RIP Nichelle Nichols.

Ah, shit.

Well, knew this was coming, she's been in rough health for awhile now.

Still, heavy heart on this one. 😥

Jack (Donner), Margaret, and now Nichelle, the triad of celebrities I Kevin Bacon to is all gone.

Well, if Margaret had lived, she'd tell her stories.

BUT! I've got 'em.

From her Facebook journal...

September 7, 2017

Saturn’s Child, part I

It’s easy to assume that once a writer has sold a few manuscripts the rest just keep on coming. Certainly that’s often the case with the Big Names (although the number of rejection letters that even some famous writers have endured would amaze: http://www.litrejections.com/best-sellers-initially.../), but the fact is that each contract is the result of a hope and a prayer. In my anecdotal observation, at least 50% of book editors are wannabe writers. (The clue is when they say “Yanno what I’d like you to write…?” and then they proceed to tell you about some idea they’ve been cherishing for years if not decades. If you smile and say “Sure, I can write that for you,” they hand you a contract. If not, well…) Ya never know.

So, yeah, I’ve pitched a lot of stuff that’s been met with, at least, the standard “this does not suit our needs at the present time” and, lately (let me not judge Millennials, because even some old school editors have succumbed to bad manners) indifference.

Note to anyone thinking they might Philip K. Dick me, i.e., wait until I’m dead and then pounce on everything I’ve ever written for screen treatments: Talk to my children. They will inherit the rights to all of my work, so bite me.

As for rejections, yeah, they hurt. But I-can’t-even-bother-rejecting-you is a whole ’nother level of unprofessionalism. Bitch, please. How many seconds would it cost you to reply to my query with a “F---k off”? No? Really? Mmkay.

But my freeze-out at Pocket lasted 11 years, through at least two editors who were afraid of little ol’ me (one actually saw me in the Green Room at ICon and bolted down the stairs in fear; yanno, I’m 5’5” and a buck twenty-five and this guy was twice my size, but I scared him, and I wasn’t even the one who grabbed him by the necktie at a SFWA function and threatened to toss him off the balcony at the Ritz-Carlton…bless you, Ann Crispin, and continue giving ’em hell wherever you are!).

So, yeah, after I’d finished *The Others*, I was a little antsy, and I’d been training for a Day Job that hadn’t quite met my expectations as yet.

But along came My Most Amazing Grace…Lady Nichelle, a.k.a. Uhura, a.k.a. Nichelle Nichols, and *Saturn’s Child*.

September 9, 2017

Saturn’s Child, part II

Leonard Nimoy was the first to write a memoir, *I Am Not Spock* in 1979, which he followed up with *I Am Spock* in 1995. In between there was Walter Koenig’s *Chekov’s Enterprise* (a hilarious at times behind-the-scenes glimpse of *Star Trek the Motion Picture*), followed by *Beam Me Up, Scotty* (Jimmy Doohan’s memoir), several books by and “as told to” by William Shatner and, lastly, George Takei’s *To the Stars*. Nichelle Nichols’ memoir fit nicely in between.

Memoirs are tricky things. You want to be as honest as possible but, unless you’re bitter and vengeful, you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings. Nichelle was truthful, but kind. It’s been a while since I’ve read *Beyond Uhura*, but as I recall, she managed beautifully.

Following on a very positive reception for *Beyond Uhura*, she had an idea for a novel. With the technical advice of physicist Jim Meechan and her friends at NASA, she’d put together a treatment for a novel called *Saturn’s Child.” It was meant to be part of a series, about an Earth ship journeying to Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, to set up a colony, only to discover that there’s an alien species already established there. The rapprochement between the two ultimate allies produced a hybrid child, Saturna.

The science was sound. The aliens were fascinating. What the treatment needed was someone to, in Nichelle’s words “connect the dots” and draw readers in to what might have been a wonderful saga.

(There was a second novel, *Saturna’s Quest*, in which I was not involved. Unfortunately it was the last of the series. I’m not sure what happened, and it’s not my place to hypothesize.)

Nichelle’s agent and mine worked out of the same agency, so when she proposed this idea to Russell Galen, he presented her with a short list of writers he thought would be appropriate. I wasn’t the first on the list. Writer #1, however, wanted too much of the “cut” of the advance, and so the option fell to me.

Angels and ministers of grace (in more ways than one): I was being offered a chance to work with Nichelle Nichols (insert “squeeee” sound here)!

TBC.

September 16, 2017

Saturn’s Child, part III

To be clear, I’d done some ghostwriting/book doctoring before, but it’s an unwritten rule of such work that one does not name names. Sometimes a reader will notice a “special thanks to” in the intro to a book, but that’s as far as it goes. Imagine my surprise when Nichelle told me she fully intended to give me a byline!

We met in New York in early ’94. Efficient and practical, my most Amazing Grace* had the treatment with her (though Russ Galen had given me a copy earlier).

*About the sobriquet. In her memoir, *Beyond Uhura*, she talks about meeting Marlon Brando many years earlier. Somehow (she never reveals how) he guessed that her given name was not Nichelle, but Grace, but “Grace Nichols” didn’t have the star quality that Nichelle Nichols had, so at some point in her early career (perhaps when she danced with the Duke Ellington troupe at age 17, or even earlier, at age 15, in *The College Inn Story*?) http://3.bp.blogspot.com/.../Nichelle+Nichols+at+fifteen...) she changed it.  

Both names suit her, but to me she will always be the embodiment, physically (a dancer foremost, she doesn’t walk so much as flow across a room) and spiritually, of grace.  Her life hasn’t been an easy one, but she is centered in a way that many of us might envy. She will always be my most Amazing Grace.

But that day in NY, I knew none of this. We talked contracts and percentages and deadlines and yadda-yadda-yadda, and it was understood that I would stay in NY (Brooklyn, actually) and send her a chapter a week by fax to her home in L.A.

She gave me two intangible but no less real gifts. One, she weaned me off writing in longhand (no time for that at a chapter a week) and, eventually, she taught me how to fly.

TBC.

September 17, 2017

Saturn’s Child IV

Fast forward to August, 1994. The manuscript was about half-finished, to our mutual satisfaction. Nichelle would review each chapter as it arrived, and make changes that I would incorporate into the final. But something was amiss. The narrative had taken off in a direction neither of us was happy about (characters, especially strong-minded ones like Saturna, will do that sometimes).

[Did I mention that I wrote the first draft of *The Others* in third-person, only to find that it was an unnecessary struggle? Lingri wanted to tell her story in her own words and, dammit, after several months I finally gave in, and I think the book is better for it.

And something else I neglected to mention: The maps in *The Others* were drawn by my talented 16-years-old-at-the-time daughter, Danielle Bonanno.]

But now, four years and a couple of book-doctoring credits under my belt, I discovered that Saturna was being balky. Nichelle called me, and we bounced some ideas back and forth, but then she said, “Honey” (she always called me “Honey” or “Baby”) “I think we need to work on this up close and personal. I’m FedExing you some airline tickets (no Travelocity or etickets in those days). I’d like you to stay in my guest house while we hammer this out.”

I stuttered. “Um, you mean *fly*? I haven’t set foot in a plane since high school.”

“I’m listening,” she said.

I explained that my first and last flight had been to the Montreal Expo in 1967 (the day after my high school graduation, in fact). It’s a short flight, and the trip to Montreal was glorious – clear skies, amazing vistas out that window. The Expo was…well…another version of the 1964 NY World’s Fair. Long lines, cheesy exhibits (much better stuff in the Museum of Natural History back home) and an unheard-of heat wave in a city that had never heard of air conditioning. I was miserable. Wished we’d had time to see more of the city, which was lovely, and less of the Expo. But.

On the flight home, we hit turbulence. Really bad turbulence. No one – not the Parentals, certainly, but not even the flight crew – bothered to tell me that, yeah, this is normal in this part of the sky in June. If I’d been more mature, I’d have figured out that if the flight attendants were just going about their business unperturbed, this was No Big Deal.

But I was 17 and, I hoped, too young to die. It also didn’t occur to me that God wouldn’t take down an entire plane full of passengers just to punish me. (If you’ve ever grown up fundamentalist Irish-everything-is-a-sin Catholic, you’ll know exactly what I mean).

So I prayed: “God, if you let me put my feet on the ground, I swear to you I will never set foot in a plane again.”

And I hadn’t, from 1967 to 1994. But there was Nichelle on the West Coast, sending me airline tickets, inviting me to stay in her guest house. If I refused, would I blow the entire project?

She listened without interrupting. 

I added "I hear Isaac Asimov won't fly."

There was a long pause. Finally she said, “Honey, the tickets will be delivered on Thursday. *I will see you on Friday*.”

Simple question: Did I want to argue with God, or with Nichelle?

I took a cab to JFK, took a propranolol to stop my heart from hammering (something it had been doing whenever I was stressed for the past five years) and got on the friggin’ plane.

TBC

September 18, 2017

Saturn’s Child V

I got off the plane at LAX to find a pony-tailed dude in a chauffeur’s uniform holding a sign that said “Bonanno.” Spelled correctly and everything.

This was Albert, Nichelle’s on-call driver with her preferred limo company and he was a trip. So were the palm trees. I’d never seen palm trees outside a botanical garden before. Albert regaled me with stories about the guard dogs he trained at his “other job,” explained that those red flowers growing along the waste ground beside the freeway were bougainvillea and got me to Nichelle’s handily. I must have been gawking like a tourist.

Nichelle met me at the door with a hug and a water glass full of vodka. “Honey, you made it!”

She introduced me to her technical adviser, Jim Meechan, and the artist who would be doing some illustrations for publicity, and we sat around talking through dinner and late into the night. (I’m not a vodka person, so I nursed that glassful for hours.)

The next morning Nichelle appeared in the doorway of “my” room. “Mornin’, Honey. How do you like your eggs?”

Uhura’s making me breakfast. Pinch me, I’m dreaming.

We hammered out the problems with Saturna over the next few days, Albert picked me up and drove me back to LAX, and my feet finally touched the ground back in Brooklyn.

TBC

September 18, 2017

Saturn’s Child VI

Fast forward to January 1995. We had all but the last chapter finalized. The FedEx man delivered my tickets. The return trip was the day before my son’s birthday. I’d made it clear I was *not* going to miss my son’s birthday.

“Of course not, Baby. We’ll get you home in time.”

As the song goes, it never rains in California, but girl, don’t they warn ya…it rained, and rained, and rained, nonstop for the entire week I was there, so much so that a crew put sandbags around vulnerable parts of the property, and two of Nichelle’s sisters back East called to say “Girl, are you okay?”

Perfect weather for writing, though. We had to make this last chapter a true ending, but with a hint that there might be More to Come.We were literally haggling over every sentence. Nichelle handed me a legal pad and started to say “And then this happens…and then this…and then…”

I don’t know shorthand, so I’m scribbling as fast as I can. Finally I stopped. “I’ve got a better idea,” I said. “Why don’t you write it out, and I’ll run over to your office and log it into the computer, print it out, and we’ll go over it together.”

She’d been reading over her notes, but now she stopped and looked up at me, gracing me with The Look.  You know the one.  That scene in The Search for Spock where “Mr. Adventure” makes the blunder of telling her she’s past it, her career is “winding down”?  Yeah, that Look, where she slides those big brown eyes under her eyelids and watches you and doesn’t blink.

“*You’re* putting *me* to work,” she said quietly.

I figured, One way or another, I’ll be on a plane back to NY tomorrow.  “Yes, ma’am,” I said.

She beamed that wonderful smile, as if she’d been waiting for just that. “Well, all right then!” She got up and floated back to the master bedroom, and I didn’t see her for the next three hours. When she came back, she had pages and pages in her lovely florid handwriting of *exactly* how *Saturn’s Child* was to end. All I had to do was transcribe it on the computer and we were done.

The next morning, Albert pulled up in the driveway at around 5 a.m. I figured I’d just leave Nichelle a thank-you note and slip out in the dark. But she dragged herself out of bed managing to look marvelous just as I was zipping my suitcase and heading for the door. She hugged me and thanked me and I think one of us may have been crying a little.

A funny thing happened on that flight back to NY, but that’s for next time. 😉

June 15, 2017

“You like me! You really like me!”

So there I was, riding the escalator with the Flaming Carrot into the biggest dealers’ room I’ve probably seen before or since. I’m a New Yorker; I’m used to crowds of – unusual – people, but nothing like this. Years before DS9’s Promenade, I was in another reality, sidestepping Daleks (didn’t know what they were; didn’t know what most of what I was seeing was, I was that much of a geek. To this day I haven’t seen a *Star Wars* movie all the way through. Yeah, I know. Sue me), just meandering around like the n00b I was, gawking at everything.

How many cons have I been to since? I used to keep a list, including the guest stars and the other writers, but I haven’t been to a con in a while (long story). However, if you want to talk about total immersion, the Atlanta Fantasy Fair was it.

I’d taken Amtrak down to Atlanta (explaining that I didn’t fly – another long story, which I’ll get to eventually), and the con picked up the tab for that and the Omni Hotel (luxury room, balcony overlooking the mall – nothing I’d ever experienced before), covering my expenses without a whimper because my novel was on the *Times* list and others so, hey, I was the Celebrity du Jour.

I took the standard Amtrak to D.C., but had a roomette for the overnight to Atlanta. Woke up at every stop. Some of them in the Carolinas were straight out of the 1800s – little wooden stations with little wooden platforms, and sleepy people getting on and off at 4 a.m. – and I knew we were in Georgia when I saw the kudzu.

Don’t want to do a whole riff on kudzu, because anyone who lives down there knows what it is and what it does, but I was a city kid from NY and when I saw this stuff crawling up telephone poles and encroaching on the railroad tracks themselves, I thought: “Mm-hm. Nature red in tooth and claw. If you stood by the roadside long enough, it would wrap itself around your neck and kill you.” Vicious stuff. Twilight Zone stuff. I began to understand the Southern Mindset. Nuff said.

So just getting there was a trip to another reality. The con itself? Oh, my. TBC.

July 16, 2017

“You like me!” continued

IIRC, my first panel was not until the afternoon of the first day, so I was sort of roaming around the dealers’ room after breakfast when someone recognized my nametag and called out to me. Thank you, Robert Greenberger, for making me welcome. I told him it was my first con and I was nervous, and he assured me everyone was nervous the first time, but I’d get over it.

“You’re on a panel with good people,” he said. “They’ll guide you through if you get stage fright.”

Now, I’d done Showcase theater in my 20s, so I didn’t get stage fright when I was playing someone else. This would be the first time since speech class in undergrad where I’d have to address an audience as myself.

But I showed up in the (mercifully) small conference room where the first panel discussion was to be held, and there was John Peel, with his muttonchops and that lovely accent, and he took me under his wing. 

Stage fright? What stage fright?

Bob and John and I have been friends ever since. Thank you, gentlemen, for having my back.

One other thing about the AFF that year: one of the guest stars was the incomparable Nichelle Nichols. Now, I’d wanted to buy a little something to bring home to each of my kids (they were 14 and 11 at the time, and Mom had never left them alone in Dad’s care before). I don’t honestly remember what I bought for my daughter, but there was a poster of Nichelle in a red dress cut up/down to there, and I thought: What 11-year-old boy wouldn’t appreciate that?

So, much to the horror of some of the other fans (“You’re one of the writers! Talk to Security and they’ll bump you to the head of the line!) I stood on line with everyone else to get that poster autographed.

“It’s for my son Michael,” I said, and was rewarded with that radiant smile.

Little did I know that the next time I met Ms. Nichelle it would be to work on *Saturn’s Child* with her. I said “We’ve met once before,” and I told her the circumstances.

“Did your son like the poster?” she asked.

I said, “Ms. Nichols, his voice dropped an octave within the year. People mistake him for his father on the phone. The fact that he has that poster hanging over his bed may have something to do with it.”

The smile that time was more radiant than ever.

It turns out Michael had his own encounter with Ms. Nichols about a year after the AFF, but that’s his story to tell. 😉

Then there was the train ride home, which is a whole ’nother story. . . TBC.

July 23, 2017

The "Other Nichelle Story" 🙂

I’ve been told I’m taking too long between posts (can’t believe I’m still writing about *1987*) and I’ve been asked to tell “the other Nichelle story” so, with the encouragement of my son, Michael Bonanno, here ‘tis:

Spring of 1988 (so not quite a year after I’d bought the poster at the Atlanta Fantasy Fair), I took my kids (then 15 and 12) to a Creation Con in Manhattan. My daughter immediately made a beeline for the dealers’ room (with the proviso that whatever she bought she, not I, would have to carry home). My son wanted to see Nichelle Nichols give her talk, but by the time he got to the ballroom it was standing room only. He found me at the autograph table and he was steaming.

“I’m way in the back and I can’t see over everyone’s head!” Then he added the battle-cry of every kid since the beginning of time: “It’s not FAIR!”

I pointed out that Nichelle would be signing autographs at the table next to mine after she finished her talk, so if he could just wait a few minutes –

“Then everybody will be crowding around and I *still* won’t see her! I want to hear what she has to say. I’m going back!”

He fought his way through the crowd that was already lining up at Nichelle’s table just as she and her entourage were leaving the ballroom.

At the time, Nichelle wore a number of rings on both hands, including a huge sunburst ring on her left hand and, as anyone who’s seen her in person knows, she’s very expressive. She’s a petite woman, and her gestures tend to be sweeping. She was talking to someone on her right and waving both hands when she inadvertently clocked Michael in the face with that ring.

She realized what she’d done, came to a full stop in the middle of that crowded corridor and took his face in both hands.

“Oh, baby, I’m sooo sorry! Are you all right?”

His jaw dropped and I swear I saw his feet lift a few inches off the carpet. He couldn’t speak; all he could do was nod.

“Are you *sure*?”

Another nod.

The crowd was backing up in the corridor by now, and Security would probably be along any minute if it continued. Nichelle and her entourage moved on, and my starstruck son managed to find his feet and stumble over to where I was.

“Mom! She touched my face! Nichelle Nichols *touched my face*! I’m not going to wash my face for a week!”

I told her that story as well years later when we worked together on *Saturn’s Child*. Obviously she loved it.

And, if you care, here's my review of "Saturn's Child".

Third one down.