News: Connie Willis's WWII novel "All Clear"

Just a bit of news-I went to FenCon last weekend in Dallas and met Connie Willis ...like ohmygod!!! (sorry, had a fangirl moment there)

She is still working on her new time travel novel, based in the same universe as To Say Nothing of the Dog and Doomsday Book. She isn't having trouble with it, it's just big. Really big. Two volumes big. She has a new deadline to meet in January 2008. She's pretty sure she's going to miss it, but believes she'll finish in Feb. or March.

The plan right now is to publish the first volume and then the second about three months later. It's a complicated story, with four different time travelers. She says on a happy/sad spectrum, it's half way between "Doomsday" and "Dog".

She also has a Christmas story being published in Asimov in the Nov/Dec issue and plans to start on a alien abduction/Roswell novel after "All Clear" is finished.

Thanks for the news! Maybe I should re-read Doomsday Book and To Say Nothing of the Dog; it must have been eight or ten years since I read them.

For those who are interested, the first half is out, published as Blackout; it is very good, but it does just stop in the middle and the two volume publishing scheme is netting Ms. Willis some unfair negative reviews. The second half, entitled All Clear is coming out in October. Glad to hear there is a Christmas story coming out! I am an Asimov's subscriber, so one day in October, I will get good mail. Yeah!

What was Ms. Willis like in person?