Joe Haldeman Update: Good News

Things are looking much better in Joe’s recovery. According to his wife Gay, he’s out of intensive care and in a rehab facility. He’s able to sit up, eat a little, talk a little, and—according to Gay—smile a lot. I’m guessing he’s really happy to be alive and kicking, and surrounded by his wife and friends. I expect he has a ways to go on the road to recovery, but it’s all just so much more hopeful now.

Meanwhile, I’m settling into the business of teaching a university class, and continuing to enjoy working with the students there. Next week, they’ll be handing in rough drafts of their short stories, and we’ll be dissecting them (in a nice way) in workshop sessions. I got my MIT employee card—I look like part of the maintenance staff—and put it right to work at the MIT Humanities and Sciences Library. There was a book I wanted to use for next week’s class, and they didn’t have it. Some hunting around established that it was available in quasi-ebook format, and darned if they didn’t get it for me to read on my computer in just a couple of days. (The interface to read it is atrocious—the people at netlibrary and the publishers who work with them should join the 21st Century and learn how to make real ebooks—but that’s not the fault of the folk at the library. My hat’s off to them for being so helpful.)

Meanwhile (again), my own Ultimate SF Workshop is gearing up to start this weekend. Craig (Gardner) and I weren’t sure if we’d have enough people to run it, but we delayed the start by a week, and that seems to have made the difference.