abig event when Isaac showed up at the office. People from all otherdepartments, crosswords magazines and everything, would get excited becauseIsaac was coming into the office. He would arrive and you could hear himwhistling and singing down the hallway. He would do Gilbert and Sullivan songs.He would do little dances, while he was coming down the corridor. He would makeup limericks on the spot for whoever was in the office. He would make up ofteninsulting, mildly risque limericks about them, and he would make up littlepoems which he would recite, and then he would pick up the mail and he wouldsing off down the corridor. That would be about it, actually, for our dealingwith Isaac.

 

But he certainly was a good boss to work with. He left youalone. He was entertaining when he showed up. You can’t ask more from a bossthan that.

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