Dragonwriter (5 page)

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, filkers
²
, 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.

W
ay 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!

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 candidates 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.