George is going to be in Chicago briefly and contacted me and another SF writer friend about getting together for dinner. I, greatly daring, asked whether he might also be willing to stop by UIC and chat with my students. He said yes, which is awfully sweet of him to squeeze into his tight schedule.
I told my students yesterday, which was sort of hilarious, because I’m pretty sure they didn’t believe me at first, and I ended up having to take five minutes of class to explain how I ended up friends with George. (It was by way of Strange Horizons and Daniel Abraham, of later Expanse fame, for the short version.)
I was a little worried that they still thought I was the delusional professor (it’s early in the semester still, they don’t know me that well yet), so I ended up collecting a round-up of my pics with George over the years and posting it to the class group channel for evidence.
(If you are a former UIC student of mine or a current UIC undergrad or grad, free around lunchtime on a Friday, and want to attend, I can probably fit 3-4 more people into each classroom, so drop me a note, and we’ll see what we can do.)
Now, if Neil Gaiman were to visit Chicago and if I could convince him to stop by too, I think their heads might actually explode. 🙂
