How Well Do You Know Greer Gilman?

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I'm fresh back (or, rather, not so fresh at all -- distinctly wasted, in fact) from Boskone, where one of the highlights was a panel titled "Moonwise of Babel," and described in the pocket program simply as "Two fantasists discuss matters that are intensely interesting to them."  Those two fantasists were Greer Gilman (author of Moonwise) and me (author, as you may remember, of The Dragons of Babel).  We discussed fantasy, mythology, and each other's work, and in the course of the hour, a sort of mini-autobiography of Greer emerged.

The conversation was recorded by Farah Mendelsohn and will eventually be published in Foundation.  In the meantime, those who think they know Greer Gilman can test themselves against the following brief four-question quiz:

1.  In her senior year of college, Greer changed her major to English, despite getting straight As in her prior studies.  What had she been studying?

2.  At Cambridge, Greer received a starred first for what field of endeavor?

3.  Greer's first post-collegiate job lasted for seven years.  What was she doing?

4.  Why did she lose that job?

Time's up!  Put down your pencils and close your blue notebooks.  Here are the . . .

Answers:

1.  Biology and genetics.

2.  Practical Criticism.

3.  She was a nanny.

4.  For writing Moonwise.  She lived in her employers' house and the clacking of her mechanical typewriter for hours every night eventually drove them mad.

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