Other Guests of Honor to be announced.
Cory Doctorow
Cory Doctorow (craphound.com) is a science fiction author, activist, and journalist. His latest novels are PICKS AND SHOVELS and THE BEZZLE (followups to RED TEAM BLUES) and THE LOST CAUSE, a solarpunk science fiction novel of hope amidst the climate emergency.
His most recent nonfiction book is THE INTERNET CON: HOW TO SEIZE THE MEANS OF COMPUTATION, a Big Tech disassembly manual. He is the author of the international young adult LITTLE BROTHER series. He is also the author of CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM (with Rebecca Giblin), about creative labor markets and monopoly; HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM, nonfiction about conspiracies and monopolies; and of RADICALIZED and WALKAWAY, science fiction for adults, a YA graphic novel called IN REAL LIFE; and other young adult novels like PIRATE CINEMA.
His first picture book was POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER (Aug 2020). His next novel is THE BEZZLE (February 2024). He maintains a daily blog at Pluralistic.net. He works for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is a MIT Media Lab Research Affiliate, is a Visiting Professor of Computer Science at Open University, a Visiting Professor of Practice at the University of North Carolina’s School of Library and Information Science and co-founded the UK Open Rights Group. Born in Toronto, Canada, he now lives in Los Angeles.
In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 2022, he earned the Sir Arthur Clarke Imagination in Service to Society Awardee for lifetime achievement. In 2024, the Media Ecology Association awarded him the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. York University (Canada) made him an Honourary Doctor of Laws; and the Open University (UK) made him an Honourary Doctor of Computer Science.
Connie Willis
Connie has been an integral part of COSine for most of its history. Connie was our guest of honor in 2007 and has been our special guest, along with husband Courtney, every COSine since 2012.
Connie is seen everywhere around science fiction conventions – speaking on a discussion panel, dining with a table full of other authors, doing a reading, or winning an award. Sure, she’s one of the most awarded science fiction writers working today; with eleven Hugos, seven Nebulas, an induction into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame, and named as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, but Connie is not one to rest on her laurels. She’s out there, encouraging, teaching, sharing her stories, and being an invaluable part of the science fiction community.
Here is what Connie has to say about writing science fiction:
I first fell in love with science fiction at age thirteen, when I read Robert A. Heinlein’s Have Space Suit, Will Travel. That’s not unusual. Science fiction and adolescence have a lot in common: love of adventure, love of ideas, boundless enthusiasm for the universe. For many readers, it’s only an infatuation, but for me it has turned into a lifelong love affair, I think because the medium of science fiction is ideal for the stories I want to tell and the themes I want to write about.
I find that looking at things obliquely, through the disguise of other places, other times, cuts through not only the reader’s prejudices and defenses but my own and makes it possible to look clearly at our own world, our own faces. And the conventions of science fiction—Martians, time travel, robots—carry within them the themes that matter most to me. Time travel, especially, with its built-in resonances of grief and loss and regret, I could write about forever. After all these years, I still come to science fiction with that same shock of joy and recognition that I did at thirteen.
Courtney Willis
Dr. Courtney Willis, fondly known as Doctor Science, has made an art of demonstrating scientific principles in a fun and engaging way. He presents to avid audiences at science fiction conventions throughout Colorado. As one of our special guests over the years, Courtney has taught COSine members how to measure the circumference of the earth, about science apps for your phone, magic tricks with science, when science got it wrong, and even gave us a scientific literacy quiz. (Yes, there actually WAS a quiz!)
Convention-goers are far from the only people to benefit from his teaching. Over the last fifty years, he has coached and guided thousands of young minds at both the high school and college levels. He taught everything from introductory physics to acoustics and Teaching Methods of Science. Recently granted emeritus status by the University of Northern Colorado, where he taught for twenty-six years, Courtney enjoyed most the calculus-based physics classes. It was fun, he says, “to see a student light up in class.”
Isaac Asimov’s The Universe is the book he most often gifts to others, including his students. Its themes of scientific progression and man’s understanding of the universe resonate with many kinds of readers. Over the years, he says, he talked about the book so much that “Connie finally found a hardback of the book and had Asimov sign it to me. I treasure the book not only because Asimov signed it shortly before he passed, but also for its content. Asimov kind of connects Connie and me as he is both a science fiction writer and a scientist.”
His advice to students of any kind, science, education, or authors, is to ask questions and do research. “Really do your homework. There is a lot of science on the Internet (its original purpose), but when you get to certain specifics, go to books, to sites.” And to himself? He would keep journals of his everyday life. I’d say that would be a great read.