A few weeks after that, the Lee and Miller household received the second of those treasured photographs, this taken about twenty-one years after the first and on the very premises of Dragonhold-Underhill.
Del Rey Books had asked, as publishers sometimes will ask their writers, to send an updated publicity photo for use in promoting her new book. Anne had her picture taken with Pumpkin, the resident Dragonhold-Underhill Maine Coon cat, sitting in front of Anne’s work computer. To one side of the computer is a large stack of books, and near the top of the stack, in line with Anne’s cheekbone and Pumpkin’s frown, is Plan B, the title on the spine admirably readable.
This time, Lee and Miller were resigned, amused, and well-delighted to receive the picture, which was promptly framed and hung.
Over the next few years, Anne’s involvement in Lee and Miller’s return from the dead and continuing career was active. She demanded the right to write the introduction to the omnibus volume that reissued the first three Liaden books. She bullied Lee and Miller’s publisher into sending her unbound signatures of each of the then-seven books—but she refused to say why.
We soon found out.
Now, during this time, there had been a free exchange of packages between Ireland and Maine. Pine cones, puzzles, and moose may have been involved.
So, it wasn’t completely unusual for Lee and Miller to return home from a convention to find a box from Ireland sitting on the porch. It was rather larger than previous boxes, and it weighed a ton.
There was a reason for that.
Inside the box were two complete sets of our books, bound in red leather, stamped in gold.
Lee looked at Miller and said, “I’m afraid to touch them.”
Miller looked at Lee and said, “Why would she do this?”
Anne’s answer to that—the tone of the email a sort of half-surprised doesn’t everyone?—was that she always had her favorite books bound in leather.
When life, health, and work get complicated, correspondence tends to fall off. So it was with Lee and Miller and Anne McCaffrey. We’d get a note when a new book came out—often before we’d gotten our authors’ copies. Sharon once told her that she shouldn’t ever have to buy a copy of one of our books, that we’d be pleased to send her as many as she could read.
Anne’s answer was, “Writers don’t make money by giving books away.”
In early 2005, though, an email arrived from Ireland.
The message was simple: “I’ll be at Dragon*Con this year. So will you.”
Still too wise to argue with a force of nature, Lee and Miller packed and drove from Waterville, Maine, to Atlanta, Georgia, in all the heat of August, to see Anne McCaffrey.
It turned out that Anne was still as much a fan as a pro about conventions; she took huge delight in reading T-shirts and in admiring costumes. If she now traveled by scooter, it was a well-directed scooter moving brusquely where she wanted it to go, and woe to those who remained slaves of bipedal motion.
Anne’s Dragon*Con schedule at that point was pretty hectic for a woman born almost eighty years before, but in the midst of it all, we managed to meet for dinner. The topics of conversation ranged from book plans to computers and search engines to characters to upcoming Worldcons and potential TV or movie deals. She maintained the same lively interest in new writers becoming part of SFWA and taking advantage of workshopping opportunities as she had when she’d met Steve in 1978.
Eventually the restaurant where we’d met for dinner needed our table for a reservation—and like any number of fans at any number of conventions, we parted with plans to see each other the following year.
Then the Dragonlady pulled into pedestrian traffic at a spanking pace, leaving us to find our way back on our own.
Anne died in November 2011.
Since then, Lee and Miller have been to several science fiction conventions, as guests of honor and as panelists. An Anne McCaffrey appreciation panel has been part of each of those conventions. The panelists are a testimony to the wide swath Anne cut through the science fiction community—writers, editors, artists, filkers2, con runners—all of us have stories.
That’s warming, but not particularly extraordinary. Panelists are, after all, asked to speak about subjects of which they’re knowledgeable.
No, what’s been . . . notable . . . is the number of people in the packed-to-the-walls audiences who knew Anne as well or better than the panelists and whose stories and memories are no less precious, personal, and extraordinary.
In the end, we’re all memories and the stories that people tell.
Anne left us some damned fine stories and memories like stars on a cloudless night.
Ciao for now, Annie.
Maine-based writers SHARON LEE and STEVE MILLER teamed up in the late 1980s to bring the world the story of Kinzel, an inept wizard with a love of cats, a thirst for justice, and a staff of true power. Since then, the husband-and-wife team have written dozens of short stories and twenty novels, most set in their star-spanning Liaden Universe®.
Before settling down to the serene and stable life of a science fiction and fantasy writer, Steve was a traveling poet, a rock-band reviewer, reporter, and editor of a string of community newspapers.
Sharon, less adventurous, has been an advertising copywriter, copy editor on night-side news at a small city newspaper, reporter, photographer, and book reviewer. Both credit their newspaper experiences with teaching them the finer points of collaboration.
In 2012, Lee and Miller were jointly presented with the Skylark Award for lifetime achievement, given by the New England Science Fiction Association. Among previous Skylark recipients are Sir Terry Pratchett, George R. R. Martin-and Anne McCaffrey.
1 Paperclip is, as far as Lee and Miller know, a designation unique to Anne McCaffrey. It gave us pause on first reading, but we quickly figured out that what she meant was “email attachment” and that the “paperclip” came from the Microsoft icon of a paperclip, which indicates that a particular piece of email has an attachment.
2 Filker—someone who sings filk—the “folk songs” of the science fiction and fantasy community. Attributed to a typo in a program book that went viral many decades ago.
Way back in 1984, Author Services Inc. established the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Award. They approached the best science fiction and fantasy writers of the time and asked them to be judges. Isaac Asimov, Robert Silverberg, Algis Budrys, and many other luminaries agreed—which was a resounding endorsement of the award. Shortly after that, Anne McCaffrey was asked if she would be a judge, and she agreed. If there was one constant in Anne’s life, it was her adherence to the creed “never simply return a favor, pass it on,” and this was very clearly a case of being able to do so.
John Goodwin was there from the beginning. He and Anne developed a great relationship, and they were always thrilled at any chance to get together.
Anne loved being able to greet new writers and encourage them in continuing in the craft, and she loved the chance to sparkle and show off her best self—she even managed to get me in a suit!
Star Power
JOHN GOODWIN
I GOT TO know Anne McCaffrey through the Writers of the Future, a program initiated by L. Ron Hubbard to help discover and promote budding writers.
In 1985, Anne became the first female judge for the Writers of the Future contest—which is a funny story in itself. She was speaking with Algis Budrys—a renowned writer, editor, and critic—at a West Coast convention. He had just purchased one of Anne’s first stories, “The Ship Who Sang,” and he told her about his new job working with the Writers of the Future. He said that with the writing contest they’d have several celebrity judges who would read the stories. To which she replied, “Gee, that’s a great idea,” and passed it off. But the next time she saw Algis, she asked why all of his judges were male. She proceeded to list names of stellar women writers like Kate Wilhelm, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Andre Norton, emphasizing the potential candida
tes for a female judge. In Anne’s own words, from a video interview with me, “I could get rather stuffy about lack of females when there should be some, and there was no reason why there weren’t some on that.” Algis agreed with a simple “Yes.” A short while later, the contest sent a letter asking Anne to be one of the judges. “So,” as Anne put it in that same video interview, “I ended up putting my feet where my mouth was.”
Anne served with distinction as a judge. Dave Wolverton, coordinating judge, describes Anne as one of his “go-to” judges.
“She was always eager to judge,” he says of her, “even when she was sick, or busy, or tired. She was one of those special people who made time to help. She loved new writers, and when she took an interest in one, Anne would follow the writer’s career for years. She would ask me about them, and sometimes even called a new author to express her appreciation, offer encouragement, or give advice.”
In fact, several years after Dave himself won the contest back in 1987, he began getting mysterious faxes in the middle of the night—faxes that showed how his books were doing on bestseller lists in England. Curious to discover who was behind this, he called the number that the faxes had come from, and Anne answered the phone. He asked, “So, did our agent ask you to do this?” (They both had the same agent.) Anne replied, “Why, no, I’m just a fan and thought that you should know how well you’re doing.” Others could report similar tales of her kindness.
But while I felt that I got to know Anne from the very first book I read of hers—The Crystal Singer—it wasn’t until I was able to spend time with her at a series of Writers of the Future workshops that I discovered her passion for the performing arts. She had initially studied to be a Broadway singer. She had persisted in trying to make a career of it, and it wasn’t until her coach told her that a burr in her voice would prevent her from ever truly making it as a singer that she finally agreed that it was not for her. At that point she decided to give writing a try—something she had not done before. She submitted her first story to Science-Fiction Plus, a short-lived magazine. It wasn’t the home run that every new writer hopes for; again in her own words, “I got $1 thousand for it, which was a cent a word. But it was printed with my name on it and that was just after my son Alec was born and that was great stuff.”
After she told me about her change in career direction, I asked if she would be interested in performing in one of our theatrical productions of a Hubbard short story at Dragon*Con, the annual science fiction and fantasy convention in Atlanta, Georgia, that featured a full track of programming dedicated to her Pern series. At that time, the Writers of the Future awards event took place annually just before Dragon*Con. I suggested that I could get together with Pat Henry, the show’s director, and we would work together to bring Anne to the States to attend our respective events.
It was as if I had opened a long-shut part of her, which geysered forth. Her eyes became very bright and excited at the thought of being in a performance, and in her countenance you could see that young girl who so many years earlier had wanted to perform. As it turns out, David Carradine (Kung Fu, Kill Bill 1 and 2) was already attending Dragon*Con and had made himself available to perform on any show we could arrange. Hubbard was one of his favorite authors, and he had performed in several other radio theater shows of Hubbard’s works back at our Golden Age Theater in Hollywood. So, Anne and David teamed up, along with other local actors, in what was to be Anne’s first theatrical production in decades—as one of the key characters in Hubbard’s Ole Doc Methuselah.
It wasn’t until 2006 that Anne performed in her next show for us. By this time, she was in her electric scooter, on which she rapidly developed a reputation of being, shall we say, an “aggressive” driver—meaning you had best move out of the way when she came careening down an aisle on her way to one of her many signings or panels. We held our Writers of the Future awards event in San Diego at the Air & Space Museum that year, which was followed just a few days later by the Sixty-Fourth World Science Fiction Convention in Los Angeles (L.A.con IV). Galaxy Press, as an exhibitor at the convention, was able to sponsor a show. This time Anne costarred in the performance of The Dangerous Dimension with actress Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces, Airport 1975). Among this audience, Anne was every bit on par with Karen in her “star power.”
These were the only two shows that Anne performed for us, although she continued to attend our Writers of the Future workshops and awards ceremonies, where she always seemed to enjoy speaking with each year’s winners and presenting them with their awards, and where, in 2004, she was the recipient of the L. Ron Hubbard Lifetime Achievement Award. I continued writing to Anne via email after she stopped doing any long-distance travel and found her continuously promoting the Writers of the Future contest and doing what she could to help each year’s new crew of winners. Anne was a friend, not just to me, but to all who aspired to the arts. She proved to be a woman of many talents—with wisdom and compassion to match.
JOHN GOODWIN, president of Galaxy Press—publisher of the fiction works of L. Ron Hubbard and the annual Writers of the Future anthology—has been involved with book publishing since 1986. He is a board member of the Audio Publishers Association, a national organization of the audio publishing industry. He has become very active in the Hollywood community the past several years, serving as a board member of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and a board member of the Friends of Hollywood Central Park (an organization creating a forty-four-acre park over the Holywood Freeway). He is also one of the main organizers of the Hollywood Christmas Parade. He is a member of the Explorers Club, Science Fiction Writers of America, Mystery Writers of America, and Western Writers of America, as well as the Dubai Press Club, as part of an international effort to introduce Galaxy Press’ publishing program into the Middle East.
In 1969, as Anne McCaffrey’s marriage was falling apart, David Gerrold’s life turned topsy-turvy, and they found themselves talking long-distance: each consoling and counseling the other. Shortly after Anne arrived in Ireland in 1970, she invited David to come over, extolling the joys of tax exemption for writers and artists.
David came and found digs of his own not long after. And, in a case of reality being sometimes weirder than science fiction, he called Anne one day with the startling news, “Annie, Lessa is my landlady.”
Jan Regan, at five foot mumble and ninety pounds soaking wet, with dark brown eyes and long hair, was the embodiment of Lessa in looks and, it turns out, in character, too. Unable to find dragons to ride, Jan was an exercise rider for racehorses.
David has remained a friend of the family ever since.
How the Dragonlady Saved My Life
DAVID GERROLD
ANNE MCCAFFREY REDEFINED the term “Dragonlady.”
She made it a good thing—so much so that Terry Pratchett based a major character on her in his Discworld series. But before Anne McCaffrey was the Dragonlady of Dublin, she was also a pretty damn good science fiction author in her own write. And she had a singing voice that could crack mahogany.
I’ll begin at the beginning. As I have noted elsewhere, 1969 was a particularly horrible year for me. It was the worst year of my life. I won’t go into the details here; I’ll put it in a book and let you pay for the privilege of sharing the horror. Two people saved my life. One was Harlan Ellison; the other was Anne McCaffrey.
I had met both of them in 1968. I met Harlan at a small Los Angeles convention in July. I met Anne two months later at Baycon, the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention, held at the Hotel of Usher in Berkeley. I rode up there on my motorcycle. Despite having sold a script to that TV show (the one with the guy who had bangs and pointy ears), I was still a skinny, awkward kid who had not yet outgrown various adolescent self-esteem issues.
I met Anne McCaffrey in the bar. In those days, the real convention always happened in the bar. I also met Frederik Pohl, Harry Harrison, Robert Silverberg, Terry Carr, Randall Garrett, Frank Herbert, Fritz Leiber, Poul Anderson, Go
rdon R. Dickson, Philip Jose Farmer, Lester del Rey, Betty and Ian Ballantine, John W. Campbell, Damon Knight, Kate Wilhelm, Leigh Brackett, A. E. van Vogt, and almost every other author who had informed my childhood and teenage years with hours of wonder. It was better than Disneyland.
Anne McCaffrey was the secretary-treasurer of the Science Fiction Writers of America.
The SFWA had been founded in 1965 by Damon Knight. For several years, SF writers had been muttering that they needed some kind of organization. One day, Damon Knight sent out letters saying, “Send me five dollars for your dues.” And that was how the SFWA was started. By 1968, Anne McCaffrey had taken on the unrewarding duties of collecting dues, managing the membership roles, and publishing the newsletter. In effect, she was the organization. This made her the reigning queen of science fiction.
In those days, the only qualification for membership in the organization was that you had to have published a science fiction story. I asked Anne if writing a script for that TV show would count. She made an immediate executive decision that it did and collected my five dollars. Since then, membership qualifications have been made much stricter, but I do not believe that this was my fault.
Anne and I hit it off immediately. I can’t say what the magic was—because it was magic. Magic doesn’t work if you analyze it. But there were sparks struck at that convention that triggered a lifelong friendship. Anne was nominated for a Hugo Award; so was I. I sat next to her at the awards banquet. I held her hand when she won; she held my hand when I didn’t. I celebrated with her; she commiserated with me. That cemented the bond.
In July and August of 1969, 1 experienced several of the life lessons that fuel much of the world’s greatest literature. It is one thing to use words like ecstasy and joy and horror and anguish—it is quite another to experience those emotions and discover that words alone are simply insufficient. I’ll say this much—testifying at a murder trial was never on my list of things I wanted to do. It’s not a fun experience. I’ve had fun; that wasn’t it.
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