All Clear Book Tour

Tuesday, October 19 – DENVER, CO

Time: 7:30pm
Tattered Cover Book Store
2526 East Colfax Avenue, Denver, CO 80206

Capclave 2010
Author Guest of Honor
Rockville, Maryland
Oct 22-24, 2010

Monday, October 25 – DENVER, CO
Time: 7:00pm
Broadway Book Mall
200 S. Broadway, Denver, CO 80209

Tuesday, October 26 – SEATTLE, WA
Time: 7:30pm
University Bookstore
4326 University Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105
**Event to be held at Kane Hall, Room 210

Wednesday, October 27 – PORTLAND, OR
Time: 7:00pm
Powell’s Books, Cedar Hills Crossing
3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton, OR

Thursday, October 28 – SAN DIEGO, CA
Time: 7:00pm
Mysterious Galaxy
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd., San Diego, CA 92111

Friday, October 29 – PHOENIX, AZ
Time: 7:00pm
Poisoned Pen
4014 N. Goldwater, Ste. 101, Scottsdale, AZ 85251

An Update from Connie!

Hi, everybody! I just got back from my book tour--sort of. I still have a signing in Texas on Friday and assorted local signings. Thank you all for coming to my signings. It was great to see everybody! And especially thanks to everyone who showed up at Borderlands in San Francisco, where the weather was absolutely wretched. And in Seattle, where you had to miss the first part of the Superbowl. Or the Superbowl ads. Which ad was your favorite? I loved the Paris Google ad and hated the married guy/Dodge one.


Anyway, everywhere I went, people asked me the same two questions:

1. How did you get interested in time travel?

and

2. Did you have to do a lot of research for BLACKOUT?

A lot of people also said they wished I'd listed the books I'd used to research the novel at the end of the book. Novels don't ordinarily have bibliographies, but I promised I'd list some of my favorite research books on this site as soon as I've looked up all the titles and authors.

In the meantime, I'll answer the second question:

An Update From Connie

The novel is now really turned in, though there's still tons of work (and cutting) to be done on it, so I won't really feel like celebrating until that's done and the book's formally accepted and everything. I worked on the Obama campaign and I'm still deliriously happy about the election a week later and having a little trouble with withdrawal, though I am busily watching Sarah Palin's Victory Tour? which is helping some.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Connie Willis

Connie at San Diego Comic Con International

I've got a round up of news and information from Connie's appearances at San Diego Comic Con International last weekend. Her group panel with other authors was packed and her solo spotlight panel was nearly full. At her spotlight panel, she indicated that All Clear would be finished in the next month.

Thursday was the Eye on the Past panel with a number of authors. From left to right in the picture are Maryelizabeth Hart (moderator from Mysterious Galaxy), Peter David, Naomi Novik, Connie Willis, Max Allan Collins (with a wall of books), Jess Winfield, and Jacqueline Carey. Each author talked about how their books are set in a specific time and what is involved with researching the time period. It appeared that a good number of the attendees in the panel room were there primarily for Naomi Novik.

After the panel was a signing with all of the authors. As somewhat expected, most of the people in the autograph line had something for Naomi Novik, so those of us with books for the other authors got to skip ahead and take care of their books.

On Friday, Connie did her spotlight panel where she talked about All Clear and answered questions from the audience. This livejournal post by kalquessa (after the Stargate panel review) summarizes Connie's panel well. Later in the day, she did a signing at the Bantam Spectra booth. Suvudu.com (Bantam/Spectra's new online site) has a video of Connie signing Passage. After the signing, Suvudu taped an interview of Connie with her editor, Anne Groell, that should turn up on the site sometime in the near future.

Saturday night, Connie watched her daughter, Cordelia, perform in the Comic Con masquerade. Her group, doing a scifi take on Hairspray, won Judges choice.

Connie's next official event was a signing at the Bantam Spectra booth on Sunday, in which they handed out copies of Bellwhether.

All Clear Update - Not Quite Done

Reports from Balticon and elsewhere about the status of All Clear had indicated that All Clear was finished and turned in. That is not the case. In an email correspondence with Connie, she indicated "It's not. It's very, very close, but as you know there's a very great difference between that and finished." So, no it has not yet been turned in to her publisher and reports of it having been completed were premature.

BaltiCon 42 Blog Reports

I've found several people who have blogged about BaltiCon 42 this weekend that have mentioned Connie in their blogs.

First of all, Greeley, Colorado, was hit with tornadoes late last week and according to a report on the opening ceremonies, Connie mentioned that her house and family were OK.

The other important news is that Connie has finished All Clear after six years working on it and after a few more tweaks it will be sent off to the publisher. I'm hoping to get some more details directly from Connie soon.

Here's a roundup of the blog reports:

A Curious Statistical Anomaly has several daily reports under the BaltiCon tag. This includes the report on opening ceremonies and the report on Connie's Q&A where she mentioned the status of All Clear.

Wombat Rampant reports on Balticon as well in several posts.

Punkadyne Labs (i.e. Grig "Punkie Larson") posted a couple of blog entries on BaltiCon, including one about doing a panel called "Who Really Wrote the Works of Connie Willis?"

Finally, there should eventually be an interview/podcast with Connie up on the BaltiCon Podcast website.

Lee Whiteside