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I am honored to have been asked to say a few
words in appreciation of your Guest of Honor, C.J. Cherryh. I know her pretty
well, or think I do. She is my sister. That being the case, I suspect that
those who have arranged for me to be writing this will be expecting me to
take advantage of my unique perspective to provide a somewhat more intimate
portrait than the usual bio. I will try to comply. Fortunately for Sis, I
love her dearly and will not use this occasion to embarrass the life out
of her-well, not intentionally anyway.
C.J. was born Carolyn Janice Cherry in St.Louis, Missouri. She spent her preschool years growing up in Joplin, Missouri. World War II was in full swing. Times were tough in a way most Americans today never even dream about. Food, gasoline, heating fuels, money-everything was in short supply. Entertainment was talking to your friends, reading a book, or listening to the radio, if you were lucky enough to have one. Television, at that point, was years away, at least for the common man. And computers? No one would have the slightest idea what you were talking about. That was Buck Rogers stuff, a matter of purest science fiction.
C.J. was a beautiful little girl. She looked a lot like Shirley Temple: curly blonde ringlets, striking blue eyes, and a smile that lit up her face. She was precocious, always ahead of her age group. And she was independent. She had her own agenda from early on.
By the time she was seven, I had arrived on the scene, and the family had moved to Lawton, Oklahoma. A year or two later, Dad brought home our first black and white TV. The young C.J. would sit glued to the tube, straining her eyes against the snowy reception to catch a glimpse of her favorites: Flash Gordon, Tarzan, Tailspin Tommy, or Tom Corbett and the Space Cadets.
C.J. loved to read, especially adventure stories-the more lurid the better. By the age of seven she had read her way through the local library. By age ten, frustrated with the lack of good science fiction available to her, she began writing stories of her own. As of today, C.J. has had over fifty books published—but I get ahead of myself.
By age thirteen C.J. had three years of experience as a writer. I am not certain whether she was already submitting manuscripts for publication, but I believe she was. In school she was studying, among other things, art, and she was fortunate enough to have a good instructor. I know, not only because I got to see her art (which was, and is, exceptional), but also because she would come home and teach little brother (me) what she had learned. I was six at the time. It was one of my first memories of true interaction with her. I was probably the only first grader at B.C. Sweeney Elementary who understood light sources and shading and who knew that the human figure was six and a half heads tall. (I used to frustrate C.J. by drawing my figures from the feet up—so that the heads were last—and still get the proportions right.)
Our father had been a talented athlete and popular because of that. I was not gifted in that way, but I always had my art as something I could do that was special. I owe that to C.J.
Our closest and most fun years together began around the time that C.J. turned sixteen and got a car. This is not to say that we didn't get along well prior to this. We did. But to tell the truth, there wasn't all that much overlap in our social circles. She was, after all, sixteen, and I was just nine. The car, however, brought us together. All of a sudden, I was more than a halfway tolerable kid brother. I was useful. "Mom, I'm taking David to the movies. OK?'' she would say.
Then once we were out of the driveway she would swear me to secrecy, drive around to pick up several of her girlfriends, and take us all to see "Hercules Unchained" or something else our folks would never have approved of. We had a lot of fun, and I felt very special to be trusted and included.
Her room was her special place. Her inner sanctum. She kept a lock on it, and I rarely got to go in. But on summer nights, when I could stay up late, we would raid the refrigerator for snacks and sit up long into the night watching the Steve Allen show and telling stories. Two or three times she showed me stories she had written and would read them to me. They were really good. I remember one set of stories especially because they were reminiscent of "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet", except that they were an all female crew based on Venus. (I hope she has kept those manuscripts.)
By the time I was in high school and had a car, C.J. had finished college at the University of Oklahoma (Phi Beta Kappa) with a B.A. in Latin and had completed her Masters of Arts in Classics at Johns Hopkins University pursuant to a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. She was the first Cherry in living memory to obtain any degree whatsoever, and we were all terrifically proud of how well she had done.
Her reward for her Herculean efforts, however, was a handshake, a piece of paper to put on the wall, and a trip home to a low paying job as a high school teacher. To save money at first, she rented her old room from our parents.
Having missed C.J. while she was away at college, I was thrilled to have her back home again. I admit I was a bit trepidatious when I found out she was going to be my teacher for Latin and Ancient History during my senior year, but that turned out to be wonderful. As I should have expected, she was not just a good teacher, she was an outstanding teacher. All the kids, including me, respected her greatly. She made the ancient cultures come alive.
You did not just learn that Caesar fought in Gaul; you learned why he was there, who his enemies were in the Senate, what the economic situation was in Rome, how politics in Africa and the Middle East affected his decisions. C.J. knew it all and used all of her gifts as a storyteller to present it to us as an entire fabric, a whole that was fascinating to see unfold. Little wonder her peers nominated her for teacher of the year.
Still, as much as I enjoyed having her back and as much as teaching kept her busy and challenged, it was hardly the ideal situation for her. She kept writing and submitting, writing and submitting, but to no avail. Years passed. Still no recognition. Still no publication.
But she would never give up. She kept honing her skills, getting better, trying again. More years passed. By now I was out of college, married, divorced, out of law school, and beginning practice as an attorney.
Then it happened. Donald Wollheim at DAW Books had purchased her manuscript for Gate of Ivrel. Those years of waiting, of trying and failing on her own, had served a purpose. She was refined in her art. She was lean, mean, and ready. Her very first novel won approbation and the John W. Campbell award in l976 for Best New Writer of the Year. Three years later it was the Best Short Story Hugo for "Cassandra". After that, and numerous other awards, it was Hugo awards for Best Novel of the Year in l982 and l988 for Down Below Station and Cyteen, respectively.
During the start of all that, she found time to encourage me to get back into my art again and allowed me to illustrate one of her book projects (Ealdwood, published by Donald Grant in 1981), all of which turned out to be so much fun that I left law and struck out on my own as an artist. Without my sister's guidance and encouragement, I would never have known the satisfaction and fulfillment I have had as an artist. I would have had lots more money—but I would have been a mean, twisted, nasty, evil old attorney.
She lives with fellow writer and dear friend, Jane Fancher. They work horribly long hours and fight impossible deadline, but you couldn't get them to change if you tried. Each new novel is a stone into the pond. It makes new ripples. And those ripples bump into ripples from previous books or maybe even from books yet to be written (time and space being relative). She has to follow each ripple, see where it leads. As time goes on, the network expands, becomes more complex, more of a challenge, more absorbing, more fun.
In every way that matters, C.J. is still a kid, still developing, still learning, still daring to take risks, try something new. You would think that, with all her success, she would be kicking back, enjoying the fruits of her labors, writing now and then as the mood takes her, but no, it does not work that way.
I owe my sister a great debt of gratitude. My life is better because she was there to touch it. She has been a source of inspiration and encouragement to so many people in many different ways. For all she has accomplished so far, for all she has given to us, for the example of excellence she sets in her life and in her work, and for all the wonders she is preparing for us to enjoy in years to come, we seek to honor her, to say thank you, by having her as the Guest of Honor at the World Science Fiction Convention in l998.
Thanks, Sis. And congratulations!
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