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

Studio 360 Podcast and Video now online

The Studio 360 web site added the Time Travel episode to their page on 1/01/10 including the full audio of the show as well as several video clips including this one with Connie Willis and David Goldberg talking about time travel.

Studio 360 Report on tor.com

Ellen Wright attended the Studio 360 taping and reports on tor.com primarily about the time travel discussion with Connie Willis and science writer Dave Goldberg. Check out the article here.

Indications on the Studio 360 blog are that the show will be broadcast on NPR sometime around New Year's Eve and that it will also be made available online then.

Connie Willis on NPR's Radio 360 This week

Connie Willis will be in New York on Tuesday, Nov 17th, to take part in a live recording of NPR's Studio 360 at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Space. The show is sold out, but they supposedly will offer a live webcast on the website at 7 pm ET which will likely stay available. Once I have more details on when it will be broadcast on the radio and associated links for that, I will post them.

Their web site describes the show as:

On November 17, Studio 360 takes you where no audience has gone before: traveling through time. In this live show hosted by Kurt Andersen at WNYC's The Greene Space (taped for later broadcast), scientists and artists explain why time travel is more than an idle fantasy.

Astrophysicist David Goldberg (A User's Guide to the Universe) unravels the physics of time travel. Sci-fi writer Connie Willis tells us what to do if your journey through time goes awry. Simon Wells, the great-grandson of H.G., shares his obsession with the classic The Time Machine. Musical sensation Janelle Monae performs her 28th-century funk. And Mike Daisey drops by to give us advice from the future.

Studio 360's "Science & Creativity" explores the intersection of art and science. The series is supported in part by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

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

New Online Interviews

Mur Lafferty Interview From BaltiCon 42.
On Mur Lafferty's I Should be Writing 2.0 blog, she has posted a two part video interview with Connie from BaltiCon 42. Part 1 Part 2

BaltiCon Podcast Connie Willis Interview
On the Balticon Podcast site, they have recently posted their podcast interview with Connie Willis, BaltiCon 42's Author Guest of Honor.