WE TREASURE TWO photographs of Anne McCaffrey, here in the Lee and Miller household. Both of them show Anne enjoying herself immensely, posing with authority and just a little bit of ’tude.
The first photo was taken by Steve, in 1978, when Anne was Guest of Honor at BaltiCon 12. She has one arm casually slung around the domed head of a familiar ’bot, cigarette in one hand, drink in the other. Her head is up, her expression mischievous, and she’s wearing a very fannish sweatshirt, or a long-sleeved T-shirt, that puts forth these cosmic questions:
Why is man on this planet?
Why is space infinite?
Why are we doomed?
Why are you reading this stupid shirt?
In 1978, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller were not yet a team, though it happened that they both did, in very different capacities, attend BaltiCon 12.
Steve was a member of the concom (a fannish word for “convention committee”) and as such had contributed to the decision to bring Anne to BaltiCon as the Guest of Honor. He was also a full-time freelancer, writing fiction, music, and book reviews while stringing for a couple of local Baltimore-area newspapers. He was on the premises at the Hunt Valley Inn early, and as the only member of the press to ask for the honor, Anne granted him an interview and a photo op.
It was during the interview that Steve snapped the photo described previously; it was used in the Unicorn Times, the local Baltimore arts paper, as the lead photo for his story about BaltiCon.
After the interview, Steve and Anne toured the convention venue before it filled up, and before the rest of the concom arrived, since she had arrived the night before from Ireland.
The two hit it off, the way lubricated by the large number of “remember me to Annie!” exhortations Steve delivered from mutual fannish and professional acquaintances. They also found themselves at one regarding the benefits of workshops in writer development, Steve being a Clarion West survivor.
Since Steve’s first and second pro stories for Amazing had just been published, Anne dispensed advice on good markets and avoidable markets and urged him to join SFWA—the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America—instantly. She also went on at length about how important art was to writers, something she greatly appreciated since Michael Whelan’s cover art for The White Dragon was making waves and bringing increased attention to the book’s upcoming release.
Now, science fiction conventions don’t just happen, appearing at a hotel some Friday afternoon and evaporating at Sunday midnight. They are the effort of a particular science fiction community, such as the Baltimore Science Fiction Society, and they are run from opening ceremonies to the dead dog party (and for many months of planning before) by volunteers from the community.
As with all large undertakings, there are sometimes . . . glitches. When a glitch is discovered, members of the community step up to fix whatever’s gone wrong.
And so, on the morning of the Friday afternoon on which BaltiCon 12 was to begin, it was discovered that a whole file box full of name tags for the preregistered attendees had not yet been typed. (In 1978, we still did these things by typewriter and by hand.) Friday morning is always a frantic pre-con time, with a lot of last-minute tasks and setup to attend to—and the badges shouldn’t have been one of those “last-minute” things.
There was, on discovery of this lapse, a rather . . . energetic discussion in Ops (a fannish word for “operations office”) regarding how the name tags were to be made ready in time to open the registration table at four. The discussion was so energetic, in fact, that no one noticed that the Guest of Honor had entered the room and had heard the whole kerfuffle.
“I can,” she said, using all the lung power of a trained singer, “type, you know.”
There was a period of silence while people caught their breaths and waited for their ears to stop ringing. Then came a gentle objection from the con chair: Surely, they couldn’t ask their Guest of Honor to do gofer work.
“I’m bored,” was Anne’s answer. “Give me something to do.”
And so it was, when Sharon arrived at the convention that Friday evening, Anne McCaffrey was sitting behind the registration desk, happily typing the name tags for the on-site registrants, to many of those across the table just another energetic fan making them welcome at the con.
As Guest of Honor, Anne was, of course, the first and most honored member of the convention, a role she took to with serious playfulness, enjoying the panels and serious side of things, and taking an obvious and more than somewhat fannish delight in the art show and the hucksters room, and later at the numerous evening parties as well. She did this the entire weekend, tirelessly dealing as both pro and fan, with sharp interest in all aspects of her community.
BaltiCon 12 was Sharon’s second science fiction convention—ever. In addition to being a newbie, she was desperately shy and scarcely spoke to anyone during the entire weekend, least of all to the Guest of Honor. It was a lost opportunity but not a tragedy because Sharon had been introduced to Anne a decade earlier. At the tender age of fifteen, she had purchased Dragonflight—the first, but not the last, book on which she spent the grocery money. In her opinion, it was well worth the price; her mother . . . did not agree.
As it did to so many readers, Dragonflight spoke to Sharon—dragons! A strong, stubborn, driven female lead! Partnership between male and female!—so, okay, the guy had to be convinced, but, he had been convinced. A hero who could, and did, think!
It was more than an exciting story with great characters and wonderful world-building, though. It was an affirmation, a promise: Girls could get published, too.
In 1968? That was huge.
And it’s not a stretch to say that Dragonflight was directly responsible for Sharon’s attendance at her first-ever science fiction convention, BaltiCon 10 . . . as the winner of the con’s short story contest.
We’re going to fast-forward thirty years, now.
It’s 1997. Lee and Miller have been a team since mid-1979 and began writing together a few years later. They’ve seen published a handful of collaborative short stories and three novels set in a fictional space that’s come to be called the Liaden Universe®. Their publisher, Del Rey Books—coincidentally, the publisher of the Pern novels—had cut them loose in 1989 due to low sales. They haven’t sold a novel since 1988, though they’ve written rather a number, and—well, not to put too fine a point on it, they are washed-up writers. Their career is, in a word, dead.
In August, 1997, Sharon accepted employment as the first full-time executive director of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Inc.—SFWA—the professional writers organization that Anne had been trying to get Steve to join, way back in 1978.
SFWA had been used to running on volunteer power, sort of like science fiction convention fandom. As news of her hiring spread throughout the organization, Sharon received many letters from past SFWA volunteers and officers, offering congratulations, condolences, and advice.
And one day, very soon after she took up her new duties, she received a paper letter from Ireland.
The return address was Dragonhold-Underhill, County Wicklow.
Of course, Sharon knew that Anne McCaffrey was a member of SFWA, but it was still kind of . . . cool to receive a letter from that particular address. She opened the envelope, expecting a membership question or perhaps a donation to one of SFWA’s philanthropic funds.
The letter began:
Dear Sharon Lee,
If I say that I am a fan of yours, will you stop reading?
Sharon blinked, flipped to the second page, and checked the signature:
Anne McCaffrey
She flipped back to the first page.
The letter went on to talk knowledgeably of the first three Liaden books, praising them in the highest possible terms. It was both stunning and warming—who were washed-up writers Lee and Miller to get fan mail from Anne McCaffrey?—and she closed, Anne-like, by mentioning that she had once been SFWA’s secretary-treasurer, responsible for much of the work Sharon now had on her plate as executive director, and offering carte blanche any help she could give—Sharon had only to ask.
From this start, a correspondence grew up, migrating eventually to email.
In one of those back-and-forths, Anne wondered why there hadn’t been any more Liaden novels after Carpe Diem. The answer to that was that the publisher had declined to continue the series, citing lack of numbers. “Numbers” is publisher-speak for “units sold.”
Anne’s opinion was that sometimes it took a book, or a series, “a while” to reach full potential in terms of numbers. This was something that hadn’t occurred to us in quite those terms, but it was borne out by emails we’d started to get from other readers of our first three novels who wondered, as Anne had done, What Happened Next?
There are a lot of writers who’ll tell you how hard it is to write—and they’re not wrong. But the hardest part of the writer’s job isn’t the writing—it’s sending the finished manuscript out into the world. The assumption must be that it will be rejected—as the overwhelming majority of manuscripts are—so the effort seems not only futile, but masochistic. And it saps the heart right out of you.
But, now, near the end of 1997, the combination of Anne’s insight and the emails from other readers gave us the courage to consider what, exactly, we might do in order to come back from the dead. After all, we had all of those books written, and readers who wanted to read them.
The result of those considerations was that, by early 1998, Lee and Miller had a publisher who was enthusiastic and willing to publish their backlist and their front list.
So it was that we had just finished polishing and submitting the fourth book in the Liaden Universe® series to our new publisher when Anne sent an email, asking what we’d been doing.
The completion of the novel was reported, and Anne immediately asked to see it, adding, “I take paperclips.”1
So, the manuscript for Plan B was duly shipped off to Ireland as an email attachment.
Now Plan B was supposed to have been an action-adventure novel, but there was a scene that was specifically character-building right in the middle of a very intense fight-and-flight situation. Long story short, in the final draft, that character-building section was removed and the edges of the excision smoothed out.
Remember this.
The next morning, there was an email from Anne in the inbox. She was full of praise for the novel, the characters, the world-building, but, she thought she would just mention that . . .
There was a scene missing.
And she pinpointed the spot in the narrative from which the slow character-building section had been excised.
Lee and Miller explained that, yes, there had been something there, but that it had been cut to make weight.
From Anne came the direction, “Send it to me.”
The cut scene was therefore emailed, and when the next batch of mail was downloaded, there was a return note from Anne. It was brief:
“Put it back.”
It’s never wise to argue with a force of nature, or with a writer who knows story so well that she could see the place where a scene wasn’t and call it out.
Anne wasn’t done with us, though.
No sooner had the cut material been restored and the newly compiled manuscript emailed, with excuses, to our publisher, than another email arrived from Anne, with our former editor at Del Rey, who happened to be Anne’s current and longtime editor, copied on the note.
Anne waxed effusive about Plan B—it was a wonderful book; she predicted that we’d have no problem selling it (though she knew it had already been placed), and she looked forward with great anticipation to the continuation of both the long-interrupted story and our careers as writers.
Lee looked at Miller; or perhaps Miller looked at Lee; and one of them said to the other, “She’s going to get us killed.”
In fact, there was no reply—that Lee and Miller ever heard about—to that note; life went on; in due time Plan B was published, and, of course, the authors sent a signed book to Anne McCaffrey, to thank her for all her many kindnesses.
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.