Harlan Ellison's Watching...

Harlan Ellison

One of the most important things about the Science Fiction community, as weird as many of us can be from time to time, is that when someone's in trouble the community always comes together. And something very serious has happened. I got a call the other day, Jo Clayton, well known Science Fiction writer, she's written like 34, 35 books... sold a million and a quarter books. She wasn't on her computer line for a long time and her friends got worried. And in fact, she was almost unconscious, and had been in her apartment for sometime and nobody was able to help her. The fans on the Internet, actually, discovered her and got her into Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Jo Clayton has Myeloma, a very serious, serious cancer. Myeloma, I'm gonna read this because I don't want to get it wrong, she's undergoing therapy for Multiple Myeloma, ah, that's a cancer of the bone marrow in plasma cells. The disease creates holes in the bones and makes them extremely brittle. And although Multiple Myeloma isn't curable, it is treatable and long term remissions are not uncommon. And in addition to the chemotherapy, including Interferon and a stem cell transplant from her good hip, Jo is receiving "Arradia", a newly proved drug that repairs much of the damage done to the bone by the cancer by filling in the holes that the Myeloma punches in the bones. And, ah, the problem is this: Jo Clayton, like me, and like a lot of other people in this field, we're self-employed. We're writers. We're like Willie Loman out there on a smile and a shoe shine. And, ah, Jo Clayton needs help. She needs money. Ah, she doesn't need good wishes and she doesn't need any of those wonderful encomium that we always write in Locus and the other magazines after she's dead. We've lost a lot of people in the last couple years. We can do something to help Jo Clayton. There's going to be an address flashed on the screen. They're going to keep it on. Get a pen, get a piece of paper as I talk about this with Mike for a moment. Ah, please write down the address, it's a real simple address, ah, it is the Oregon SF Emergency:

Jo Clayton Fund
Make checks payable to:
Oregon SF Emergency
mail to:
Oregon SF Emergency
c/o OFSCI
P.O. Box 5703
Portland, OR 97228

She praises the Oregon health plan, Jo does. It has really expanded its Medicaid program, but it's not gonna, it falls way short of producing the kind of money that is needed for long term and medium term care. Ah, unless you've been through something like this, folks, you don't know. When I did the hospital thing with my heart attack about, a while ago as we now tape this. Just in the hospital for seven days, six days? Six days was Ninety four thousand dollars. Ninety four grand. Ah, and Jo is not well off, even though she's written a great many books, we're gonna show you these books... these are just some of her 34 books. It's Jo Clayton. I know you've read her work, and for Pete's Sake, if you care at all, now is the time. Write a check, it doesn't have to be a big check, write a small check and send it to the address that's on the screen, please. You people on Sci Fi Buzz are a great audience. You helped get A.E. Van Vogt his Grand Master Award. You did it by sending letters and putting pressure on the SSFWA. And now we're asking you to help directly, please.

From Sci-Fi Buzz, episode 153

Publishing Rights to 'Harlan Ellison's Watching' copyright 1996 the Killimanjaro Corporation.