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 Sri Lanka, crafted from recycled elephant dung. Because Gardner would have thought that 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 at the end of his life, in fact. I met him for about five minutes. It was at a Lunacon in 1971. He died about two months later, in fact, so that was the only chance 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 room where he was standing.

 

You must understand two things. One, this was at the height of the New Wave wars, which has receded so far into the past that nobody even remembers it anymore. But it was a hot issue of the time. And two, I was a young hippie freak, of about a hundred and fifty pounds at that point. And I would have been wearing my army fatigue jacket, because I didn’t have anything else 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 hair literally down past my ass. Very, very long hair, and an untrimmed beard which sort of flopped around like a huge flag. So I looked like an Amish person gone insane. Damon dragged me up to John Campbell, and said, “Here’s a hot new writer, really good, I want you to meet.”

 

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

 

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

 

That was my one and only meeting with John Campbell.

 

What was it like working with Isaac Asimov?

 

Gardner Dozois: Isaac was great to work for. For one thing, he didn’t really meddle with the editorial 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 actually read any of it. He was smart enough to hire people that he trusted, and then not interfere with them. Which is very, very rare in today’s society.

 

He would come into the office once a week to pick up the letters, because he answered the letters for the letter column. It was always a big event when Isaac showed up at the office. People from all other departments, crosswords magazines and everything, would get excited because Isaac was coming into the office. He would arrive and you could hear him whistling 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 make up limericks on the spot for whoever was in the office. He would make up often insulting, mildly risque limericks about them, and he would make up little poems which he would recite, and then he would pick up the mail and he would sing off down the corridor. That would be about it, actually, for our dealing with Isaac.

 

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

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