Connie Willis is the recipient of the 2011 Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award given by SFWA for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy.

Connie told her fellow SFWAns:

Being named a Nebula Grand Master is an unimaginable honor–quite literally. When I began writing science fiction as a teenager, my biggest goal was to actually sell a story. My greatest castles-in-the-air fantasy was to someday win a Nebula Award. If you’d told that teenaged girl that she’d someday end up a Nebula Grand Master, with her named linked to those of the authors she worshiped, demigods like Jack Williamson, Ray Bradbury, Joe Haldeman, and Robert A. Heinlein, she’d NEVER have believed it. I’m not sure I believe it. But I’m very, very grateful. And I’m even more grateful that I’ve been able to spend my entire life among the work and the people I fell in love with when I was thirteen.

The award will be presented at the 47th Annual Nebula Awards Weekend in Arlington, Virginia, May 17-20, 2012.