This was sixteen years ago.
We still have friends in and out, the door as close to revolving as sanity permits. But we discourage it now. I’m a happily married man, I have a full-time staff that comes in five days a week in hopes of assisting me toward clearing the long-standing obligations (such as the Hornbook), and Susan and I give a heavy sigh of relief when the last voyager goes out the door.
Even so, in the past couple of months (as I write this in July of 1989) we’ve had the following sharing Ellison Wonderland:
Leo & Diane Dillon, the longtime friends who taught me most of what I know about integrity and personal courage; the same Dillons who have won the Caldecott Award for their book covers; same Dillons who’ve done the covers for so many of my books. For the first time ever, they came to my home—though I had lived with, and off, them in New York years ago—and got to see all their wonderful art framed on my walls.
Ken Steacy, whose artwork was turned to my Kyben war stories in the wonderful graphic novel NIGHT AND THE ENEMY. He came to visit, and gave me a swell gift: a model he’d constructed, from scratch, of Blackhawk and his plane.
Gil Lamont. David Morrell. Dan Simmons. The memory blurs. It just keeps on keeping on. Good friends. Estimable talents. Ah, hell, maybe life ain’t such a bowl’a mush, after all.
Notice: do not call us from East Weewah, asking if you can live here for a while. I will just insult you.