A short life of the author
Constance Elaine Trimmer Willis (b. 31 December 1945) was born in Denver, Colorado. She studied English and elementary education at the University of Northern Colorado.
Life and Career
Willis’s Oxford time-travel series imagines Oxford University historians who travel to various periods of the past for research purposes. Doomsday Book (1992) — in which an Oxford historian is stranded in a fourteenth-century village during the Black Death — won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997) — a comic novel set in Victorian England — won the Hugo. Blackout and All Clear (2010) — about historians trapped in London during the Blitz — won the Hugo and Nebula.
Her short fiction — including “Fire Watch” (1982, Hugo and Nebula), “The Last of the Winnebagos” (1988, Hugo and Nebula), and “Even the Queen” (1992, Hugo and Nebula) — is equally celebrated.
Major Works and Themes
Willis writes about the relationship between past and present, the way historical catastrophes illuminate contemporary moral choices, and the persistence of human kindness in the face of disaster.
Key Works
- Doomsday Book (1992) — Hugo, Nebula
- To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997) — Hugo
- Blackout/All Clear (2010) — Hugo, Nebula
Collecting Willis
Doomsday Book (1992, Bantam Spectra) brings $20–$50. Willis signs at conventions.