My London Schedule

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A Worldcon!  In London!  The heart beats faster.

As always, I'm on the road again, this time to Loncon, the 2014 World Science Fiction Convention.

I have a light schedule this con, in part because I took my time about answering the questionnaire, and in part because I've been so busy lately that I wasn't eager to add to my workload.

But if you see me, feel free to say hi.  Meanwhile, here's my light schedule:

RA Lafferty Roundtable

Thursday 19:00 - 20:00, Capital Suite 5 (ExCeL)

A roundtable on the works and legacy of R.A. Lafferty, in celebration of his centennial year, and in recognition of his return to publication in the hands of the Locus Foundation.

Katie Lynn Daniels (Moderator) , Stefan Rudnicki, Michael Swanwick, Andrew Ferguson

Kaffeeklatsch

Saturday 12:00 - 13:00, London Suite 4 (ExCeL)

And I'm also doing a signing.  (Loncon gave me a signing time but, mea culpa, I had to beg off because of an early flight home.)  It's at:

Signing

Sunday 2:00 p.m., Tachyon Publications table, huckster room.

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Nine Hundred Authors United

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I don't have a horse in this particular race.  But I signed the Authors United petition because:

A)  Fair is fair.

and:

B)  Bullying is bullying.

Except that in this case Amazon's bullying is ensuring that a lot of working writers will get significantly less money for their books and in some cases suffer significant damage to their careers.  

On a related note, if you want to make the world a better place . . . buy a book from an independent bookstore.  Browsing in a local store run by pleasant people is so much more fun than clicking on an icon.  And you might well find something you weren't looking for!  That's how I discovered Daniel Wallace's slim and delightful Big Fish.

Here's the text and signatories to the two-page ad that ran in yesterday's New York TImes.  If you want to have some fun, see how many of authors you're familiar with.

A Letter to Our Readers:

Amazon is involved in a commercial dispute with the book publisher Hachette , which owns Little, Brown, Grand Central Publishing, and other familiar imprints. These sorts of disputes happen all the time between companies and they are usually resolved in a corporate back room.

But in this case, Amazon has done something unusual. It has directly targeted Hachette's authors in an effort to force their publisher to agree to its terms.

For the past several months, Amazon has been:

--Boycotting Hachette authors, by refusing to accept pre-orders on Hachette authors' books and eBooks, claiming they are "unavailable."

--Refusing to discount the prices of many of Hachette authors' books.

--Slowing the delivery of thousands of Hachette authors' books to Amazon customers, indicating that delivery will take as long as several weeks on most titles.

--Suggesting on some Hachette authors' pages that readers might prefer a book from a non-Hachette author instead.

As writers--most of us not published by Hachette--we feel strongly that no bookseller should block the sale of books or otherwise prevent or discourage customers from ordering or receiving the books they want. It is not right for Amazon to single out a group of authors, who are not involved in the dispute, for selective retaliation. Moreover, by inconveniencing and misleading its own customers with unfair pricing and delayed delivery, Amazon is contradicting its own written promise to be "Earth's most customer-centric company."

Many of us have supported Amazon since it was a struggling start-up. Our books launched Amazon on the road to selling everything and becoming one of the world's largest corporations. We have made Amazon many millions of dollars and over the years have contributed so much, free of charge, to the company by way of cooperation, joint promotions, reviews and blogs. This is no way to treat a business partner. Nor is it the right way to treat your friends. Without taking sides on the contractual dispute between Hachette and Amazon, we encourage Amazon in the strongest possible terms to stop harming the livelihood of the authors on whom it has built its business. None of us, neither readers nor authors, benefit when books are taken hostage. (We're not alone in our plea: the opinion pages of both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, which rarely agree on anything, have roundly condemned Amazon's corporate behavior.)

We call on Amazon to resolve its dispute with Hachette without further hurting authors and without blocking or otherwise delaying the sale of books to its customers.

We respectfully ask you, our loyal readers, to email Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, atjeff@amazon.com, and tell him what you think. He says he genuinely welcomes hearing from his customers and claims to read all emails at that account. We hope that, writers and readers together, we will be able to change his mind.

Sincerely,

• Megan Abbott
• Robert H. Abel
• Rachael Acks
• William M. Adler
• Elisa Albert
• William Alexander
• Sherman Alexie
• Mike Allen
• Jonathan Ames
• Laurie Halse Anderson
• Roger Angle
• Carol Anshaw
• Anne Applebaum
• Debby Applegate
• Kelley Armstrong
• Rilla Askew
• Rick Atkinson
• James David Audlin
• Paul Auster
• Ellis Avery
• Avi
• Barbe Awalt
• Gillian Bagwell
• Blake Bailey
• Deirdre Bair
• Jo Baker
• Kevin Baker
• Mishell Baker
• David Baldacci
• Melissa Bank
• Linwood Barclay
• Evelyn Barish
• Juliana Barnet
• Rebecca Barnhouse
• Nevada Barr
• Quentin Bates
• Elif Batuman
• Douglas Bauer
• Erica Bauermeister
• Cris Beam
• Greg Bear
• James Beauregard
• Antony Beevor
• Adam Begley
• Louis Begley
• Hilari Bell
• Madison Smartt Bell
• Martine Bellen
• Sam Bellotto Jr.
• Aimee Bender
• Karen E. Bender
• Lou J. Berger
• Daniel Bergner
• Bob Berman
• Anne Bernays
• Suzanne Berne
• Steve Berry
• Lauren Beukes
• Clara Bingham
• Lisa Birnbach
• Michael Bishop
• Lauren Bjorkman
• Holly Black
• Shayla Black
• Grant Blackwood
• Linda M. Bland
• Meredith Bland
• David W. Blight
• Carole Bloom
• Cas Blomberg
• Deborah Blum
• Judy Blundell
• Charles Bock
• Amy Boesky
• Paul Bogard
• Johnny D. Boggs
• Chris Bohjalian
• Robert M. Bolstad
• Marianne Boruch
• Joanna Bourke
• Betsy Connor Bowen
• Walt Boyes
• Ben Bradlee Jr.
• Mike Bradley
• Jess Brallier
• Taylor Branch
• H.W. Brands
• Kylie Brant
• Gary Braver
• Catherine Brennan
• Marie Brennan
• Alan Brennert
• Morgan S. Brilliant
• Douglas Brinkley
• Pope Brock
• Laura Brodie
• Lora Brody
• Geraldine Brooks
• Harriet Brown
• Jennifer Brown
• Lisa Brown
• Sandra Brown
• Bliss Broyard
• Cathy Marie Buchanan
• Marina Budhos
• Christopher Buehlman
• Kate Buford
• Jan Burke
• Cherie Burns
• Benjamin Busch
• Sarah Shun-lien Bynum
• Pat Cadigan
• Susannah Cahalan
• Chelsea Cain
• Kenneth Cain
• Susan Cain
• Wayne Caldwell
• Philip Caputo
• Jacqueline Carey
• Peter Ames Carlin
• Ron Carlson
• Robert A. Caro
• David Carothers
• Cynthia Carr
• H.G. Carrillo
• Betsy Carter
• Mary E. Carter
• Carol Cassella
• Brian Castner
• Michael Chabon
• Rebecca Chance
• Angie Chau
• Thomas Chavez
• Susan Cheever
• Ron Chernow
• Harriet Scott Chessman
• Jaima Chevalier
• Tracy Chevalier
• Jennifer Chiaverini
• Lee Child
• Lincoln Child
• Mark Childress
• Kate Christensen
• Jill Ciment
• Sandra Cisneros
• Breena Clarke
• Antoinette Nora Claypoole
• Meg Waite Clayton
• Andrew Clements
• Katherine Clements
• Rachel Cline
• Mick Cochrane
• David B. Coe
• William D. Cohan
• Leah Hager Cohen
• James Collins
• Suzanne Collins
• Tom Connor
• Christopher D. Cook
• Stephanie Cooke
• Martha Cooley
• Ellen Cooney
• Karen Coody Cooper
• Artemis Cooper
• Constance Cooper
• Jen Corace
• Zizou Corder
• Douglas Corleone
• Kelly Corrigan
• Bruce Coville
• Robert Crais
• Sara Creasy
• Sharon Creech
• Elizabeth Crook
• Dave Cullen
• Robert Dallek
• William Dalrymple
• Mark Z. Danielewski
• Leslie Daniels
• Jack Dann
• Ellen Datlow
• Saul David
• Lauren B. Davis
• Lindsey Davis
• Angela Davis-Gardner
• Jeffery Deaver
• Barbara Dee
• Jonathan Dee
• Dale DeGroff
• Barbara Delinsky
• Nelson DeMille
• David Denby
• Jerry Dennis
• Hannah Dennison
• William Deresiewicz
• Mary Alice Deveny
• Julia DeVillers
• Junot Díaz
• Mary Lou Dickinson
• David Dobbs
• Anthony Doerr
• Linda Donn
• Beverly Donofrio
• James Donovan
• David R. Dow
• Brendan DuBois
• Andre Dubus III
• Sarah Dunant
• Andy Duncan
• Tom Dunkel
• Susan Edmiston
• Jennifer Egan
• Martha Egan
• Robert Eggleton
• Benita Eisler
• Amal El-Mohtar
• Kimberly Elkins
• Elissa Elliott
• Kate Elliott
• Abby Ellin
• Carson Ellis
• Joseph J. Ellis
• P.N. Elrod
• Ken Emerson
• Alexandra Enders
• Terry England
• Hallie Ephron
• Catherine Epstein
• Mark Epstein
• Pamela Erens
• Mark Essig
• Sir Harold Evans
• Anne Fadiman
• Susan Faludi
• Ellen Feldman
• Joshua Ferris
• Lucy Ferriss
• Amanda Filipacchi
• Joseph Finder
• William Finnegan
• Suzanne Finstad
• Eric Fischl
• Janet Fitch
• Stona Fitch
• Paul Fleischman
• Ronald Florence
• Nick Flynn
• Tom Folsom
• Alison Ashley Formento
• Richard Thompson Ford
• Amanda Foreman
• J.L. Forrest
• Connie May Fowler
• Karen Joy Fowler
• Ruth E. Francis
• Diana Pharaoh Francis
• Judith Frank
• Thaisa Frank
• Laurie Frankel
• Caroline Fraser
• Laura Fraser
• Ian Frazier
• John Freeman
• Pamela Freeman
• Ru Freeman
• Richard E. Friesen
• Gregory Frost
• Laura Furman
• Neal Gabler
• Peter Gadol
• Mary Gaitskill
• Nicole Galland
• Jack Gantos
• Nasario Garcia
• Barbara Garson
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
• Jaym Gates
• Alison Gaylin
• Elizabeth George
• Giuseppe Gerbino
• Denise Giardina
• Elizabeth Gilbert
• Susan Jane Gilman
• Jennifer Gilmore
• Malcolm Gladwell
• Krystyna Poray Goddu
• Peter Godwin
• Glen David Gold
• Stephen Goldin
• Beverly Gologorsky
• Laurence Gonzales
• Arquímedes González
• Brad Gooch
• Alison Gopnik
• Jim Gorant
• Mary Gordon
• Meryl Gordon
• Angeline Goreau
• Steven Gould
• Philip Gourevitch
• Marie Grace
• Cheryl Grace

• D.G. Grace
• Heather Graham
• Linda Grant
• Elizabeth Graver
• George Dawes Green
• Jeff Greenwald
• Dr. David H. Grinspoon
• John Grisham
• Andrew Gross
• Michael Gruber
• Lisa Grunwald
• Talia Gryphon
• Kevin Guilfoile
• Melissa Guion
• Allan Gurganus
• Beth Gutcheon
• Dan Gutman
• Mark Haddon
• Steven Hahn
• Loretta Hall
• Karen Hall
• Emma Walton Hamilton
• Jane Hamilton
• Masha Hamilton
• Mary Stewart Hammond
• Patricia Hampl
• Elizabeth Hand
• Daniel Handler a.k.a Lemony Snicket
• Sharon Hanna
• Sophie Hannah
• Thor Hanson
• Alyssa Harad
• Elizabeth Harlan
• Ann Harleman
• Stephan J. Harper
• Stephen Harrigan
• Ellen Harris
• Sam Harris
• C.C. Harrison
• Carolyn Hart
• Aaron Hartzler
• Adrianne Harun
• Yona Harvey
• Todd Hasak-Lowy
• Molly Haskell
• Susan Carol Hauser
• Katherine B. Hauth
• John Twelve Hawks
• Roy Hayes
• Terrance Hayes
• Toby Fesler Heathcotte
• Jeff Hecht
• Travis Heermann
• Sarah Hegger
• Ursula Hegi
• Charles Ota Heller
• Marla Heller
• Kaui Hart Hemmings
• Amy Hempel
• Lauren Henderson
• Joshua Henkin
• Greg Herren
• Peggy Herrington
• Rachel Herz
• Carol DeChellis Hill
• Joe Hill
• Anne Hillerman
• Brenda Hillman
• Hilary Hinzmann
• Tom Hirschfeld
• Jack Hitt
• Sylvia Anna Hivén
• Valerie Hobbs
• Mary Ann Hoberman
• Sheri Holman
• Rachel Holmes
• Woody Holton
• Ed Hoornaert
• Ellen Hopkins
• Deborah Hopkinson
• Nalo Hopkinson
• James D. Hornfischer
• Shel Horowitz
• Tony Horwitz
• Silas House
• Hugh Howard
• James Howe
• Del Howison
• Mary Hudson
• Laird Hunt
• Charlayne Hunter-Gault
• Gregg Hurwitz
• Nancy Huston
• Siri Hustvedt
• Elisabeth Hyde
• Amy Ignatow
• Gerald Imber, M.D.
• Susan Isaacs
• Steve Jackson
• Diane Jacobs
• Linda Jaivin
• Michael Jecks
• Suzanne Jenkins
• Sarah Jensen
• Erika Johansen
• Gilbert John
• Fenton Johnson
• Brian Jay Jones
• Steve Jones
• Michaele Jordan
• Sam Jordison
• Mike Jung
• Sebastian Junger
• A.P. Von K'Ory
• Judi Kadden
• Bonita Kale
• Stephanie Kallos
• Robert Kanigel
• Andrew Kaplan
• James Kaplan
• Jim Kaplan
• Paul Karasik
• Mary Karr
• John Katzenbach
• Joe Kelly
• Judith Kelman
• Joshua Kendall
• Katrina Kenison
• Brad Kessler
• Frances Kiernan
• Martin Kihn
• Sarah S. Kilborne
• Daniel M. Kimmel
• A.S. King
• Dave King
• Lily King
• Stephen King
• Tabitha King
• Barbara Kingsolver
• Maxine Hong Kingston
• Dave Kinney
• Floris M. Kleijne
• Christina Baker Kline
• Alethea Kontis
• Lily Koppel
• Anne Korkeakivi
• Michael Koryta
• Sally Koslow
• Alex Kotlowitz
• Stephen Kotowych
• Jon Krakauer
• Mark Kramer
• Matthew Kressel
• Katherine Kurs
• Sandra Gail Lambert
• Anne Landsman
• Eve Laplante
• Erik Larson
• Lee Adair Lawrence
• Roland Lazenby
• Linda Lear
• Nicole J. LeBoeuf
• Cherie Lee
• Vicki T. Lee
• Joan Leegant
• Dennis Lehane
• Jim Lehrer
• Kate Lehrer
• Stina Leicht
• Bobbie Leigh
• Thomas P. Leiker
• Brad Leithauser
• Dinah Lenney
• Anne Leonard
• Peter Lerangis
• Edward M. Lerner
• John Lescroart
• Diane Leslie
• Jonathan Lethem
• Tom Levenson
• Phillis Levin
• David D. Levine
• Judith Levine
• Jim Lewis
• Michael Lewis
• Norma Libman
• Katia Lief
• Terr Light
• Alan Lightman
• Jane Lindskold
• Elinor Lipman
• Laura Lippman
• Jonathan Littell
• Aimee Liu
• Malinda Lo
• Michaele Lockhart
• Lois Lowry
• David Lubar
• Jason Erik Lundberg
• Steve Luxenberg
• William Lychack
• Barry Lyga
• Anne Lyle
• Larissa MacFarquhar
• Karen Mack
• Kenneth Mack
• Elizabeth Macklin
• Kathy Macmillan
• Greg Mandel
• Tim Manley
• Annam Manthiram
• Jo-Ann Mapson
• Meredith Maran
• David Maraniss
• Andrew Marble
• Paul Mariani
• Regina Marler
• Melissa Marr
• William Martin
• Valerie Martin
• Michael J. Martinez
• Judith Matloff
• Mark Matousek
• Suzanne Matson
• John Matteson
• Alice Mattison
• Claudia Mauro
• Laurie McBride
• Erin Lindsay McCabe
• Donald McCaig
• T.C. McCarthy
• Lyn McConchie
• Jack McDevitt
• Richard P. McDonough
• Heather McDougal
• Michael McGarrity
• Celia McGee
• Erin McGraw
• Jay McInerney
• Will McIntosh
• Maryn McKenna
• Chris McKitterick
• Terry McMillan
• Maggie Meade
• Marion Meade
• Jodi Meadows
• Jillian Medoff
• Mameve Medwed
• Brian Meehl
• Edie Meidav
• Brad Meltzer
• Daniel Menaker
• Daniel Mendelsohn
• Susan Scarf Merrell
• T.M. Merremont
• Karla Linn Merrifield
• Christopher Merrill
• Ashley Merryman
• Claire Messud
• David Michaelis
• Lisa Michaels
• Deborah Michel
• Margaret Dubay Mikus
• James Andrew Miller
• Sue Miller
• Lyn Miller-Lachmann
• R.J. Mirabal
• Rana Mitter
• Laura J. Mixon
• Seth Mnookin
• David Moles
• Anna Monardo
• Elizabeth Moon
• Christopher Moore
• Honor Moore
• Caroline Moorehead
• Harry Morales
• Phyllis S. Morgan
• Courtney Morgan
• David Morrell
• James McGrath Morris
• Eleanor Morse
• Jennifer Anne Moses
• Anka Muhlstein
• Marcia Muller
• Meg Mullins
• Manuel Munoz
• Carol Muske-Dukes
• Donna Jackson Nakazawa
• David Nasaw
• Sena Jeter Naslund
• Antonya Nelson
• Kris Neri
• Jay Neugeboren
• Cal Newport
• Travis Nichols
• Katharine Noel
• G.E. Nordell
• Leonard Nourse
• Elizabeth Nunez
• Sigrid Nunez
• Carol O'Connell

• Brigid O'Farrell
• Rick O'Keefe
• Joseph O'Neill
• Meghan O'Rourke
• Regina O'Melveny
• James O'Shea
• Patricia O'Toole
• Achy Obejas
• Nancy Ohlin
• Daniel Okrent
• Karl Olsberg
• Mark Olshaker
• Peggy Orenstein
• Peter Orner
• Mary Pope Osborne
• A.J. Osorio
• Whitney Otto
• Elizabeth Oberbeck
• Ruth Ozeki
• Ann Packer
• ZZ Packer
• Nell Painter
• Ann Pancake
• Sara Paretsky
• T. Jefferson Parker
• Thomas Trebitsch Parker
• Jonathan Parshall
• Ann Patchett
• Dorothy Patent
• Greg Patent
• Susan Patron
• James Patterson
• Richard North Patterson
• Paula Paul
• Jackson Pearce
• Iain Pears
• Shelley Pearsall
• Ridley Pearson
• Kira Peikoff
• George Pelecanos
• Sharon Kay Penman
• Sara Pennypacker
• Benjamin Percy
• Tom Perrotta
• Joan K. Peters
• Andrew X. Pham
• Rodman Philbrick
• Arthur Phillips
• Leslie Pietrzyk
• Steven Pinker
• Jorge Pinto
• Valerie Plame
• Letty Cottin Pogrebin
• Lesley Poling-Kempes
• Michael Pollan
• Neil Port
• Maximillian Potter
• Ron Powers
• William Powers
• Douglas Preston
• Bill Pronzini
• Alex Prud'homme
• Philip Pullman
• Tom Purdom
• Joyce Purnick
• Anna Quindlen
• Julia Quinn
• Karen Quinn
• Elizabeth Raby
• Linda F. Radke
• Hope Ramsay
• Jay Rayner
• Victoria Redel
• Christopher Reich
• Paul Reid
• Andrea Reusing
• Adam Rex
• Paul Rhetts
• Janet R. Rhodes
• Dr. Sonya Rhodes
• Jerome Richard
• Michelle Richmond
• Cynthia Riggs
• Margaret Roach
• David Roberts
• Nora Roberts
• Madeleine Robins
• Kim Stanley Robinson
• Roxana Robinson
• Michaela Roessner
• Barbara Rogan
• Morgan Callan Rogers
• Katie Roiphe
• Carl Rollyson
• Robin Romm
• Ronald Rosbottom
• Joel Rose
• David S. Rose
• William Rosen
• Lucinda Rosenfeld
• Benjamin Rosenbaum
• Elizabeth Rosner
• Inez Ross
• Deborah J. Ross
• David Rothenberg
• Pat Rothfuss
• Chuck Rothman
• Elizabeth Royte
• Charlie Rubin
• Michael Ruhlman
• Richard Russo
• Shawna Yang Ryan
• Cynthia Saltzman
• Martin A. Samuels
• Lynda A. Sánchez
• James Sanders
• Luc Sante
• Esmeralda Santiago
• Mark Sarvas
• George Saunders
• Sam Savage
• Joan Schenkar
• Ron Schick
• Stacy Schiff
• Cathleen Schine
• Susan Schneider
• Daniel Schulman
• Deborah Schupack
• Christine Schutt
• Lynne Sharon Schwartz
• Edward Schwarzschild
• John Sedgwick
• Maria Semple
• Linda Gray Sexton
• Bob Shacochis
• Lawrence Shainberg
• Kamila Shamsie
• Dani Shapiro
• Susan Shapiro
• Bruce Shapiro
• Kathleen Sharp
• Judy Sheehan
• Gail Sheehy
• Aaron Shepard
• Mike Shevdon
• Jody Shields
• Charles J. Shields
• Peggy Shinner
• Gary Shockley
• Jennie Shortridge
• Elaine Showalter
• Anita Shreve
• Susan Shreve
• Alix Kates Shulman
• Hampton Sides
• Larry Siems
• Joan Silber
• Kenneth Silverman
• Dan Simmons
• April Sinclair
• Leora Skolkin-Smith
• Holly Goldberg Sloan
• Gillian Slovo
• Jane Smiley
• Anne Easter Smith
• April Smith
• Dwayne Alexander Smith
• Lane Smith
• Mark Haskell Smith
• Sally Bedell Smith
• Sharon Snyder
• Andrew Solomon
• Deborah Solomon
• Sherri Somerville
• Debra Spark
• Scott Spencer
• Mario Spezi
• Dana Spiotta
• Hilary Spurling
• Walter Stahr
• Lynn Stegner
• Garth Stein
• Thomas Steinbeck
• Sabra Brown Steinsiek
• Leslie Stella
• John Stephens
• Sydney Ladensohn Stern
• Brooke Stevens
• Ian Stewart
• T.J. Stiles
• Alexander Stille
• S.M. Stirling
• John E. Stith
• James Stoddard
• Rebecca Stott
• Peter Straub
• Cheryl Strayed
• Elizabeth Strout
• Nancy Rubin Stuart
• Elizabeth Stuckey-French
• Ned Stuckey-French
• Alexandra Styron
• Cheryl Sucher
• Mark Sullivan
• Ellen Sussman
• Robert I. Sutton
• Terese Svoboda
• Kiki Swanson
• Michael Swanwick
• Alison Sweeney
• Will Swift
• Rachel Swirsky
• Sam Swope
• David Tallerman
• Marc Talbert
• Cecilia Tan
• Donna Tartt
• Nick Taylor
• Catherine Texier
• Phyllis Theroux
• Evan Thomas
• David Thurlo
• Lynne Tillman
• Amy Timberlake
• M.K. Tod
• Peter Trachtenberg
• James Treadwell
• Rose Tremain
• Calvin Trillin
• Lily Tuck
• Kenneth Turan
• William A. Turnage
• Scott Turow
• Frederic Tuten
• Cameron Tuttle
• Gene Twaronite
• Rachel Urquhart
• Rachel Vail
• Amanda Vaill
• Neela Vaswani
• John Vernon
• Judith Viorst
• Milton Viorst
• Patricia Volk
• Helena Maria Viramontes
• Ken Wachsberger
• Diana Wagman
• Wendy Wagner
• Dan Wakefield
• Amy Waldman
• Ayelet Waldman
• Allison Wallace
• Benjamin Wallace
• Carol Wallace
• Candace Walsh
• Jess Walter
• Geoffrey C. Ward
• Melanie Warner
• Frank Warren
• Rosanna Warren
• Elisabeth Waters
• Ian Watson
• Beck Weathers
• Eric Weiner
• Katherine Weissman
• Rebecca Wells
• Carol Weston
• Stephen White
• Dean Whitlock
• Thomas A. Williams
• Florence Williams
• Cheryl Wilson
• Robley Wilson
• Simon Winchester
• Terri Windling
• Brenda Wineapple
• Kit Wohl
• Mary Wolf
• Linda Wolfe
• Tobias Wolff
• Hilma Wolitzer
• Meg Wolitzer
• Patricia Smith Wood
• Monica Wood
• Stuart Woods
• Barbara Wright
• Lawrence Wright
• Dulce Xerach
• Linda Yellin
• Natasha Yim
• Jane Yolen
• Louisa Young
• Robert Clark Young
• Caroline Yourcheck
• Barry Yourgrau
• Cynthia Zarin
• Michael Zeilik
• Thomas Zigal
• Richard Zimler
• Michelle Zink
• Markus Zusak
• Maritess Zurbano

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The Voice of the Wolfe

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Over at MIT Technology Review, there's an interview with Gene Wolfe by Jason Pontin.  Gene never comes to these things with an agenda, so most of the weight in his interviews falls upon the interviewer -- how knowledgeable he or she is, how interesting the questions are.  So it's to Pontin's credit that he evoked such open responses as:

In The Book of the New Sun, I wanted to show a man who was raised to do terrible things and who reforms himself from inside. And so I thought up the Guild of Torturers and made the man a torturer. And in The Book of the Long Sun, I wanted to show another kind of man, brought up in a bad religion, working his way through it. So I came up with a fake religion in which the personalities of a long-ago tyrant and his family have been elevated to godhood in an artificial world.

and, when asked what self-deceptions being in the Korean War had stripped away from him:

Oh, that I was smarter than other people.

Which I am sure is going to be the source of recurrent arguments among Wolfe scholars for a long, long time to come.  Because, speaking as a smart person myself and one who knows many people much smarter than I am, Gene is one of the two or three smartest people I've ever met.  And yet... I can hear the sincerity in what he said.  He really means that.

I've got two theories as to what's behind that.  One is that he means something like "street smarts," the wisdom of one's everyday choices.  The other is that he's looking on human intelligence and seeing that sub species aeternatis, the range of human intelligence is not really that broad.  Both of these being valid observations.

You can read the entire interview here.

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Giving It Away

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There's this . . . thing going around on the Innertubes, part of a virtual scavenger hunt apparently, where people contact writers they've never met and ask them to write a 140-word flash fiction without offering to pay anything.  And a surprising number of writers oblige them.

That's the writer's option -- you're allowed to value your time and talent however you wish.  I have no beef with those who decide to do it just for fun or in order to do something nice for a stranger.

But it did occur to me that this might be a good time to provide you the simple rule by which you can decide whether or not to honor a request to write something for free.  This happens periodically.  Somebody contacts you to ask if you'll write a story for an anthology to benefit Bedbug Relief or whatever.  It seems a worthy cause.  You scratch your head.

Here's what you do:  Calculate how much that story is worth.  Ten cents a word is a good guess, if it's just an okay story.  (You don't want to donate one of your best because then you're throwing away all chances of being nominated for and possibly winning a major award.)  You lose all the intangibles of exposure in Asimov's or Analog, but what the heck.  Life is too short to worry about intangibles.

Now ask yourself:  Would you write a check in that amount for this particular cause?

If the answer is yes, writing the story makes eminent sense because the story's value is pre-taxes.  It won't add to what you have to pay into Social Security and you don't have to keep records in order to deduct it on your Form 1040.  Just give it away and forget it.

If the answer is no . . .  Well, the answer is obvious.

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Bad News From Japan

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This is not going to make you happy.  Studio Ghibli has announced that they will stop making new movies and focus on simply handling their copyrights.  Given the state of animation art today, the loss of The House That Miyazaki Built is far worse than the loss of Pixar or Disney would be.

Apparently, if you can read Japanese there's enough ambiguity in the phrasing of the announcement to hold out hope that the studio might yet rise from the ashes.  So I shall.  But it's a slim reed nonetheless.

You can read The Telegraph's article here.

The (translated) bare bones announcement can be found here.

And an analysis of the announcement concluding that moviemaking will resume someday can be found here.


And as always . . .

I'm on the road again.  Since I'll be traveling all day and exhausted when I finally reach home, I'm posting my Monday blog the night before.


And as a footnote . . .

There remains one Studio Ghibli film yet to be released, When Marnie Was There. The trailer is more lovely than thrilling, but the movie was directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi who made The Secret World of Arietty.  So it might well be splendid.

There's an article with Japanese language trailer here.

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