Following Terry Pratchett’s announcement that he has Alzheimer’s disease, and the announcement of the First North American Discworld Convention, we have these updates.
First, a follow-on message from Pratchett:
Folks,
My good friend Sandra Kidby of PJSM Prints is allowing me to use her website because I am proverbially too busy to run one of my own. We have hardly the time even to read the thousands of messages that have come in here, let alone reply to them, but thank you all.
Could I make a small comment, however? Lots of people are sending me plot ideas. Please, I have a lot of ideas. There is no shortage of ideas and ideas sent to me, even with the very best of intentions, are carefully filleted out of the correspondence before they even get to me. I know they are sent in an effort to help, and I appreciate this, but I advise you not to waste your time.
I am also getting a lot of requests for interviews. I am not giving any because everything I have got to say or that can be said is in the bulletin below. There is no point in saying it again, but in a different order.
Can I remind everybody that I still aten’t dead, even today.
Thanks again for all your good wishes.
Terry Pratchett
Following that notice, Convention Chairman Lee Whiteside announced that Pratchett is “still looking forward to attending our convention in 2009. We will be working with Terry and his assistant, Rob Wilkins, to make that happen and accomodate Terry as needed. As with
all of you, we hope for the best for Terry’s health and our thoughts are with Terry and his family.”
They’ve has also set up a message board linked to the main website for discussions about the convention, as well as a Livejournal community (nadwcon2009).
The convention hotel is not yet ready to reserve rooms (apparently, they’re swamped with Super Bowl XLII, which will be in the neighborhood on 3 February 2008).
For up-to-date information on the convention, see nadwcon.org.