Thursday, February 11, 2010

Connie Willis

Connie Willis has received six Nebula Awards and ten Hugo Awards for her fiction. Her books include Passage, Doomsday Book, Lincoln’s Dreams, Bellwether, Impossible Things, Remake, Uncharted Territory, To Say Nothing of the Dog, Fire Watch, Miracle and Other Christmas Stories, and the newly released Blackout, in which the German air attack on St. Paul's Cathedral in London on the 29th of December, 1940, plays a pivotal role.

From her Q & A with Cynthia Potts at Publishers Weekly:

What's the appeal of setting stories during the London Blitz?

I love the pluck and stamina of the British and the humor and courage with which they held out against Hitler. And I love the intensified nature of wartime existence, where a few minutes' delay can cost you your life and a mistake or a change in the weather can alter the entire course of the war. I think those things are always true in our lives, but they're ramped up during wartime, where every decision is life-or-death.

You've been writing science fiction for over 30 years. How has the genre changed during that time?

At my very first writer's conference, George...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue