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Monday, November 1, 2010

David Hartwell on Wilson and Phil Dick

I landed an interview with famed SF editor David Hartwell about Robert Anton Wilson and I will be posting the results soon. But while it was fresh in my mind, I wanted to record something he said about Wilson and Philip K. Dick after I turned my recording off (because he could answer one of my questions, not about RAW, only if I turned the recording off).

I remarked that Paul Williams, a very close friend of Hartwell's, had done a wonderful job as Philip K. Dick's literary executor and that I wished someone could do a similar job to raise interest in Wilson and preserve his work for future readers. Hartwell replied that Williams had a rare combination in that he both had a close appreciation of Dick's work and an intimate understanding of the publishing industry. Both of those abilities were needed, he said. He also remarked that such an undertaking takes a lot of effort and that someone doing so would have to expect to treat it as a part time job for a period of about 10 years.