A Day to Remember

December 21, 2024 at 8:48 am

Sometimes you CAN go home again, no matter what Tom Wolfe said. At least for a visit.

For me, home was Bayonne, New Jersey, just south of Jersey City, on a peninsula sandwiched between New York and Newark. We had I was born in Bayonne in 1948, and spent my childhood there, most of it in the federal housing projects on First Street, with the lights of Staten Island across the waters of the Kill Von Kull. Bayonne was my world until 1966, when I went off to college at Northwestern, the first time I ever went beyond the borders of Jersey and NYC (except in books and comics, of course, where I could often be found on Trantor, Barsoom or Mars, or wandering the mean streets of Gotham City).

After college, I remained in Chicago to do two years alternative service with VISTA, and a couple of additional years directing chess tournaments. My years in Iowa came after that, and finally Santa Fe in 1979. I spent time in Hollywood as well. I still had family in Jersey, though, so I returned as often as I could. Once or twice a year, most years. It was always nice to come back, see my sisters and their kids and grandkids… and remember. Bayonne has changed some over the years…the city has lost all its movie houses, and Uncle Milty’s Amusement Park where I had my first job… but the projects are still there, and Brady’s Dock, and Mary Jane Donohoe School on 5th Street… the candy store on Kelly Parkway where I bought my comic books and Ace Doubles is still there, and so is the Fifth Street Deli-Ette… oh, and Hendrickson’s Corner, and Judicke’s sprinkle Donuts…

And the public library remains… changed some, yes… but better than ever.

I remember the library. I always will.

And it would seem that the library remembers me. They have just completed some renovations, and did me the honor of naming one of the new rooms after me: the George R.R. Martin Room for Popular Fiction. To mark the occasion, they declared October 15 to be George R.R. Martin.

That is… so cool, so… so… well, words fail me. I have won a lot of awards over the course my career: Emmys and Golden Globes, Hugo Awards and Nebulas, Dragons and Bram Stokers, World Fantasy Awards, (I have lost a lot more, to be sure, but then that’s only fitting for a guy who helped found the Hugo Losers Club)… but I have never had a day before. Few have. After all, there are only 365 of them.

James (Jimmy) Davis, Bayonne’s mayor, presided over the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Old friends and new attended.

Of course, we had a great turnout from the library staff.

The library also added a wonderful mosaic dragon to its decor.

I was asked to say a few words, and was thrilled to do so. Given the circumstance I could probably have talked for hours. So many memories, so much to say. But I resisted the impulse. We shook a few hands, and then went down to Hendrickson’s Corner.

This was a very special day for me. One I will longer remember.

Current Mood: loved loved

Tags: awards, bayonne, speeches, travel

R.I.P Trent

December 7, 2024 at 7:47 am

We spent Thanksgiving as we usually do, gathering at Melinda Snodgrass’s place in the hills above Lamy to enjoy the company of friends old and new over a sumptuous meal. Turkey, stuffing, deviled eggs, Melinda’s home made nog, a slice or two of apple pie (with cheese, of course). The food was lovely, and it was good to be with friends.

But 2024 was a dark year, and our Thanksgiving was to have a dark end. Later that night, at home, we received a shattering text from Shannon Zelazny. Her brother Trent had died earlier that day of acute liver failure.

Trent had suffered a massive stroke back in September that had left him unable to walk… but he had been in rehab subsequently, and was making good progress. He was still Trent, still a fighter, and we all hoped he was on his way to recovery. It proved not to be.

He was only 48. In fact, Thanksgiving was his birthday.

I have known Trent since he was a small boy. His father was Roger Zelazny, a brilliant brilliant writer and one of the kindest men I have ever known… and a mentor to me, of sorts. He was the only person I knew when I moved from Iowa to New Mexico in 1979. He took me under his wing, invited me to dinners and parties, introduced me to First Friday and the Albuqerque science fiction fans.. I saw Zozobra for the first time from his house on Stagecoach Road, whose windows looked down on Old Man Gloom and Fort Marcy Park.

And of course met his family. Shannon had not yet been born, though she was on her way, but his sons were never far from their dad.

Devin, the older boy, looked so much like Roger he could have been a twin, and like Roger he was painfully shy. Trent was anything but. My earliest memory of him is from the year his dad brought him to Bubonicon, where he went everywhere and charmed everyone, clad in a t-shirt that read MY DAD WROTE LORD OF LIGHT.

A later (and much sadder memory) was from 1995, where Roger lay dying in St Vincent’s Hospital. Like many of his friends, I came and went during that dreadful week, visiting as often as I could, but Trent never left his father’s side.

He got married soon after Roger left us, and his wife gave him a son. He named the boy Corwin. (What else?) For a time, he was my tenant; he and his wife and his new son were renting my old house on Declovina, the first place I lived in Santa Fe.

Life happens, though. Corwin and his mother moved to California and the marriage ended. Trent continued to write, and begin to sell. He had his own voice, though. He loved his father’s work, and knew it better than anyone, but he was never an echo. He loved horror stories, and crime fiction, and noir, and did a lot of work in those fields. Sales started to be more common. While I was out in LA working in television, Trent moved to Florida, and I lost track of him for a few years. Florida was not kind to him, through, and he lived through some sort of tragedy down there.

When he came back to the Land of Enchantment, I had just bought the Jean Cocteau Cinema. Trent needed work, and I made him my second hire. He started out selling popcorn, but soon was promoted to projectionist. He helped in promotion and scheduling as well, and sat in on some of my events, interviewing some of the writers who came by on promotional tours. He was a great employee, always… but never wanted to go full time. Writing was his true love, and he wanted to focus on that. His father would have said the same.

A few years further on, his sister Shannon his son Corwin both came to work at the JCC as well. And when declining health left his mother unable to continue managing Roger’s estate, Trent and Shannon took it on together. It was around then that they left the JCC, to devote more time to running the Amber Corporation… and giving Trent more time to write.

By then he had published a number of books, in several genres. I did not doubt that there were more to come. He had talent, and he had determination. Life had dealt him some hard blows, but he never gave up. Six months ago, if you had asked me, I would have said that Trent Zelazny was just at the beginning of his career.

I could never have dreamed that he was close to the end.

He is survived by his sister Shannon, his brother Devin, his son Corwin… and more friends than I can count.

We’re all going to miss him.

And if there is life beyond this, somewhere in Shadow on the road to Amber, I know his father is proud of him.

GRRM

Tags: friends, life and death

BLUESKY…Tiz NOT I

November 18, 2024 at 11:17 am

…At least not yet…

I have heard that I’m now apparently on the social network BlueSky, but alas that’s not me. So if you followed me there I’m sorry to say it’s an imposter. BUT I will likely be starting up an account there soon, so keep an eye out Here on my BLOG or Facebook social page and I’ll let everyone know when I make the switch and what my handle is going to be.

Thanks to all my friends who made me aware of my Bluesky doppelgänger!

THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE MINIONS OF FEVRE RIVER

Film Festivals

November 17, 2024 at 11:15 am

If you’re around for a Film Festival or two check out UGLY CHICKENS with Felicia Day at the following locations and dates.

We’re so proud of Howards stories coming to life and being able to share them you!

MMRG

LA Skins Film Festival

Shorts Block Program 2

Thursday November 21st at 7p at the TCL Chinese Theater

6801 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028

TUC

Yellowstone International Film Festival

Monday November 18 at 5p-9p

American Center, 24 Kasturba Gandhi Marg, Near Barakhamb Metro Station

New Delhi, Delhi 110001

Current Mood: busy busy

A Stop at Oxford

November 13, 2024 at 8:13 am

Oxford is a legendary place. One of the world’s great universities, and the literary capital of England, rich with history, it has figured in more novels than I can count, including many classic works of fantasy. Philip Pullman’s amazing trilogy HIS DARK MATERIAL is set there. So is BABEL, OR THE NECESSITY FOR VIOLENCE, R.F. Kuang’s Nebula-winning bestseller. It was the model for Hogwart’s in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, and a lot of the Potter films were shot there. And of course J.R.R. Tolkien lived and taught there.

Somehow I never made it there on any of my previous visits to the UK, but I was determined to not it miss it this time around. When the Oxford Writers House invited me to join Pullman for a panel discussion on Writing Fantasy, I had to say yes. I had never met Pullman … though I’m a huge fan of HIS DARK MATERIALS, with its daemons and armored bears. (Armored bears! So cool!!) It would have been a thrill to share a platform with him. I also wanted to pop into the Eagle & Child as well, the pub where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis and the Inklings got together to share a pint and talk about books.

Alas, it turned out that the Bird & Baby (as the Eagle & Child was nicknamed by the locals) was closed for renovations. And then Philip Pullman got ill, and had to cancel, so I was left to fend for myself.

Fortunately I have lots of practice with fending for myself.

Instead of panel, the event turned into an interview and booksigning. We had a sold out crowd (about 450, they told me) lots of eager students and aspiring writers, and more questions than I could possibly answer if I had been there for a week instead of a day. And beforehand I got a short tour of Oxford itself, which was just as magical as I thought it would be. The library was astonishing, and they even showed me some of J.R.R. Tolkien’s working papers… including his first vision of Helm’s Deep, which he drew on the back of a student essay he was grading.

Oxford was kind enough to record the session, and upload it to YouTube.

After the questions, we moved to the side of the room to sign books. We had a wonderful group of fans and readers on hand. Not all of them were Oxford students; we had people there from all over England, and some from across the Channel as well. Several presented me with handwritten fan letters, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciated that. The letters were heartfelt, thoughtful, and very knowledgeable about my work. The sort of letters that Tolkien himself might have been moved by.

I had a wonderful time. I only wish our visit had been longer. Oxford was just as fascinating as I hoped it would be, and I could easily have spent days exploring it. But the road goes ever on, and I had promises to keep, so the best we could do was spend the night, and then head off back to London…

But not before we made a stop on the outskirts of town, to visit the graveyard where Tolkien and his wife were laid to read. I could not leave town without paying homage to the greatest fantasist of all time.

But I’ll save my thoughts about that for the next installment of my “travel blog.”

I hope I will be able to return to Oxford the next time I make it over to England. There’s so much left to see.

Current Mood: pleased pleased

Tags: a song of ice and fire, signed books, signings, travels, worldcon, writing

London Towne

November 10, 2024 at 8:47 am

London was the third stop on our summer travels, as July turned to August.

The first time I visited London was way back in 1981. That was also the first time I left the USA, except for the time I went to Canada for the Toronto worldcon in 1993; I was over in the UK for six weeks on that first trip, traveling everywhere from Scotland to Cornwall, on the theory that if I was going to cross that great big ocean, I might as well see everything there was to see. I did not even come close, needless to say, but I loved what I did see… museums and castles, battlefields and bookshops, Hadrian’s Wall and Cecil Court and so much more. I have lost track of how many times I’ve been there since, and yet there’s still so much to see and do. London remains one of my favorite cities.

As usual, we combined business and pleasure, starting with a delightful lunch with my British editor, Jane Johnson, and her team from Harper Collins Voyager.

Across the street from our restaurant a chess game was in progress. Love it.

When I was not doing writer stuff, I did tourist stuff, including a ride in the London Eye. First time I’ve gotten up in it; on previous visits the lines were always too long.

We also took advantage of the West End, and checked out five plays, among them PEOPLE, PLACES, AND THINGS, scripted by Duncan Macmillan, the playwright who is adapting the tourney at Harrenhal for the stage. I think we’re in good hands. Duncan’s play was dark, powerful, and intense. We grabbed a lunch at our hotel a few days before seeing the play, and talked about THE IRON THRONE.

I am told that the show is coming along splendidly. Our team did a run-through for the managers of a score of West End theatres (before we arrrived, alas, so we did not get to see it), and the excitement we palpable, we hear. We have not nailed down our opening day yet (next year, most likely), but it looks as though we will have our choice of theatres.

We also got together with Maisie Williams for pizza and pasta, and talked about… well, no, better not get into that, do not want to jinx it. But it could be so much fun. And we swung by Locke & Co, Hatters, the oldest hat shop in the UK, where Winston Churchill used to get his headware, and we bought some hats. (What else?)

A splendid few days, all in all, but of course the time went by too fast, and it was time to move on.

Oxford was waiting.

Current Mood: happy happy

Tags: theatre, travel

Lift the Torch

October 31, 2024 at 8:48 am

I was born and raised in Bayonne, New Jersey, a city of about 70,000 just south of Jersey City in the greater New York metropolitan area. Bayonne sits on a peninsula, with New York Bay on one side and Newark Bay on the other, the two of them connected by the deepwater channel called the Kill Von Kull. For most of my childhood I lived across the street from the Kill. I could watch the freighters come and go, day and night, flying flags from all the countries of the world. The Bayonne Bridge, down at the other end of First Street, connected the city to Staten Island. Despite its proximity to the Big Apple, Bayonne was never a suburb; very few of its residents commuted to work, at least back then. Bayonne was its own place, a densely packed industrial city where generations of locals had been born and raised, gone to school, found jobs, got married, had children. Most of them worked blue collar jobs, for Texaco or one of the other oil refineries in town, or for Best Foods, or for Maidenform. Or else they worked on the docks, like my father, a longshoreman. Bayonne was home to a huge naval base, where battleships and destroyers and transports of all types were dry docked and serviced from World War II to Vietnam.

Bayonne was very much a workingman’s city. It was also an ethnic city. We had Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans, and a scattering of other nationalities. Some Protestants and some Jews, but they were heavily outnumbered by the Roman Catholics. Each ethnic group had its own parish, its own church, its own Catholic school… its own feast days and festivals, its own softball teams. There were rivalries between the various ethnicities, there were tasteless jokes… but I do not recall any real hatred. When our parents and grandparents talked about “the old country,” some meant Italy, some meant Poland, some meant Ireland… but they were all Americans now. The things that set them apart were unimportant compared to the things they had in common.

They were all immigrants.

Or the sons and daughters of immigrants. Or the grandsons and granddaughters. Or… well, go back as many generations as you like. My Irish ancestors came over during the potato famine. I am a mongrel myself. Irish, German, Jewish, Italian, a bit of English, a dollop of Welsh… a probably more. I had Irish friends, Italian friends, Jewish friends, you name it. Only a few were first generation, mind you, but everyone knew their heritage, and everyone was proud of it. And proud of being American.

I could see Staten Island from the windows of our apartment in the projects. From the Hook on the northeast shore of Bayonne, however, you could see the skyscrapers of Manhattan, Ellis Island, and the Statue of Liberty.

I wonder, can you see the Statue from Trump Tower? Somehow I doubt it.

Though Lady Liberty was a gift of France (our first friend, and oldest ally) nothing has ever been so quintessentially American. For generations of immigrants, she was the first thing they saw as their ships pulled into New York harbor (steaming past Bayonne and its docks on the way). She stood for all that was best of this new country. For hope. For freedom. For the dream of a new life.

We are a nation of immigrants. Except for my Native American friend, all of us came from somewhere else. Immigrants were not often welcome with open arms. The Dutch were not thrilled when the English took New Amsterdam. The English resented the arrival of so many Irish. The Irish and the Italians did not love each other, and neither of them were thrilled to see so many Poles getting off the ships. And the Jews… nobody wanted the Jews. But in time, all of them learned to get along. There were gangs, there was crime, there were riots… but the immigrants worked together, played together… ate each other’s food, played ball together, slept with each other, married each other to produce mongrels like me. The melting pot worked its magic. We all became Americans. No matter where our parents came from.

Emma Lazarus said it best, in the words on Lady Liberty’s base.

The New Colossus

By Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she

With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

That’s America to me. The best of America.

MAGA talks of making America great again. But America is great because of its immigrants. They and their descendants built her cities and her railroads, fought in her wars, contested her elections (and stepped aside peacefully when they lost). Far from the “world wide welcome” that Lazarus wrote of, Trump and his followers spew hatred, talk of mass deportations, of denying citizenship even to children born in the USA. They want to ban immigrants who worship the wrong gods and come from the wrong countries. They spew hatred every time they speak of those seeking new lives in America. (They are eating the dogs?).

And who are these people they loathe so much? Why, they are the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the “wretched refuse” of those teeming shores. (Billionaires would be welcome, of course. So long as they bring their money). Donald Trump himself is descended from immigrants; German on his father’s side, Scottish on his mother’s. His grandfather may well have been an illegal immigrant; the facts are unclear. The Trumps found welcome with the Mother of Exiles. Now the Donald wants to build a wall to keep everyone else out.

It makes me sad. It makes me sick. Yes, certainly, there are bad people crossing the border. But there were bad people and criminals in all those other waves of immigration too. Those huddled masses are not entirely made up of saints, and never were. Most of the people crossing the border, then as now, were ordinary people, looking for a better life, yearning to breathe free. Dreaming the same dream that the Poles and the Irish and the Chinese and the Russians and all the others did in their day.

“I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Lady Liberty proclaims.

If Trump has his way, that lamp will go out forever.

Current Mood: angry angry

Tags: politics

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