The 2008 Nebula Awards weekend began for me in Baltimore rather than Austin, because I ran into Peter Heck and Jane Jewell at BWI. We were all taking the same Southwest flight, and since that airline has no assigned seating, we were able to commandeer a row and entertain each other along the way, sometimes by chatting, but mostly by snoring, since we’d all had to get up around 4:00 in the morning to make our unexpectedly shared flight.

We also shared a cab to the Omni Austin Downtown, and we arrived there ravenous. We took the concierge’s recommendation for a good Tex-Mex restaurant, the Iron Cactus. Since I don’t drink, I wasn’t able to appreciate the range of tequilas they had—almost 100 different varieties—but the red snapper was worth the walk.

Since the opening events for the weekend wouldn’t start until later in the day, I decided to spend the afternoon wandering Austin, something I hadn’t managed to do at all when I was here for the 2006 World Fantasy Convention. My first stop—the O. Henry Museum.

O. Henry lived in Austin for 16 years, and in this house from 1893 to 1898. Austin was where he became known for his embezzlement rather than for his writing, and was sentenced to five years in a federal prison. Which basically means that this was the place where he decided that since he was unlikely to ever get rehired at a bank, he’d might as well head off and give writing his all. (more…)

Fifteen years ago, long before I started working for the SCI FI Channel, I was on the SCI FI Channel.

SCI FI Buzz, which was then the Channel’s equivalent of 60 Minutes, did a short feature highlighting me on the occasion of the first anniversary of Science Fiction Age magazine. It was taped at ConFrancisco, the 1993 World Science Fiction Convention in San Francisco, and ran in December of that year.

I don’t know how you’ll feel about watching this, but I wince a little, not just because there’s a little bit more of me, but also because there’s a little bit less.

More, because I was heavier then. Less, because I was trying so hard to present myself as a calm talking head and not bounce around in my chair or talk with my hands that I seem more subdued than my usual bouncy self. I was trying to be too cool about it all. I appear too coy and sedate, and with the quiet manner of speech on display here, I remind myself of Jason Alexander playing George Costanza.

You might feel differently. In fact, I hope you feel differently. But however you feel, the clip is too good a piece of history not to share.

As I’ve shared here before, Paul Di Filippo has for years been sending me envelopes decorated with collages culled from old magazines, newspapers, and comic books. Here’s yet another example of his envelope art, which sends a Lady in Red searching for me through a casino.

If only I could manage to look that debonair in reality!

But thanks to the Spring 2008 issue of The Paris Review, the secret of Paul Di Filippo’s inspiration has been revealed at last! (more…)

The Spring 2008 issue of The Paris Review includes an interview with Leonard Michaels conducted back in 1986. Michaels died in 2003, and this marks the interview’s first publication.

Michaels was the author of (among other things) the short story collection I Would Have Saved Them If I Could and the novel The Men’s Club.

He had this to share about his reaction to feedback on an early novel:

Was it at Michigan that you wrote a novel in a month?

I wrote the novel in New York. One editor read it and took me to dinner at the Yale Club. I was dying to hear what he thought of my novel He said that from his office window he could see into another office, across the avenue, where every night a man laid his secretary on his desk. Then he said, Your novel should be published, but not by me. I dropped all the copies into the incinerator chute of my parent’s apartment building.

I dreamed last night that I was in the large waiting room of a train station sitting with my father. I had no idea why we were there or where we were going. I didn’t know whether both of us or just one of us would be traveling, and if only one of us, which one.

As we waited and chatted (I can remember nothing of our conversation), I looked across the room and through the crowd saw Connie Willis standing and talking with three or four other women of a similar age and type. I got up from my Dad and walked over to her to say hello.

As Connie and I talked, I pointed my Dad out to her. I waved at him, but he couldn’t seem to make me out from across the room, and so he didn’t wave back.

I woke before the dream progressed any further.

I dreamed this morning that I was in a restaurant taking part in a chicken-eating contest with Gardner Dozois. Susan Casper and John Kessel watched on. Unfortunately, the results of our match were inconclusive, because I woke before we arrived at a winner.

In the face of all the dreams I’ve shared with you here, you may ask yourself—does this guy dream of anything else besides hanging out with his publishing friends? Don’t worry. I promise you that I do. I’m a frequent dreamer, and usually remember 3-5 dreams per night. But I only choose to inflict upon you the dreams that seem relevant.

If I shared all of my dreams, you’d really be in trouble!

The Al Pacino thriller 88 Minutes opened today, and though I have not seen the film, the trailer is currently unavoidable. The fleeting face of one of the film’s stars reminded me of one of the many alternate lives I might have led, this particular one the parallel universe that would have been created had I made the decision to focus on becoming an actor instead of a writer.

Back in high school, I enjoyed both acting and writing, and attacked each with equal enthusiasm, though writing was always the first among equals. I was submitting (and getting rejected by) all of the science-fiction magazines then extant, while at the same time acting in school plays. As a result of the latter activity, I was picked to take part in a summer program offered by the New York City public school system—TAPAW, or the Teen Age Performing Arts Workshop. Kids were chosen from all of the city schools one summer to join together to put on the play Fiorello. I was cast as one of the political cronies who sing the songs “Politics and Poker” and “A Little Tin Box.” One of the others cast as a crony was a kid named Bill Forsythe, who I’d never met before, since he’d been attending a different school.

(You can see us both a little more clearly if you click through on the image above right. I’m the tallest person in the back row. William Forsythe is in the back row with his head turned to the right and his hair partially obscuring his face.)

The show was a success, and once the summer was over, Bill transferred to my high school, South Shore High School, for his senior year. After graduation, Bill took off and I didn’t hear of him again until almost a decade later, only as William Forsythe. If you recognize that name, you can already guess how and why. (more…)

I dreamed this morning that I was visiting a group of people who, though outwardly friendly, turned out to be part of an extreme religious cult. When I tried to go home after dinner, I was prevented from leaving. Though I managed to sneak away within the compound and make a phone call for help, whenever I tried to speak, traffic would mysteriously roar by, drowning out my pleas.

When rescue finally arrives and I leap into the car that has come to take me away, who should be inside but Bob Howe, Mary Turzillo, and Resa Nelson, all Clarion classmates (of each other, not of me)!

Thanks for breaking me out of there, guys!

The New York Times reports today on the death of Eugene Ehrlich at age 85. Ehrlich popularized esoteric etymological knowledge, writing forty dictionaries, thesauruses, and phrase books, including The Highly Selective Thesaurus for the Extraordinarily Literate.

But what impressed me the most was that his obituary (and he) ended this way:

Some family members were so used to Mr. Ehrlich’s habit of correcting grammar that some studied up before visiting him. On his deathbed, Mr. Ehrlich heard somebody ask, “To who?”

“To whom,” he said, with a weak voice and great authority.

Way to go!

(So to speak.)

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jack Williamson’s birth, which is now just fifteen days away, Haffner Press has published The Worlds of Jack Williamson: A Centennial Tribute. The volume includes many of Jack’s classic stories, as well as previously unpublished tales, a film treatment, and appreciations by both friends and academics.

My new icon today is a picture of Jack and me taken on the 75th anniversary of the publication of his first short story. (more…)