A Small Update

I've just updated the main website at ConnieWillis.net with a Bibliography for Blackout from Connie (she will do a separate one for All Clear when it comes out).  In updated appearances, Connie will be participating at The 2010 Nasfic, ReConStruction, in Raleigh, NC in early August and at BuboniCon 42 in Albuquerque, NM in late August.  Look for more updates soon both here on the blog and on the main website as we get closer to the release of All Clear!

More Blackout reviews and a signing report

The Denver Post Review: "Blackout" author Connie Willis a worthy heir to Heinlein


Locus Online:  Review of Blackout

Seattle Signing Report - Connie Willis Likes My Shirt!

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:

Blackout on the NYT List, More Photos

According to official sources, BLACKOUT will hit #34 on The New York Times bestseller list for fiction on February 21st.  Congrats to Connie!

Below are some pictures from Connie's appearance at Borderlands Books in San Francisco.  As with all the stops on the tour, they should have some signed copies of Blackout as well as some of Connie's other books in their inventory.  Photos are courtesy of Cordelia and Connie Willis.

Connie Willis Guest Blogging on Suvudu

Connie Willis will be guest blogging on Suvudu and will also be answering questions in the comments there. Follow this link to the first post. This blog entry will be updated with links to subsequent posts on Suvudu.

 

Connie Willis talks Blackout (Part 1)

Connie Willis talks Blackout (Part 2)

Connie Willis talks Blackout (Part 3)

Connie Willis talks Blackout (Part 4)

Connie Willis talks Blackout (Part 5)

Connie Willis talks Blackout (Part 6)

Connie Willis talks Blackout (Part 7)

Blackout Tour Links Roundup

Articles and Interviews

The Greeley Tribune talks to Connie about her donating her papers to the University of Northern Colorado.

The Reporter Herald - Article about Connie's donation

Tor,.com - Blackout article

Subterranean Press - Short article with cover of limited edition of Blackout

San Francisco Chronicle - Article about the book and Connie.

I09 - Article about the book's release and an article about the donation of her papers to UNC

Reviews

Val's Random Comments - Review of Blackout


Book Page.com - Review of Blackout

Seattle Times - Book review

MAVENity - Review

Lit Soup - Short Review

Journal Sentinel Online - Book Review

More posts (added on 12/13/10)
A short article about Connie and the time travel books on Okie Reads.

A report on the Borderlands Books signing from Book Love Affair.

Announcements

NW MediaArts Writers Workshop at the Seattle SF Awards Weekend: June 26th - June 27
Connie will be doing a writer's workshop at the Richard Hugo House on Sunday, June 27th.

SOme recent News Articles, reviews and interviews

Blackout was released yesterday and with the book tour now underway, there's a lot of articles turning up online. Here's a sample of them:

Nerdvana Article

San Francisco Chronicle Interview

Reviews

January Magazine

SF Reviews.net

Io9

Connie Reads from Blackout

Blackout is Coming

We now have a full update on conniewillis.net, including the schedule for the Blackout Book Tour, some new pictures (including the one here taken by Kyle Cassidy at WorldCon in Montreal this year, and more.

Random House now has an excerpt from Blackout available online here.

And we also have the following message from Connie:


A MESSAGE FROM CONNIE WILLIS - Jan 2010

I'm finally done with my two-volume time travel to the Blitz novel, BLACKOUT-ALL CLEAR! Oh, frabjous day! Calloo, callay!

BLACKOUT comes out February second, and ALL CLEAR will be out in the autumn. And I'm done, I'm done, I'm done!

Okay, okay, I know I said I was done with the Blitz novel in the fall of 2008. And last spring. And this November. And it's still not done. I still have the copyedited manuscript and the galleys to do for the second volume, ALL CLEAR, and there are days when I think I'll never be done, that like Zeno's frog, I will just keep halving the distance to completion without ever getting there.

However, I am sort of done, and the first volume, BLACKOUT, is coming out in February. Honest. I've seen the cover, the reviewers' copies have been sent out, and assorted booksignings have been set up. (See schedule above.) And, as my daughter so aptly put it, "If you're hit by a bus now, you don't have to worry about some hack finishing your novel."

And I must be done because I A) am sleeping much better; B) am several inches taller, due to that giant albatross no longer hanging around my neck; and C) my family says I have been much nicer lately. I have also been beginning to think about other projects. Every time I've had a glimmer of a story idea over the last few years, I've had to firmly squelch it because I had no time to work on anything else, but now I can actually write other stuff, and the ideas have begun bubbling up. There's a story I've been wanting to write about a robot who wants to be a Rockette, and one about Satchel Paige, who was the greatest baseball pitcher who ever lived, but who never got to play in the Majors till he was past his prime. And I can't wait to get started on my Roswell--Area 51--alien-abduction--romantic comedy novel, tentatively titled The Road to Roswell.

But first I need to dig out from the mess I made while writing the novel, answer six years' worth of e-mails, send out my Christmas letter (I know it's already January!), catch up on six years' worth of laundry, and find out what Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin have been up to. (Surely they've gotten over their initial dislike of President Obama by now.)

I also plan to catch up on my reading. I just finished The Chimes, one of Charles Dickens' Christmas novels, and it was terrific. It was also clearly the prototype of It's a Wonderful Life, right down to the suicide attempt, which I did not know. Right now I'm reading Screwball (about the great movie comedies of the thirties) and can't wait to start UFOs and the Murder of Marilyn Monroe, which I got for Christmas, and which promises to tell me just how she was "murdered by U.S. government officials because she knew too much about the Roswell UFO coverup!" Which I also did not know.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to seeing you--I hope--at one of my book tour stops and signings or at a convention soon.A belated Merry Christmas-Hanukkah-Solstice-Kwanzaa-Holiday Season, a Deliriously Happy New Year, and Good Reading!

Connie Willis, Jan 2010