Neil Gaiman's Journal

"Blood! Blood in unimaginable quantities!"

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 05:40:00 +0000

posted by Neil

I'm happy to say that I've not won any more awards in the last 24 hours, or done anything particularly noteworthy. I've walked the dog. Written things. Listened to things on headphones. Eaten a bit. (I've lost weight in the last year. I'm about twenty pounds lighter than I was this time last year, without having done much more than eating smaller portions and a lot more sensibly. This makes me happy.) I spiced three different chilis (the Hot, the Mild and the Vegetarian) for the weekend visitors. (Lorraine, my assistant, traditionally makes the chili, and I come in at the end and spice them. Thus it has always been.) During any down moments I've read comics, for a project I don't know if I can talk about yet. Some astonishingly good ones, some not so good.

Maddy and I watched the antepenultimate Doctor Who special, The Water of Mars, which we both liked a lot more than the Bus-in-the-desert episode. Good, scary classic, monstery Doctor Who which felt predictable (in a good way - almost inevitable) until suddenly it wasn't, and it got interesting in different ways. I liked the plot and performances, and feel comfortably certain that David Tennant's Doctor is going to have a better exit from the stage than any of the other nine. (Do not write and tell me that Colin Baker never even got to regenerate, and neither did Paul McGann, so really that should have been seven, because I will not be properly sympathetic.)

Let's close some tabs:

For the curious, here's a video of the winning Graveyard Book party in Winnipeg, and photos of the winning party in Decatur, GA.

Dear Mr.Gaiman,
I am so excited that you are coming to my city, Winnipeg, for a book signing! I do have a tiny question though, how many books are you able to sign? Please write back! I'm looking forward to the book signing on December 15 2009!
From your biggest fan, Shivani Hunter

It's going to depend on the numbers of people who turn up. Assuming that it's around a thousand people in each location (Winnipeg and Decatur) I'll probably pre-sign a load of books, so people who just want to hear me read or answer questions and don't want to stand in a long line can get a signed book and go home, and we'll do something along the lines of I'll sign one thing, but if you buy a book of mine from the store I'll sign two things, which allows people to get the Thing They Love Most signed, and get something signed for someone (as we're heading into the holidays then) or for themselves.

...

Shaun Tan's story of Eric, the Foreign Exchange Student, from the Guardian, makes me toe-curlingly happy. It went up a while ago, and I've meant to post it here many times. Click on it, then click through the story, and you will not regret the time spent, I promise. Delicate, clever, gentle, strange and odd, in all the good ways. (It's possible I may have actually posted it here at some point. If so, smile indulgently, and read it again.)

...

Naperville, near Chicago, will be having its ninth annual "Naperville Reads" program this year, when everyone in the city is encouraged to read something by the same author. I'll be in Naperville toward the end of February, and "citywide events are planned". I do not know what they are either. Details at http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=338299

...

I started getting somewhat premature congratulations from people today when Screen International did interviews with the directors of Up, Fantastic Mr Fox and Coraline and described them in the headline as "this year's Oscar-nominated films". I think what Screen meant was "This year's submitted-for-Oscars and may-have-a-good-chance-of-being nominated films" as 20 animated films have been submitted so far. And no-one will know what's actually been nominated until Feb 2nd 2010.

And Coraline gets talked about in this excellent New York Times article on Unleashing Life's Wild Things.

School Library Journal on Odd and the Frost Giants.

Molly Crabapple's site has a great photo of the art that she and Fred Harper did for the Amanda Palmer Brooklyn show, with me and her and Fred and Amanda.

(Reminder: Miss Amanda's last show is in Knoxville, TN on Sunday. Mention at the Merchandise Table that some strange man sent you from his blog and you will get something cool.)

...

Remember the Best Pecan Pie on the planet I was sent for having The Graveyard Book on the NYT Bestseller list for 52 consecutive weeks? Elise Howard guest-blogs the history of the pie and how you too can make it. How good can a Pecan Pie get? About this good.

...

I'm enjoying the commentary and the travel photographs over at http://neverwhat.blogspot.com -- I don't know if I'm going to be able to be in Chicago for their production of Neverwhere at the end of April, but just from reading the commentary, I know I want to.

The annual Moth auction is now over, and soon I'll find out who paid $4,400 for afternoon tea with me, and when we're going to have it. (Part of me goes WHY DEAR GOD WHY? while another part goes, WELL IT IS FOR A GOOD CAUSE.)

...

I was fascinated to learn that there is a bedbug registry website tracking cases of bedbugs across the US, and letting you know which hotels have had bedbug outbreaks at http://bedbugregistry.com

...

And finally, a letter from one Rupert Psmith, a gentleman I had always believed to be fictional:

Dear fine, noble sir, I wish to inquire as to your favorite Wodehouse novels. As I was looking upon journals of my exploits, strangely written in the third person, it occurred to me that my autobiographical tales always seemed to bear the most power. I was wondering if you felt the same.

Yours sincerely,

Some Ass

I do. My favourite Wodehouse novel is definitely Psmith Journalist. I think, because it was about something, in a way that most Wodehouse books aren't. (They're about themselves, in the same way that Agatha Christie novels are about themselves.)

And yes, Comrade Psmith (the P is, of course, silent, as in Psittacosis or Pneumonia) you are my favourite Wodehouse character. Even if he did steal you from Rupert D'Oyly Carte.

...

Sorry about the blog title. It was that or A Quiet Sort of Day With Tab Closing, and I thought perhaps the less honest one might be more fun. There was, in fact, no blood anywhere in this blog entry at all. Not even in imaginable quantities.

Labels: Doctor Who, shaun tan, Pecan Pie, bedbugs, Naperville Reads, The Graveyard Book Halloween Party Competition

LOCAL MAN IN HATE MAIL OUTRAGE SHOCK FIASCO

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:55:00 +0000

posted by Neil

Anything I say about it would sound like bragging, so I'll just mention that The Graveyard Book won the Booktrust Teenage Prize, and leave it at that. I couldn't be there, so Chris Riddell accepted it on my behalf, and read out what I'd asked him to read. (The Booktrust site has an interview with me about it here.)

There's a terrific article/interview in the Guardian about it (I even like the photo, even though I cannot explain the hair) at http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/nov/18/neil-gaiman-graveyard-book-awards.

I will not even attempt to explain the hair. It must have known what it was doing.

The Headline for the Guardian article is

Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book buried under awards
As the fantasy world's renaissance man collects yet another award, he talks to Michelle Pauli

I quite like the "buried under awards" joke. (Although The Graveyard Book definitely hasn't won all, or even most, of the awards it's been nominated for. Margo Lanagan's wonderful Tender Morsels and Jeffrey Ford's The Shadow Year [which may be wonderful but which I haven't read yet] beat it to the World Fantasy Award, just as Graham Joyce's Memoirs of a Master Forger beat it to the August Derleth award, for example.)

When I was a journalist, one of the things that stopped me wanting to spend the rest of my life journalisting was sub-editors who made me feel embarrassed by carefully introducing mistakes or slight distortions into things I'd written, or into headlines. So I felt a twinge when I read the Daily Telegraph interview, in which I was quoted pretty accurately,

Gaiman, 49, said: "I definitely don't write like Kipling but he was a literary hero as a kid.
"I was fascinated when I first started mentioning that I thought Kipling was an amazing writer.
"I started getting – not exactly hate mail – it was more disappointed mail.
"People would tell me, 'How could a writer like you – that we like – like a fascist, an imperialist dog?' "

but with the headline of

Coraline author Neil Gaiman received 'hate mail' for liking Rudyard Kipling
Neil Gaiman, the author behind the surprise film hit Coraline, received "hate mail" for professing that Rudyard Kipling was one of his literary heroes.

I keep forgetting about the new-style sensationalist Daily Telegraph. I like the way that "not exactly hate mail... disappointed mail" in the body of the article turns into "hate mail" in the headline. And was Coraline really a surprise hit? And is mentioning the Coraline film really how the Telegraph audience would go from "Who...?" to "Oh, right, him."

...

Someone wrote to me recently asking,

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

You've often talked about the rights for readers to choose the books they want to read without censorship. What are your thoughts of a library in Kentucky firing two librarians who restricted reading materials to a child?

Raymond

I figured I'd wait until the facts were in before commenting. So, in brief:

Over in Kentucky, a library worker (not librarian) felt menaced by what she felt was the satanic sexualness of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, and kept it checked out for a year so no-one could read it. (Except her: and she had to be prayed over while she read it.) What worried this lady was,

She just didn't want this book in the Graphic Novel section, which is located next to Young Adult Fiction.

She wasn't trying to keep it from kids. She was keeping it from everyone.

Then a customer put it on order, and the computer would no longer keep it checked out to keep it off the shelves. She violated library policy by finding out who had it on order, discovered the person who wanted it was an 11 year old girl (no information has been given as to whether this was with or without parental knowledge, but I don't think that would have mattered to this lady) and she persuaded another library worker (also not a librarian) to help her stop anyone getting the book. Around this point their plan was exposed. They'd violated enough library rules and policies that they were dismissed. Strangely enough, even after they were fired, the original lady who took the book off the shelves still hasn't returned the book, which seems to me to have crossed the invisible line that separates "stopping people reading things you don't like" from "stealing".

(Incidentally, for those who haven't read it, LOEG: The Black Dossier is many things, but it isn't Lost Girls, and it certainly isn't pornography, although it has moments that comment on classic texts, including some pornographic ones. It has a couple of pin-up-y images. It's got comic-book violence in it and some realistic violence too. It has references in it to British children's fiction that an 11 year old girl in Kentucky is very unlikely to get. Pam Noles wrote an essay about race, minstrelsy and the problematic use of the Golliwogg in it. Is it a book I think an 11 year old would enjoy and get stuff out of? Depends on your 11 year old. I'm always surprised when I meet Sandman readers under the age of 13, but I've met some, and they were ready for it.)

The events are summarised at The Beat here, with a two page local newspaper article that presents a fairly balanced picture of the events here.

So my thoughts of a library in Kentucky firing two librarians who restricted reading materials to a child? I think the library did the right thing. And I think they should get their book back from the lady who stole it.

...

Over at Audiofile Magazine there's a celebration of the audiobooks of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (me): interviews with Martin Jarvis, Stephen Briggs, Nigel Planer and George Guidall talking about the ups and downs of reading us aloud. http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/epicks/1109_landingpage.html

...

Thank you to all the people who have submitted International Covers (here's the submission page) to the International Covers Page. I'll try and put a few covers here from time to time. Here's one from Russia:

This is the cover to the Russian Edition of FRAGILE THINGS, which I suppose might contain "The Witch's Headstone", or is just a very Graveyard Booky sort of a cover. [Edit to add, I just clicked on it, saw it full-size and realised they're both boys, and it's an "October in the Chair" cover.]

And finally, someone on the NPR blog wrote about Sandman. It's meant to be a nice review of the P. Craig Russell Sandman: Dream Hunters, and I think it was probably meant to be funny, but if so the author seems to have misjudged the tone, and instead just turned out a series of patronising cliches about somebody's idea of Sandman readers.

Which puzzles me, because I've met hundreds of thousands of people who read Sandman all around the world, and they look just like everyone else: all they seem to have in common is that they are intelligent bipeds capable of understanding comics, who like Sandman. Probably a lot like the person who wrote the article.

[Edit to add, other people don't seem to find it funny either.]

Labels: Awards, interviews, international covers, rogue librarians

Revealed! The Rulers of the Darkness of This World

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:57:00 +0000

posted by Neil

So about 40 bookshops had Graveyard Book parties in the Hallowe'en period. The grand prize was to be a signing by me, in the Winter Holiday Season. One. One signing.

The people at Harper Collins winnowed it down to the final eleven stores -- it would be one grand winner and ten runners up -- and sent me eleven reports on eleven parties. Some of these were videos, some were photos and descriptions. There were big bookshops and small, and all sorts of different kinds of parties.

(And it can't have been easy getting it down to those eleven. I'd read on the web a description of 13 Graveyard Book Parties, all of which looked like they could have been finalists.)

I looked at the videos and read the reports and looked at the photos. The parties were amazing. I watched them again. And again. They got no less amazing. Still, two were ever-so-slightly out in the lead. I watched their videos over and over, trying to decide. I wondered if I could legitimately award points for climate, or for whether I actually wanted to go there or not, (suddenly throwing Octavia Books in New Orleans into the lead), or deduct points for it being probably rather cold in, say, Winnipeg, in the winter. No, I couldn't. It was all about the parties.

Then I called Elyse Marshall at Harper Childrens. "Look," I said. "I can't in all conscience pick one of these over the other. If you're willing to give two grand prizes, and fly me to two bookshops, I'm willing to give up another day to do another signing."

She said she'd check.

She checked, and reported back. They were willing. And so was I.

So here is the official announcement, along with the second and third prize winners. (And, truthfully, the 28-odd runners up were good enough that I need to figure out something nice for them too.)

I'll sign in Decatur on Monday the 14th at 6.00pm, and in Winnipeg on Tuesday the 15th at 6.00pm.

...

I spent the last few days on the road with Amanda. It was mostly fun. I loved visiting Northhampton Ma - my first chance to wander the streets since I lived in The Old Bank on Main Street, writing the last two parts of A Game of You en route to Tucson, in 1991.

The venue, on Pearl Street, was run by the kind of people who save money and lose goodwill by not turning on the heat in the winter. Ever. There were two dressing rooms backstage, but only one had a little heater, so everyone crammed into that room (which did not ever make it to warm. It just wasn't cold) and read the sad graffiti from bands not (as is usual in these cases) bragging about their sexual conquests or drawing bits of their anatomy, or just writing the name of their band (size of band-name graffito is always in inverse proportion to whether you will ever have heard of them). No, the Pearl Street Ballroom dressing room wall was covered with mournful comments from bands about how much they hate the venue and the people who own it and how much they wish they could turn on the heating.

It was a wonderful gig, although I wore a sweater and a coat to watch it. We signed for people afterwards.

On Saturday Amanda and I drove through the rain to Brooklyn, which went fine until the car in front of us stopped suddenly, and we stopped suddenly, and the moment of triumph as we didn't hit the car in front of us was slightly spoiled when a car slammed into us from behind. We got to the side of the road, did all the things you do in circumstances like that, traded information, waited for the police to arrive, worried that Amanda might miss the gig (this may just have been the people in my car, which was me and Amanda), and were generally shaken. I wouldn't have wanted to perform after that (and in fact I declined to, when Amanda asked if I'd like to read a story from the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book that night) but she did an amazing gig that night - one of my favourites ever. Her backing group (who are also the support act), The Nervous Cabaret, are incredible, and they sound fantastic as a team. I've only ever really known her as a girl with a keyboard alone on a stage, before. Other highlights (for me) included the Brel song "Amsterdam" (which I knew as Bowie B-side, as a teenager) and a "Pirate Jenny", which always makes me think of Watchmen, and, for Maddy (who was originally meant to be there, but wasn't, so will see it onYouTube) a Ting Tings cover. And we did a signing afterward.

That was not the most exciting thing. The most exciting thing was that up in the dressing room beforehand (which was warm and nice and carpeted and had no sad graffiti at all) Sxip Shirey and I listened to the last of the music tracks that Sxip had done for my silent movie as we watched it in Quicktime on Sxip's powerbook, I chose the strings instead of the piano for the scene in the car when Bill Nighy is driving away from the pub, and we watched it all through, with Sxip starting each bit of music at the right place, making it the first ever play-through of the film with finished music.

The film (which is called STATUESQUE) will be broadcast in the UK over Christmas, on Sky 1 and (I think) Sky Arts. I am not sure which day yet, as there are eleven of these films, and the running order has not yet been decided. I'll post it when I find out.

...

With all the links to the film versions of the Hallowe'en Other Mothers (and Coraline families) I put up here, it's nice to put up a link to someone who was the Other Mother from the book:
http://never-travelled.blogspot.com/2009/10/other-mother.html

Which reminds me a bit of this wonderfully slimy article at http://www.magic-city-news.com/Old_Embers/Two_Stories_for_Children12574.shtml which I found actually offensive. Not because of how it characterised me and Coraline...

Those who made "Coraline" are also likely to endorse the evils of abortion and homosexual marriage, and given a chance, could easily change America into a Soviet-style hell on earth. That is - if you will - Mother Hulda shows the soul of the Right, and Coraline, the tormented soul of the Left.

A side-by-side comparison of the two stories reveals that ours is much more than a political struggle. Ours is truly "a battle against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.*"

...but because of the way it mis-described and omits important things from the Grimms' fairy tale it opens with (and ineptly compares Coraline to). Here's a link to the actual story: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/diamondstoads/stories/holle.html

(Ah. A Quick Google showed me that someone had already done a sane demolition job on it.)

...

And finally, it's that time of year again. Tonight is the Moth Ball, a ball that exists to support The Moth, the wonderful true story-telling entity. And, as they did last year, they are auctioning off Tea With Neil Gaiman: It's at http://www.cmarket.com/auction/item/Browse.action?auctionId=99195129 and the auction has two days to go.

Theoretically it's tea in New York. Last year it was tea (and many small cake, sandwich and sweet-like nibbles) in New York in January, but was not at the Player's Club, because they were closed at the time that worked best for the people who won the auction. In truth, if you're somewhere I'm going to be near in the next six months, then we could probably arrange things to be near you.

I don't suppose I need to point out that, no, I don't get any of the money, it all goes to support the Moth - http://www.themoth.org/ -- but you never know.

It's going to a very good cause. If you aren't a Moth fan, check out their podcasts.

*i.e. me. Well, me and Henry Selick.

Labels: tea with me, The Moth, me and St. Paul and the Brothers Grimm, auctions, The Graveyard Book Halloween Party Competition

A VERY SEKRIT PASSPHRASE

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:04:00 +0000

posted by Neil

There were 38 independent bookshops around the land who had Graveyard Book parties. The people at Harpers somehow got it down to 11, and they sent them to me to judge the winner. The winner gets me for a signing in December. I watched the 11 videos/descriptions/ photos. I watched them again. I watched them yet again, this time with Lorraine, my assistant, watching too and saying helpful things like, "They are all so good. Whoo. Don't know how you'll make a decision. Look at that! They're line dancing to Monster Mash! And that Death is on stilts, isn't he. Is that a horse? A horse in a store? These are amazing." The fourth time, Woodsman Hans wandered in from the deep woods (where he is making a pond) and watched them too.

Then I made my decision. I called Elyse Marshall at Harpers and told her. "Ah," she said. "I'll have to check with the lawyers to find out if you can do that."

So we wait.

...

I posted the Amanda Palmer current East Coast tour dates here last night. http://www.amandapalmer.net/afp/upcoming-shows for venues and details.

Today it occurred to me that in the past when I've had friends on tour, I've often done special "Neil sent me" things, where people who come from this blog get some special free thing, which a) is nice for the people who get the free thing and b) tells the person on tour that people are really coming from the blog. I did it with Thea Gilmore (who is starting a new UK tour next week. People in the UK, go and see live Thea Gilmore, for she is wonderful: http://www.theagilmore.net for dates and venues.) I've done it for The Magnetic Fields, who, incidentally, have a new album coming out on Jan 26th. And then there's the Green Goddess restaurant in New Orleans, where you can mention the "Mezze of Destruction" to tell them you came from here and get sent something wonderful to eat or drink. (It changes, depending on what chef Chris DeBarr feels like making.)

I should do it for Amanda. I called her up and told her.

She called me back. "Beth and I have put our heads together and come up with a code phrase for people from your blog," she said. "So they say it and get a special free thing from the merch table."

"Fire away," I said.

"We think they should come over to the merch table and point to this poster...

...and say 'That chick in the yellow corset crowdsurfing looks kind of hot. I wonder if she's dating anyone?' And then they get something for free."

I said I thought that was a very bad idea, because people might say that anyway, and it was an awful lot for people to remember. And what if they sold out of that poster early that night?

I said, "What about any variant of 'Neil sent me from his blog?'"

"Absolutely not," she said. "That's boring."

I told her to leave it with me.

And then I stared at this screen glumly, with nothing happening in my head, and real work I should be doing starting to nip at my heels. So I turned to the Oracular Orb of truth at http://www.neilgaiman.com/oracle/ and I clicked on the orb and shook it.

It gave me a quote from a few years ago, when Maddy took over the journal and posted pictures from the Hellboy set.

Here is Doug Jones and some strange man it said.

If you go to one of Amanda Palmer's shows on this tour, wander over to the Merch table, and say that you found about it from some strange man's blog. And something good will probably happen. (If they just stare at you, tell them it was me, and this blog. If they keep staring tell them that the chick in the yellow corset in the poster looks like she probably has a really nice boyfriend.)

....

This seemed like a very good cause to me:

Hi Neil,

I am a long-time fan, and have even met you backstage at a Tori show (though that was many years ago!). I am writing to ask a bit of a favor.

About 10 years ago, I appeared on 20/20 with Tori, speaking about sexual violence. Since then, I've stayed close with Tori whose been a mentor of the best kind. I also started a nonprofit, Pandora's Project, that provides support, information, and resources to rape and sexual abuse survivors and their supporters. We operate Pandora's Aquarium, an online support group with more than 20,000 registered members.

Recently, I was named a 2009 L'Oreal Woman of Worth for my volunteer work with Pandora's. I was chosen for this honor from more than 2,500 applicants.

Now, one of the ten 2009 Honorees will be selected as the national honoree through a public online vote. Her cause will get an additional $25,000, and a lot of media exposure. This is the first time L'Oreal has recognized a sexual violence organization, and becoming the national honoree would allow me to shine a spotlight on this issue that affects so many women and women.

Voting is easy - people just need to go to the url below, enter their email address in the box on the right, and click the "submit vote" button. Each email address is allowed one vote, and voting ends November 24.

http://www.womenofworth.com/Honorees/Honoree2009Detail.aspx?nomid=5657c940-425b-47a2-879d-ed3c2d82b56f

I am wondering if you might be willing to send people to this voting link via your (infinitely popular) twitter or blog. I understand if it's not something you can do, but my experience running a small-budget nonprofit tells me it's always wise to ask!

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Shannon Lambert

I'll plug it happily.

Your correspondent asks "Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the 'oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death' version in which they bring him to the zoo?"

I fear she's in error; in the original version, written by Prokofiev, Peter snares the wolf, then convinces the hunters NOT to kill it, but to take it to the zoo.

I've been researching, and that's what I found out too. Wikipedia has a list of changes made in various versions of the story (Disney, for example, had the wolf not eat the duck). But the wolf was always taken to the zoo...

Radio! Books! Violin Lessons! Also, a haircut I do not mention anywhere in this blog!

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:00:00 +0000

posted by Neil

Went in to KNOW radio station in ST Paul today and recorded an introduction to the NPR MORNING EDITION "Open Mike" piece I've been recording on audiobooks, and heard the edit. Asked them to see if they could find a bit more time in the piece for Audible founder Don Katz, who did an amazing interview and was pared down to about a sentence in the current edit. It'll go out in the next ten days, and as soon as I know when it goes out I'll put it up here. I talk to David Sedaris, Martin Jarvis, Don Katz and veteran audio producer/director Rick Harris in it.

Also popped in to DreamHaven and signed a bunch of books. The piles of books have grown so high, and the administration was proving so hard for Greg now that he is a one-man operation that I'm no longer personalising books there. But lots of signed books now in for the Holidays at DreamHaven's Neilgaiman.net site.

Spent much of the rest of the day driving around, being a dad, taking a daughter and her friend to violin, all that normal sort of stuff, and listening to Martin Jarvis's Good Omens audiobook as I did so. I'm about half-way through it now. It makes me so happy, especially hearing Adam Young read in something sort of close to Martin's Just William voice. Weirdly, I found it easier to hear what I wrote and what Terry wrote than I could if I looked at the text (which I discovered a few years ago, when I proofread the Harper Collins edition). The text is a bit of a blur, after all these years, but listening I'd find myself going, "Me... Terry.... Me in first draft, Terry in second.... Terry in first draft, me in second.... My footnote to his bit.... His footnote to mine..." feeling vaguely like an archaeologist. Even spotted a couple of tiny continuity goofs we should have caught 21 years ago that I may call Terry about and correct in future editions.

(Edit to add, here's a link for iTunes for the Good Omens book that will, I am afraid, almost definitely only work in the US and territories that buy books from the US.)

I still haven't done the Big China Blog. Until I do, I should point you to Amanda's blog, at http://blog.amandapalmer.net/post/240943999/east-infection-china-singapore, which has many photographs of our adventures, and of us, and lots of small anecdotes.

(She has an East Coast Tour on right now -
11.12 Portland, ME
11.13 Northampton, MA
11.14 Brooklyn, NY (SOLD OUT)
11.18 Philadelphia, PA
11.19 Falls Church, VA
11.20 Carrboro, NC
11.22 Knoxville, TN.
Go see her in concert. She's a wonder live. Tell her I said hi.)

Hi Neil,

I just read about your event in January, where in you will be narrating Peter and the Wolf. My husband and I are over joyed by this. We will hopefully be bringing our three girls up to see the performance. We did have one question though. Will you be reading the original version where the wolf actually is killed, and not the "oh my goodness our kids can't hear about death" version in which they bring him to the zoo? We are both, obviously, really hopeful that being you, and not afraid to scare children (thank you for that btw) will be speaking the true to the story version in which Peter shoots the wolf and then his dead body is paraded through the town as a trophy.

Thanks for your time,
~Cecily

PS- Do you know if there will be tickets for the event or the reception afterwards? It will be a long drive, and it would be nice to be prepared for either staking out seats all day or having tickets in hand. (We could not find any reservation information on the website)

I'd forgotten - or never knew - that there was an alternative version. The script I was sent is the Zoo version. I'll investigate...

And no, I do not know about tickets. I will find out.

Dear Neil,

Your Web Goblin offered to post photos of Coraline pumpkins, and when they were told this, my 8 and 11-year old daughters decided to make some. Here they are, along with 2 emoticon pumpkins and a turnip.

http://www.steampunkfamily.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IMG_01521-300x225.jpg

I used them to illustrate a ghost story: http://www.steampunkfamily.com/2009/10/philomenas-fright/

Three of the four of us were Coraline characters for Halloween. (The 11-year old went her own way as Susan Sto-Helit.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37435081@N03/4077708519/sizes/l/in/set-72157622616148613/

The Other Mother is the scariest thing I've ever been for Halloween. All the children (even the 4-year olds!) knew who I was, and I elicited much nervous laughter when I offered to sew buttons in their eyes.

Thank you for being VERY SCARY INDEED

I love how many families were Coraline families, this year.

If, like me, anybody else was intrigued by your mention of Kenneth Grahame's other works and wants to read them with a minimum of searching, they'll be happy to know both 'The Golden Age' and 'Dream Days' are available for free on the always invaluable Project Gutenberg:

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/291
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/270

Thanks for mentioning them in the first place; I'm always interested in children's lit of that time that has managed to slip through my net.

- B. Bolander

What a good idea. Two very beautiful, gently funny books by the author of The Wind in the Willows. I really enjoyed them, but stylistically they are, well, out of fashion, and will not be everybody's cup of Edwardian tea. Here's a passage that describes the illustration I put up yesterday, as small children steal through the house on a midnight expedition to obtain biscuits (ie cookies, if you are American):

The Blue Room had in prehistoric times been added to by taking in a superfluous passage, and so not only had the advantage of two doors, but enabled us to get to the head of the stairs without passing the chamber wherein our dragon-aunt lay couched. It was rarely occupied, except when a casual uncle came down for the night. We entered in noiseless file, the room being plunged in darkness, except for a bright strip of moonlight on the floor, across which we must pass for our exit. On this our leading lady chose to pause, seizing the opportunity to study the hang of her new dressing-gown. Greatly satisfied thereat, she proceeded, after the feminine fashion, to peacock and to pose, pacing a minuet down the moonlit patch with an imaginary partner. This was too much for Edward's histrionic instincts, and after a moment's pause he drew his single-stick, and with flourishes meet for the occasion, strode onto the stage. A struggle ensued on approved lines, at the end of which Selina was stabbed slowly and with unction, and her corpse borne from the chamber by the ruthless cavalier. The rest of us rushed after in a clump, with capers and gesticulations of delight; the special charm of the performance lying in the necessity for its being carried out with the dumbest of dumb shows.

Once out on the dark landing, the noise of the storm without told us that we had exaggerated the necessity for silence; so, grasping the tails of each other's nightgowns even as Alpine climbers rope themselves together in perilous places, we fared stoutly down the staircase-moraine, and across the grim glacier of the hall, to where a faint glimmer from the half-open door of the drawing-room beckoned to us like friendly hostel-lights. Entering, we found that our thriftless seniors had left the sound red heart of a fire, easily coaxed into a cheerful blaze; and biscuits—a plateful—smiled at us in an encouraging sort of way, together with the halves of a lemon, already once squeezed but still suckable. The biscuits were righteously shared, the lemon segments passed from mouth to mouth; and as we squatted round the fire, its genial warmth consoling our unclad limbs, we realised that so many nocturnal perils had not been braved in vain.

"It's a funny thing," said Edward, as we chatted, "how I hate this room in the daytime. It always means having your face washed, and your hair brushed, and talking silly company talk. But to-night it's really quite jolly. Looks different, somehow."

"I never can make out," I said, "what people come here to tea for. They can have their own tea at home if they like,—they're not poor people,—with jam and things, and drink out of their saucer, and suck their fingers and enjoy themselves; but they come here from a long way off, and sit up straight with their feet off the bars of their chairs, and have one cup, and talk the same sort of stuff every time."

Selina sniffed disdainfully. "You don't know anything about it," she said. "In society you have to call on each other. It's the proper thing to do."

"Pooh! YOU'RE not in society," said Edward, politely; "and, what's more, you never will be."

"Yes, I shall, some day," retorted Selina; "but I shan't ask you to come and see me, so there!"

"Wouldn't come if you did," growled Edward.

Labels: audio books, NPR, Martin Jarvis, China, amanda palmer, The Golden Age

The Murder Re-Enacted

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:21:00 +0000

posted by Neil

The Graveyard Book just won a literary award, which never gets old, and this one came with a medal, and also with a cheque. I thought, Hm. I have to get myself something with the cheque and I have to do it immediately, otherwise it will simply vanish into the day to day bank account of life, and I will never look at anything and go "Ah, that is the thing I got with my Graveyard Book Award."

So I bought this. It's "The Murder Re-Enacted":

It's an E. H. Shepard illustration (he's most famous for illustrating Winnie the Pooh) from Kenneth Grahame's book The Golden Age. Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind In The Willows, the story of Mole and Rat and Badger and of course, Mr Toad, also illustrated by Shepard.

I once read an essay by A.A. Milne telling people that, of course they knew Kenneth Grahame's work, he wrote The Golden Age and Dream Days, everybody had read them, but he also did this amazing book called The Wind in the Willows that nobody had ever heard of. And then Milne wrote a play called Toad of Toad Hall, which was a big hit and made The Wind in The Willows famous and read, and, eventually, one of the good classics (being a book that people continue to read and remember with pleasure), while The Golden Age and Dream Days, Grahame's beautiful, gentle tales of Victorian childhood, are long forgotten.

If there is a moral, or a lesson to be learned from all this, I do not know what it is.

Right. Off to K.N.O.W. St Paul to record the intro bits to my NPR piece on Audio Books, and I will play the Martin Jarvis-read GOOD OMENS on the car CD player all the way there.

Labels: A A Milne, audio books, The Wind in the Willows, fame

half a lifetime?

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:49:00 +0000

posted by Neil

The editor at CBS Sunday Morning asked if I had any photos of my son Mike back at the period when I first had the idea for The Graveyard Book - late 1985. I looked. We really didn't have any. I wandered next door and asked Mary (his mum, my former wife and for these last five years my friend and next-door neighbour) if she had any photos from back then. "No," she said. Then, "Do you mean those transparencies? I have them in an envelope somewhere." She vanished and came back with a large manila envelope from a long time ago. "Here."

Half a lifetime ago -- literally -- I was nearly 25, and working for magazines. Henry Fikret, who photographed a lot of the interviews I did, volunteered to take some photos of me and my family, and he did.A week later the envelope arrived, and I realised that everything he shot was on colour transparencies -- like huge slides -- and I was never sure what do with them, other than being fairly sure I couldn't take them down to Boots the Chemist and have prints knocked out. So they stayed in their envelope, and they kept their secrets, and were forgotten.

Yesterday I had the transparencies scanned, and finally got to see lots of pictures I had never actually seen before of Holly as a baby, Mike at the time that I would have watched him riding his tricycle around the graveyard, and me... at exactly half my age: A young journalist who had sold a very small handful of short stories and two non-fiction books, with dreams of writing fiction and comics. At the time I was dressing in grey, but was getting tired of the way that you would buy something grey and take it home and discover that it was a blueish grey or a brownish grey, and wondering if I'd have the same problem if I just started to dress in black.

And half a lifetime on, it seemed like it might be good to put one up here. I checked, and Mary didn't mind. What odd clothes we wore back then. What big glasses. And look, my hair is practically normal.

So long ago, and it went like the blink of an eye.

...

Birthday wishes are flooding in from around the globe. I wish I could reply to everyone personally, but it would take the next 365 days... so thank you. Thank you all.

And a particular thank you to Garrison Keillor, who announced my birthday on NPR and who also told me that on my thirteenth birthday they burned Slaughterhouse 5, and that on my ninth birthday Sesame Street was born. The Writers Almanac is a marvellous thing.

...

In January I will be part of a free concert for all ages on January 16, 2010, at 7pm, in the World Financial Center Winter Garden, New York. I'll be the narrator for the performance of Peter and the Wolf, performed by the http://www.knickerbocker-orchestra.org (whose website you should visit to get details).

Kissing is about spreading germs (and this is a good thing), a scientist says.

Alan Moore is leaping aboard the Underground magazine bandwagon. Following the success of IT and OZ, Alan's Dodgem Logic is coming out. There's a great interview with Alan at http://www.mustardweb.org/dodgemlogic/

(And enormous congratulations to Alan, who is now a grandfather, and to Leah and John, who are now parents, and Edward Alec Moore-Reppion, who is now, um, born. A Scorpio, like his grandfather and his whatever-exactly-I am, sort of honorary great-uncle or something. Not that we Scorpios believe in that sort of thing, of course.)

Again, thank you all for the birthday wishes...

Labels: birthdays, NPR, Peter and the Wolf, Garrison Keillor, Dodgem Logic, why Alan Moore should be made Wizard of England

For those who read this blog for the articles

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:31:00 +0000

posted by Neil

(Serena Altschul and some author in July, sitting on the trampoline after two days of interviews. None of which, oddly enough, were done on the trampoline.)

Mr. Neil,

I DVR'd yesterday's installment of Sunday Morning and after zipping through it back and forth multiple times cannot seem to find you, though the description indicated the correct episode. Was it bumped to next week? Have you been sucked into an alternate Neil-less universe?

A concerned reader,
Mary

I'm afraid it was bumped by the Fort Hood Massacre.

I checked: The profile CBS did of me is apparently still going out, probably some time in December, although no-one seems certain when. I was told that we could help ensure that it is broadcast (and possibly make it come out sooner than December) if CBS think people would actually like to see it. Which means that if you do want to see it, you can help the process along if you write or email CBS and (politely) tell them so:

ADDRESS:
CBS News Sunday Morning
Box O (for Osgood)
524 West 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

E-MAIL: sundays@cbsnews.com

...

My friend Steve Brust (a fine and brilliant novelist) wrote to Miss Manners about his financial issues, and what having a Donate button on a website means. She replied to him here. There's a fascinating conversation going on about it at his website that I initially missed because I was in China... Most people disagree with Miss Manners. Even I disagree with Miss Manners, and I don't have a Donate button, or use the Amazon links to generate revenue, or have advertising or anything. (That's because Harper Collins set up this website, and they pay for our bandwidth and such. If they stopped, I'd have to think about ways to make it pay for itself.)

...

Stephen King's UNDER THE DOME was one of my favourite books of the year so far. (R. Crumb's retelling of the Book of Genesis is my very favourite book of the year.) So I was pleased to be sent this link to a really wonderful Stephen King poem:

http://www.playboy.com/articles/stephen-king-the-bone-church/index.html

(It's published by Playboy, which means that for some of you the site may be blocked.)

There's also a Stephen King story in this week's New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/09/091109fi_fiction_king

(Needless to say, I only read the New Yorker for the articles.)

...

Dear Neil Gaiman, I ask for half-a-moment of your time (I would not presume to ask for more). This Spring 2010 I am teaching a Topics in Literature class on YOU at Winona State University (Eng 225: Neil Gaiman). Easy enough to select representative novel (American Gods), short stories (Fragile Things), children and YA (Graveyard Book), but here's the rub: I will likely only assign one Sandman graphic novel to students. I have been debating which is most representative, most worthy of inclusion, most amenable to class discussion and student scholarship. Then I thought I'd ask you. I know you suggest above that, for questions of this sort, we consider you a dead author, but I know you're not. When I came to a similar impasse about which of Ursula Le Guin's works to include in another class, she actually replied and offered her input. I extend the same offer to you: which of the Sandman volumes would you like to see on the syllabus?
Thank you for your time,
Nicholas Ozment, English Instructor
WSU

It's a hard one. I think if I were teaching I'd either go for Season of Mists or Fables and Reflections, because both of them have stuff to teach -- those nice chewy bits that people can like or dislike, argue with or discuss. I know a lot of teachers like to teach Dream Country because a) Midsummer Night's Dream won awards, and b) it's short and c) it has a script in the back. Your call. And good luck.

...

I mentioned recently that there were some beautiful new Polish and Russian book covers for my books that I'd seen at signings, which got me thinking. The International Cover gallery on this website is incredibly out of date.

It's at http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Neil's_Work/International_Covers.

And though I get a lot of foreign editions in, and will at some point head down to the basement and rummage around and scan some (this week's mail brought the two-volume Japanese edition of Anansi Boys, on the cover of which Fat Charlie is not only Very White, but also Very Thin, and the complex Chinese - ie. Taiwan and Hong Kong - edition of The Graveyard Book) I thought that blog readers, being, as you are, all over the world, might be a better resource for knowing where to look for foreign covers.

So if you have, and want to scan in or link to foreign covers we do not have posted, or are a foreign publisher and would like your books up, there is now a submission page: http://www.neilgaiman.com/extras/covers/ which lets you upload them to the webgoblin, who will put them in the gallery (and on the pages for the books in question). And perhaps we should have them arranged by country as well -- some countries, like the French and the Russians and the Poles, have had so many different covers over the years.

(Also, Absolute Death was published this week. It is amazingly beautiful. Yes, I think they overpriced it too and no, pricing decisions at DC Comics are nothing to do with me. And the audio book of Good Omens will be released tomorrow. It's read by Martin Jarvis. People have asked why it is not read by me, and I have to explain that it is because if I read it I would just be doing my Martin Jarvis reading the William storiess impression, so better by far to have the real thing.)

Was your basement finished when you purchased your home or did you have it finished for your basement library? If you finished it yourself, how difficult was it? Also, I thought I saw a dehumidifier in one of the Photosynth pictures. Do you need one because of the books?

I'm asking because we have a full unfinished basement that we would like to have finished. We are running out of room for our books also. I don't think we don't have as many as you do though. :)

Any other suggestions for such a project would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
C.

No, when we got here the basement had a clay floor that puddled when it rained. We hired some nice builders and spent a lot of money finishing it, putting in drainage tiles, underfloor heating and all. There's a dehumidifier there in the summer and a humidifier in the winter, because after the first few years I noticed that binding glue and leather book covers were both cracking and flaking. There's now the equivalent of a large house in basement rooms beneath this house, filled with books and CDs and suchlike stuff.

And finally, a few photos from the China trip, taken by Ian Ford (or in one case, on his camera). Ian's a travel guide who now lives in China who helped organise my travels, and came along with me for part of the journey.

Amanda and I in the silk clothes that my publisher had given us as a thank you for coming, and because they are terrific.

Amanda, Ian Ford (in the pale top, also a gift from my publishers) and.. my publishers, SF World -- who will be publishing the mainland Chinese edition of The Graveyard Book very soon, and are very excited.

I'm holding the Galaxy Award for this year, given to the foreign author most popular with Chinese reader-voters. This was my second year of winning it, so I have retired from the competition and said that they have to find a new favourite foreign author now.

Labels: China, drainage tiles, Stephen King, the CBS Sunday Morning show and when it will air

Final Reminder for Bookshops

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:37:00 +0000

posted by Neil

A quick reminder (as I was just asked) that today is the day that the bookshop Graveyard Book party reports have to be in to Harper Collins. By 9 pm PST.

http://files.harpercollins.com/Mktg/HarperChildrens/PDF/GraveyardContest_rules.pdf are the rules and info for those who lost them.

Hi Mr. Gaiman,

I was disappointed today to read you won't be part of the judging for The Graveyard Book contests. My not-wealthy, middle-of-nowhere bookstore just sent in its entry, and something we're concerned about is the fairness of judging.

For example, independent bookstores like Powell's (I'm sure you know) easily have enough money and are in a convenient enough location to ask you to come at one time or another. Against stores like that, who were able to put more money into their parties, we stand little chance.

I don't think that it's a lost cause for us; we were very creative. I'm just nervous to know you won't be judging. Can you tell me whether you think the judges will take things like size and location of bookstores into account? It would make me sleep a little easier until the results are announced.

Tusen takk,
Allison

Well, per the rules, the judging is based on:

(i) Overall creativity of the Party, as demonstrated by the invitations, signage, decorations, activities, entertainment, and refreshments.
(ii) Customer attendance and response (i.e., enthusiasm, costumes, participation).
(iii) Ability to capture and represent the spirit of The Graveyard Book.
...specifically to reward creativity, and not the ability to outspend other shops. (That was also why the party had to actually be at the bookshop, and not at another location.)

I asked my editor, Elise Howard, and she said,

Gosh, yes. Here's what we think is happening. We are looking at all the entries. On Monday, we'll send you the best 11, from which you will choose the Grand Prize Winner. The rest will get the first-prize package. So the short answer is that you ARE helping to choose.

The longer answer is that we will be very fair and will consider creativity, which includes work done with available resources, along with pure execution. (Don't you think? We haven't done anything yet; still waiting for more entries to come in.)

...which means that

a) I was wrong and will be the ultimate judge, from the shortlist. (Damn.)

and

b) everyone's on a level playing field.

Does that help reassure you?

PS -- Widgett's Graveyard Book Dessert competition winners have been announced over at http://www.needcoffee.com/2009/11/06/graveyard-book-dessert-challenge-winners/.

This one had NOTHING to do with me at all. But lor' the winning desserts look tasty...

Labels: The Graveyard Book Halloween Party Competition

Note to self: Nights are for sleeping, Days are for Being Awake.

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:09:00 +0000

posted by Neil

Still trying to get back onto a diurnal schedule. (And, I should add, failing.)

Maddy and I started watching the new season of Sarah Jane Adventures tonight, which seems back on form after a dodgy second season.

Many amazing things waiting for me when I got home -- I still haven't gone through them all yet -- but today's mail brought me a copy of the Fantagraphics Gahan Wilson: 50 Years of Playboy Cartoons book. Three glorious volumes. I wrote the introduction to Volume 2, and thus got it for free. (If you're curious, there are many Gahan Wilson Playboy cartoons up at this website. There's a Gahan Wilson virtual museum over at http://www.gahanwilson.com

And, of course, although I posted it before, it bears repeating that you can watch the film that Steven-Charles Jaffe made of the "Dark and Silly Night" comic Gahan and I did for art spiegelman and Francoise Mouly's Little Lit at the New Yorker site, or here:

And if I'd been here for Hallowe'en I would have posted it here then. Which reminds me, The Graveyard Book party season is over. Over thirty independent bookshops had Graveyard Book parties (The ABA's Bookselling This Week reports on thirteen of the parties -- and the shops -- at http://news.bookweb.org/7149.html.) The very best one of all will get me in their shop doing a signing in December and, looking at these thirteen, I am very glad I am not any kind of a judge for the awards.

My only hope is that the shop that wins will be somewhere warm. But most of the places on the party map will be just as cold by December as my house. (Vague and only climate-based relief that HarperCollins said No to Alaska in the rules mingles with vague and selfish disappointment that they also said No to Hawaii.)

It looks like the CBS Sunday Morning profile on me is going out this Sunday, the 8th, 9:00-10:30 AM, ET. According to this website:

Correspondent Serena Altschul visits author Neil Gaiman -- the tender-hearted master of the macabre -- whose books, including Coraline and The Graveyard Book have topped best-seller lists for 25 years.

.. which left me wanting to go "I am NOT a tender-hearted master of the macabre, I am in fact VERY SCARY INDEED," but I suspect I would convince nobody.

Thrilled to see that Odd and the Frost Giants was listed as one of Amazon.com's Best Books of 2009. While I was in China The Graveyard Book was listed as one of the ALA's teens top ten for 2009 as well, an award voted on by over 11,000 teens. (And I made it onto the list with lots of other good people.)

Also, Fragile Things was awarded the French 2010 Les Grands Prix de l’Imaginaire Award for translated short fiction. My thanks to the judges, but mostly to the translator, who in this case is the incredibly talented Michel Pagel. If I ever look good, do well, sell books or am popular in a foreign country, it's because of the translators, and they never get enough thanks or acclaim. And I think I'll post the cover here, because I never have.

I am becoming hooked on http://curiousexpeditions.org.

I was extremely disappointed by the news on the current status of Argleton in Lancashier, especially so since I was hoping to buy a house there. I was going to move to Chako Paul City in Sweden instead, but appear to be the wrong gender and orientation. So probably I'll stay home.

(Hmm. You know, posting that French book-cover reminds me that there are some really beautiful new covers out there right now, especially from Poland and Russia. I know for I have signed them for people. I'll try and get some nice clean examples to put up here.)

And finally, a link to Joanne Leow's blog. It was lovely to see her again, four years on, when I went to Singapore - it was a great interview, and you can watch us chatting about writing, what I'm currently up to, signings, and why I don't write the same sorts of things twice in a row, at the Primetime Morning site: here's part 1 and part 2.

...

Dear Mr. Gaiman,
I was wondering if you would be so kind as to mention an upcoming art auction on your blog. The art auction is “art for hearts”. It is an auction of artwork donated by children’s illustrators such as Korky Paul, Lynne Chapman and An Vrombaut. Most of the artwork is original although there are also some signed digital prints and screen prints too.
All proceeds from the auction will be donated to help fund research by the transplant team at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Transplanted organs do not have the same life expectancy as non-transplanted organs and the transplant team is looking at finding ways to combat this.
Full details of the auction are available to view at http://art-for-hearts.blogspot.com

It will run on Ebay for a week starting on the 2nd of November. To locate the items people will need to type "art for heart" into the search area and choose "Art" or "books" for items.

Many thanks,

Kristine Stacey

You're welcome. I think this link has everything for sale in the auction: http://shop.ebay.co.uk/scrawldog/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

Labels: cities that don't exist, make Gahan Wilson King of America, sleep, Singapore Writers Festival

The Author Comes Home, and displays many photographs of his travels

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:17:00 +0000

posted by Neil

I went to XinjiangProvince in Western China to continue researching my Monkey/China book. This is the photo I took of a scenic building that, I discovered when the men came out to arrest us, turned out to be a police station. If you're in Kashgar do not take pictures of this building. Trust me on this.

This is what I was researching and working on. (As seen in a little town square, on the way to Yarkand):

Xinjiang Province is going to be hard to write about. It's like walking into the Arabian Nights in some ways, and like going back in time in others. It was especially like going back in time on this trip, as, following the Uighur riots in Urumqi in July, the Chinese Government turned off the Internet, text messaging and all international phone calls in or out of the region. I had a great guide who was terrified I'd talk politics, and I rapidly discovered that everything except conversations about the spice-sellers in the market...

... or discussion of the pomegranate crop, counted as politics. It made my journey even stranger than it might have been already.

While I was there my camera started misbehaving: I hadn't even realised it had a motor in it, but the motor started vibrating gently, producing some very beautiful shots that weren't really what I wanted...

Like this shot of a lady in Yarkand market selling peppers and tomatoes that seem to have turned into jewels.

After a great deal of reflection I decided not to buy a camel in the market in Kashgar. Here are two camels I didn't buy.

In the Russian market in Urumqi I bought a new camera I don't like anywhere nearly as much as my old, sporadically-vibrating one.

I went from there to Jinan, Wuqiao and Beijing.

This photo, taken in Beijing was one of the highlights of my trip -- and was one the main reasons I went back to China. I wanted to talk to Liu Xiao Ling Tong (the stage name for Mr Zhang Jinlai), who played Monkey in the Chinese television version of Journey to the West. (Here's his blog.)

Then I went to Chengdu. I don't have photos on my camera of the Galaxy Award ceremony, or the speech I gave at Sechuan University, or the visit to the Earthquake Zone and the talk I gave to the kids there. (Science Fiction World and I are starting a library for them.) (If I can get some photos I'll put them up.)

And I was not able to take photos of the encounter with the fourth holiest Buddhist in China, because he is not to be photographed.

So instead here's a photo of Amanda Palmer, who joined me for my last few days in China, on the side of a mountain having been recognised by some happy Chinese tourists...

More photos of China and Singapore in my next post, I hope. In summary: Singapore was wonderful, but the visit was much much too short: we were there for about 50 hours altogether. Once again, the food was amazing and the people delightful.

...

Let's see. A quick handful of links...

A theatrical production of Neverwhere in Chicago next year is producing a fascinating visit-to-London blog over at http://neverwhat.blogspot.com/.

I'll be at the Arts Festival in New Zealand in March. Here's the Town Hall event - http://www.nzfestival.nzpost.co.nz/writers-and-readers/town-hall-talk-neil-gaiman, and it looks like I'll be doing some other events while there. It may sell out fast, so if you're interested, get tickets early. (And do not miss Margo Lanagan, who will also be there, for she is an Incredibly Good Thing.)

....

Through most of this summer I was playing with a Lomography Camera. The kind with film in, where you have no idea what you took until it's developed. (The one I used was an LC-A+.) I'm starting to love the results, especially when everything comes in slightly oversaturated. They look like pictures of dreams.

(Middle photo of the amazing bubble by Miss Holly Gaiman. Who is fundraising.)

(And you can, of course, click to embiggen the pictures.)
...

And finally, people sometimes write in and point out that, when I return home, I post pictures of my dog, rapturously dashing somewhere or dancing or stick-wielding to welcome me home. "Why do you not ever post pictures of cats?" they ask.

Good point. Here is Coconut welcoming me rapturously home:

Here is Princess, doing her version of a rapturous welcome, glad that I have not forgotten the trick that she taught me to do, during my time away. The trick involves turning on the tap in the guest bathroom and letting her alternately drink and attack the water with her sharp teeth, until she gets bored:

I'm sad to say that while I was away, Hermione died. She was the surviving member of the two mad cat sisters who live in the basement library and Do Not Mingle, and she was almost eighteen. You can see her in this Photosynth of my library downstairs (needs Silverlight). It feels strangely unbalanced to be in a house without Pod and Hermione in it.

There. Goodnight.

Labels: lomography, monkey and me, China, Cats, photos of dreams

I go, I go; look how I go,

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 01:36:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

Mr. G is too busy to use the internet, so I'm still here.

Item, the first :: CBS Sunday Morning has moved the segment on Mr. G from this Sunday, November 1 to (tentatively) Sunday, November 8. More as it develops.

Item, the second :: Thanks to reader Tony McFee and Audible.com's director of direct marketing, we have the NYC subway ad!

Item, the third :: Reader Aurora RuPert carved Death into a pumpkin:

And then there was the mailbag:

In honor of the many Graveyard Book Halloween parties being thrown this weekend, Emily P. submits her own goblin variation, journal as an algorithms problem set:

Between the hours of 11pm on Friday October 30th and 11pm Sunday November 1st, 15 bookstores will be hosting Graveyard Book Halloween parties. Mr. G would like to visit as many as he can in these four hours. Assume you can model these bookstores as a connected graph G(V,E) where each vertex v corresponds to a bookstore. Positive edge weights w(u,v) denote the time (in minutes) it takes to travel between bookstores u and v.

a. Give an algorithm to calculate the maximum number of bookstores Mr. G can visit in four hours by traveling along the edges of this graph.

b. Give the run time of this algorithm.

c. Assume each bookstore also has a weight B(v) which tells you how long you can stay at that bookstore. Mr. G does not want to play favorites so on a given path p of n bookstores, he will stay k minutes at each bookstore where k = min(B(v1),B(v2),...,B(vn)). Given this constraint, give an algorithm to determine how many bookstores Mr. G can visit in four hours.

If anyone manages to provide a suitable answer set, they shall have an imaginary cookie.

Brittany H. writes:

Hi Lorraine!

I just wanted to say thanks for the link to BDFAR in Durham! I've lived in the area my whole life, but somehow how I had never heard of it. I am G-mapping directions there as we speak and now have a fruitful occupation for my afternoon.

1.) I'm not Lorraine. (She's far more fabulous.)
2.) You're welcome! I hope you liked it. I picked up some incredible used books there over the years, as well as the comics and music.

Teresa J. writes:

Any chance of you posting a photo of yourself before you hand the reins back? I'm sure the ladies would appreciate seeing another staggeringly good-looking, funny, and smart gentleman over whom they can swoon. :)

I'm sure they would, but I thought you were asking for a picture of me? *rim shot*

I like my quasi-anonymity. The closest you're going to get is this:

This is Eben, my spirit animal.

Apropos of nothing, except that Mr. G has been known to mention his Android phones, I'm playing with the Motorola CLIQ this evening. It's fun and cute, but I don't think I'll be trading my (deliciously modified, optimized) G1 in for anything short of a significant upgrade in processor and RAM.

I am feeling serious gadget lust for both the Motorola Droid and the Nokia N900, but the former is only on Verizon (and possibly, next quarter, AT&T), and the latter has a great deal going for it (including, but not limited to, my love for my N810 and the superiority of Maemo judged purely on the bases of openness and linux-completeness), but I've become rather partial to Android and its Google apps. I can only hope that T-Mobile quickly gets on the ball and announces something on par with either. (Surely Google won't bring out an inferior ADP2, or switch carriers?)

National Novel Writing Month begins Sunday. I've been participating successfully since 2005, and recommend doing it at least once if you have any sort of writerly ambition. It's a good deal of fun, and completely mad.

I've received several queries about where else I may be found online. I'm willing to go as far as re-stating that I have a largely neglected livejournal.

Labels: NaNoWriMo, computers and gadgets and things, like Eben I wear pince-nez, timeshifting Gaiman, too busy to internet is the new too big to fail, G1

I have a chart. (A dragon chart!)

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:56:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

Table of Contents:

Rumour Control
Halloween Decorations
Further Variations on Account of a Certain Goblin (Who Shall Remain Nameless) Feeling Silly, and Not At All Reflecting a Distaste for Popular Culture -- If Anything the Opposite

This is rumour control. Here are the facts:

We're up to 35 independent book stores throwing Graveyard Book parties.

Dark Horse has posted a preview of Drawing Down the Moon: The Art of Charles Vess.

Livejournal syndicated feeds are borked up; it's not just us.

For the record, I do not read Mr. G's email when he is gone, not even the FAQ line stuff. I only see things submitted via the Site Inquiry line.

Mr. G is tweeting quite a bit again, so I expect this will be my final post for this outing. I remain, as always, your faithful web goblin.

First-time carver Charis sent the below image of a Coraline-themed pumpkin to Mr. G, who forwarded it to me, presumably for posting:

If you have your own carved pumpkin inspired by one of Mr. G's works, I'd love to see it.

[Journal as the opening to every Twilight book:]

All of my attempts at writing a new post had been in vain.

With ice in my heart, I stared at the blank text input field, then tabbed back to my inbox. Still empty. When was Mr. G going to send me something else to post?

Would I ever learn what he was up to in China? Would I live long enough for that?

The odds of that didn't look so great.

Somewhere, far, far away in the cold mountains of Chendgu, a panda sniffled.

(Oh, Edward...!)

[Journal as academic paper:]

A Dream and My Cardigan: Thematic Similarities between Neil Gaiman's The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories and Miley Cyrus' Party in the U.S.A.

ABSTRACT: Speculative fiction and tween music are both ripe with stories of alienated characters attempting to find their way through unfamiliar, often bizarre environments, be it high school or the submerged city of R'lyeh. Sometimes, the two genres may intersect, such as with Gaiman's The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories and Cyrus' Party in the U.S.A., both about a lone protagonist's arrival in Hollywood, and subsequent descent into madness.

EXCERPT: ...cardigan, calling to mind Bjork's mad, transgressive act of eating her own cardigan in response to her treatment at the hands of director Lars von Trier on the set of "Dancer in the Dark". When Ms. Cyrus sings, "Noddin' my head like yea / Movin' my hips like yea", she is describing her own ritualized expression of otherness, dancing in her own dark, so to speak, submerging in the dim "womb dentata" of a club full of stilettos.

Labels: not making fun but having it, I would totally write that paper as a lark if I was still in college, the goblin variations

playing with forms: Journal as a list of disclaimers

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:14:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

[My apologies to those of you seeing these posts again in your feed reader. I am attempting to diagnose the current LJ syndication fail. -your faithful web goblin]

Lest I give a mistaken impression by referencing The Guild and The Legend of Neil, please know that I am the very antithesis of a gamer. I have never played a MMORPG. I haven't played a first-person shooter since the original Castle Wolfenstein. Never the less, I enjoy a good laugh, so I avidly follow things like Penny Arcade and The Guild. (Am I the only one who thinks it's strange that PA has never featured Mr. G, by the way?)

I am not the knavish sprite I once was; it now takes me more like eighty minutes to put a girdle 'round the Earth, and twice that to get one around myself.

I don't, in fact, have a secret network of subway-photographing New Yorkers. Unless by "photographing" you mean "dwelling".

There is no sanity clause.

Labels: robin shall restore amends, hello I must be going, don't actually wear a girdle but not exactly a stranger to corsets if you know what I mean, the goblin variations

playing with forms: Journal as "Weekly World News" tabloid

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:13:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

[My apologies to those of you seeing these posts again in your feed reader. I am attempting to diagnose the current LJ syndication fail. -your faithful web goblin]

Due to his special needs and peculiar physiology, Mr. G is shipped from place to place in a specially designed steamer trunk filled with a brandy-like solution. Upon his return home, he is not so much re-installed as he is decanted, the solution slowly replaced with tea. Mr. G spends the first subsequent week in a zombie-like fog as he marshals his power and bids his senses return to him, like Odin summoning Huginn and Muninn.

During this delicate period, care must be taken that nothing unusual intrudes upon the process, lest ZomblieN go wandering into the forest after deer and hapless hikers. It is rumoured that the lye pit is getting full, and Woodsman Hans needs a new shovel.

Labels: it's "NeilbmoZ" backwards, the goblin variations

playing with forms: Journal as back-page letters column

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:11:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

[My apologies to those of you seeing these posts again in your feed reader. I am attempting to diagnose the current LJ syndication fail. -your faithful web goblin]

Clare M. writes:

I haven't a question, more a spot of praise for Dreamhaven Books that I'd like to share with you, if I might be so bold.

Some time ago, Neil told us that Dreamhaven had a new batch of signed stock. I was looking for a special gift for my honorary neiece and so ordered a signed copy of Blueberry Girl, feeling slightly apprehensive about having it shipped to the UK. But, it arrived wonderfully packaged, very quickly and for a modest shipping fee. Thank you Dreamhaven.

Three cheers for Dreamhaven Books! It has bought, sold, and even published a lot of awesome stuff over the years.

In the spirit of this, the Graveyard Book Parties contest, and Tor.com's serialization of Cory Doctorow's Makers (for which he has requested that readers share some of their favorite booksellers or bookstores with the rest of the community in the comments sections after each post), please allow me to wax nostalgic about one of my favorite ones.

My local independent book store, growing up, was Books Do Furnish A Room in Durham, NC. From third grade through college I was there at least once a week. When I was little, buying Batman and X-Men comics, I had no idea that the store owners had great taste. By the time I discovered what I'd been missing, the Miracleman TPBs and the Dave McKean art books were gone, but I did manage to snag "Angels & Visitations", "Warning: Contains Language", "Violent Cases" (numbered and signed by Mr. G and McKean!), the whole run of From Hell, several Sandman shirts and posters, and "Signal to Noise".

It's an awesome place.

Eden writes:

How did you first get into Neil Gaiman's work?

That's a good question. I hadn't actually thought about it in, well, possibly, ever, so the answer surprised me. My first exposure to the idea that there was a "Neil" was when I bought a used CD of Tori Amos' "Under the Pink" for $9 at Books Do Furnish A Room. I loved it; later, I got online and found out what "hanging out with the Dream King" and "Neil says hi by the way" meant.

The next time I was in BDFAR, I picked up the Sandman "Dream Country" TPB, because it was the shortest and least expensive. It hooked me completely, especially the Midsummer Night's Dream story with Vess. I picked up the earlier Sandman trades, started getting the monthly issue, and then got into his short fiction and other comics work. The rest is history, long-boxes, and continually upgraded bookshelves.

Sandi L. writes:

Are you enjoying your time updating Neil's blog?

Yes. I wasn't sure at first; I was feeling decidedly unwitty and unworthy this time 'round, convinced that Non-Birding Bill would be doing a much better job. In the past few days, though, I've received many nice notes, so I guess my meager attempts are not all rubbish.

I hadn't planned on doing any guest blogging at all. Mr. G isn't going to be gone all that long. I'm only posting because he keeps sending me little things he wants posted. I think he's kindly humouring me.

audra writes:

"goblin ears knit cap" ???

photographic evidence please. thank you.

and Angela W writes:

I should love to see a picture posted of you wearing your goblin ears knit cap.

I just knew, when I wrote that, that I was going to get a "pics or it didn't happen!" in response. And here it is.

Somewhere, in one of my previous posts from last year, I mentioned that the Web Elf and I had made grand plans for on-site bios of ourselves, complete with pictures in which we would be masked, or otherwise facially obscured, and wearing ears. I was going to commission a knit goblin ears cap from etsy or someplace. Alas, it did not come to pass.

If I did have a goblin ears knit cap, though, I imagine it might look something like this:

Labels: no (more) offers to knit me a cap please but thank you, the goblin variations

playing with forms: Journal as industry blotter

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:10:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

[My apologies to those of you seeing these posts again in your feed reader. I am attempting to diagnose the current LJ syndication fail. -your faithful web goblin]

The Graveyard Book Halloween parties map is up to 33 independent book stores!

Dave McKean is working on an animated film adaptation of "Cages"!

Time is running out for those wishing to take advantage of neverwear.net's sale on the otherworldly How to Talk to Girls at Parties print by Camilla d'Errico.

I have it on good authority that, after this week, the sale will end in order to make way for something completely new, and original. (You may have seen a sneak peek of it tweeted by a certain hugely popular artist.)

Labels: BLIND ITEM: This goblin was recently spotted scaring maids in NYC night clubs., the goblin variations

playing with forms: Journal as CSI: NY

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:09:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

[My apologies to those of you seeing these posts again in your feed reader. I am attempting to diagnose the current LJ syndication fail. -your faithful web goblin]

Mr. G sent the below image and directed me to find someone in New York that could get me a clean, complete photo of one of these subway ads. I wasn't sure if he meant me to post the request here, or if he thinks that I have a secret network of subway-photographing New Yorkers. Which I do, of course. They're just... uh... busy with other assignments. So, my own efforts having come to naught, I turn to you.

If anyone can take a clean, clear, complete photo of this ad for me, Mr. G and I would be appreciative.

Labels: the goblin variations, need a willing fan in NYC who rides the subway and has a digital camera how hard can it be?

Jump into this here blanket what we are holding / And you will be all right

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:14:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

First, the official business:

The awesome Elyse Marshall asks that I remind you that the CBS Sunday Morning show, which is profiling Mr. G on 1 November, airs at different times across the country, so you should check your local listings. Also, 1 November marks the Daylight Savings transition, so everyone needs to remember to fall back accordingly!

The Graveyard Book Parties map is currently up to 30 stores! Two readers even wrote in alerting me to parties at book stores that had not notified me on their own.

Anyone holding their breath waiting to see if I would get an award for my mantle can exhale. The winners of the British Fantasy Awards 2009 were announced last month and the winner in the nonfiction category os Basil Copper: A Life in Books, by Basil Copper, ed. Stephen Jones (PS Publishing). I can't wait to read it, and I have it on good authority that Stephen Jones is a treasure. Congratulations to Copper and Jones!

On to the mailbag!

Nicholas D., from Denton, MD writes:

Who are you, please? I see you are filling in on the blogging for Mr. G, but ... that's all I can tell. Please, some background?

My apologies! I didn't even think about the fact that there are no doubt new readers since I filled in for Mr. G during his previous China trip last summer, and the introduction that I posted at that time.

I am the web goblin, Dan Guy. I keep the site running, update "Where's Neil" and "Neil's Work", and find ways to make Mr. G's web-whims a reality.

Marjorie T., from Broken Arrow, OK writes:

whatever happened to the mechanical Panda, and do we ever get updates on the Anteater we adopted for Mr Neil?

The RoboPanda last appeared in this blog over a year ago in an entry in which I posted pics and video of the presentation. It has not been heard from since, which may be partially my fault, as I never got around to sending the planned self-addressed stamped postcards home with it. Perhaps Mr. G, when he returns home, can give us an update, preferably in video form, and sung.

The last update I received from the Staten Island Zoo concerning the anteater was nine months ago:

Unfortunately, we did not raise enough money to buy the tamandua.
We were hoping to purchase an armadillo.
However, the animal we were getting got a highly communicable illness and we could not get him.

We are still searching. Will keep you posted.

I have emailed requesting an update.

Shmuel R., from Minot, ND writes:

Do you have any tips for the care and maintenance of waistcoats? I place no stock in the abilities of the local dry-cleaning emporium, and the servants are afraid to hazard a hand-wash ever since the unfortunate incident with the cheese.

To which I can only reply, good sir, that if you are storing or conveying -- or, dare I say, BOTH -- your unstable cheeses in your waistcoat then you are quite beyond my help. Never the less, I will add that nothing gets rid of dairy residue sunk into fabric like the collision of large hadrons.

Shawn G., from Sierra Vista, AZ writes:

Should I care about Differential Equations? Also, is the iCal still being updated, or should I not bother with it anymore?

On his death bed, my dear sainted great grandfather said to me something that I have never forgotten; he said, "Wait, we have an iCal?!?" No, seriously, we have an iCal? This is the first I've heard of it. The Where's Neil page and feed are still updated, though.

As for the other matter: yes.

Mr. Billy Bones, with whom some of you are doubtless familiar, writes:

What is your favorite answer?

I'm rather partial to "Yes." Many of the best experiences in my life have followed a "yes". (Look, I even used it in the question above!)

Though "42" is a good one too.

Tara G., from Portland, OR writes:

As a Web Goblin are you required to wear a specialized goblin costume while performing your web goblin duties?

Mr. G does not require that I wear a specialized goblin costume, but I feel remiss if I don't wear my goblin ears knit cap whenever I work on the site.

Melissah, from Ahoskie, NC writes:

How DO you maintain that wonderful figure?

Lactose intolerance, and a medically unsupported, hypochondriac suspicion that I have Crohn's Disease.

Karen B., from Boulder, CO writes:

Just curious how did you come to be Neil's web goblin?

Sheer force of will and biding my time. I'd like to think that being a polite, useful, trustworthy goblin also had something to do with it.

There are more questions in the mailbag, but I'm going to save the rest for now.

Disclaimers:

None of the above people are actually writing from the locations to which I have attributed them. Not so far as I know, at least.
The Legend of Neil is about a lot more than Zelda slash. There's also autoerotic asphyxiation.
The above disclaimer made more sense before I edited out the last question, my answer to which included the following paragraph:
I mean, I am watching The Guild. Oh, and the other day I was googling for a particular legend that Mr. G had referenced and came across The Legend of Neil, which I assumed would be about Mr. G but instead involves Zelda fairysex slash with Felicia Day as the fairy. My disappointment was NONEXISTENT.
There was no blanket.

Labels: all your anteater bases are belong to the staten island zoo, yes-and, Dan Guy, RoboPanda

Day Four: Went to ring bell, but cat had stolen batteries.

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:47:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

Mr. G sends "a small treat" to help us pass the time in his absence. He writes:

A small treat for Good Omens fans and audio book fans and just people who like quality. This is the first scene in the Harper Audio version that'll be out on Nov 10th, read by Martin Jarvis. (Out of the US people will have to buy the CD version as it won't be on Audible or iTunes for them I'm afraid.)

Download.

There are currently twenty-seven independent book stores plotted on the Graveyard Book Halloween Parties map, and that number is still slowly growing. Check back periodically to find one near you, and then please go and support independent book sellers!

The Super Assistants Team-Up of Fabulous Lorraine and Beth have been saving cats. If you would like to help, you should follow them on Twitter (@fabulouslorrain / @bethofalltrades) and await the next SOS.

I'd happily go to the mailbag at this point, in hopes of prolonging my blogging stay by playing "Mr. Answer Goblin", but no one has written me recently.

Labels: What Lorraine does in the evenings, Good Omens, what happened to the days when I did cute or funny or interesting labels then?, all creatures great and smoke

further postcards from Mr. G

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:33:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

Mr. G writes from China, wishing me to direct your attention to the latest poppet creation from Lisa Snellings, Poppet Reads The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. This is the first in a whole Poppets Explore The Graveyard Book series to come. Lisa is donating 20% of the sale from Poppet Reads The Graveyard Book and all other The Graveyard Book Poppets and art to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. For more information, straight from the artist, check her blog.

The CBS Sunday Morning show will be airing a profile of Mr. G on Sunday, November 1.

I received a request via the FAQ line for a list of books that Mr. G has recommended here over the years. I'm not aware that such a list had been compiled previously, so I started one on the neilgaiman.info wiki, based largely on the books that he has mentioned reading to Maddy. Please feel free to add to it.

Labels: the CBS Sunday Morning show airs on Sunday morning (imagine that), Planet of the Poppets

Being a Demonstration Along Strictly Macabre Lines

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:51:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

Some weeks ago, Mr. G posted:

I think that readers of The Graveyard Book who perform their own version of the macabray will always be right. And should put video footage of themselves performing it be put up, I will try to link to it.

And lo, someone has done just that.

Labels: Burma Shave, Danse Macabre, dancing the macabray

Additional tickets available!

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Guy) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:56:00 +0000

posted by Dan Guy

A brief update concerning Neil's talk, "Neil Gaiman on Graphic Novels and Fantasy", at the Singapore Writers Festival.

Due to the overwhelming response for Neil Gaiman tickets, we have now moved his talk “Neil Gaiman on Graphic Novels and Fantasy” from Chamber, The Arts House to Victoria Theatre.

The date and time of the event are the same – Sunday 1 November, 2pm. Victoria Theatre is located next to Victoria Concert Hall, just across the road from The Arts House.

The festival will still honour tickets that were previously given out for the event. Additional tickets for this event will be available for collection from The Arts House on Saturday, 17th October from 3pm onwards. Tickets will be limited to ONE pair per person, and reservations will not be allowed by phone, email, or any other means.

Labels: Singapore Writers Festival, find neilhimself in another part of the world, while supplies last

Waving From Beijing

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 17:12:00 +0000

posted by Neil

Sending this to blogger by Email. I hope it will post.

I'm in Beijing right now, in an airport hotel, about to plunge off early tomorrow morning to Western China. Where, I am told, there may not be any internet or even phone text messaging, due to political unrest. So even emailling in blogs won't be possible.

There's no Twitter here, no Blogger. I can see Neilgaiman.com but the Journal pages are blocked.

So do not be surprised if I vanish. Will send photos or something as soon as I get back.

I'll be travelling around China, but will definitely be giving a talk and doing a signing in Chengdu in about 11 days, and then I'll be in Singapore for the Book Festival with the lovely Amanda Palmer (who will also be playing a gig there). And apparently signing for everyone who comes to the Singapore Festival whether they have tickets or not.

Before I got on the plane this morning (yesterday morning? 24 hours ago, anyway) I recorded my NPR MORNING EDITION piece on Audio Books. I interview David Sedaris and Martin Jarvis (who recorded the GOOD OMENS audiobook they're releasing on Nov 10th in the US) and Don Katz from Audible and Rick Harris, who produced/directed me in many of my early audiobooks. It'll be broadcast in November and I'm sure I'll be back in time to tell you when it'll be broadcast (with longer versions of the interviews on the web).

(That's what the photo's of. Cat Mihos took it of me in the KNOW studio recording stuff. Which reminds me, she has a sale on at Neverwear.net she wanted me to tell people about.)

Right. Bed, I think. Yes. Definitely bed.

It Snowed This Morning

noreply@blogger.com (Neil) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:34:00 +0000

posted by Neil

It snowed this morning. I thought it had all melted by the time I went out walking with a camera, but here's a sprinkling of snow on a tree-fungus. It's just wrong. I am not ready for winter. Not yet.

And below is Cabal and some leaves (and Maddy). Many of you have written in to ask why he's not wearing his Go Away Hunters And Do Not Shoot At Me orange cape. It is because he dashed off into the woods the other night after a deer, and returned without it.

Probably the deer is now wearing it to bamboozle hunters.

I'm madly trying to finish things before I head out to China for a few weeks, to wrap up the research on my Journey to the West project (this trip was meant to have happened in Feb/March, but the one-two good-bad punch of winning the Newbery Medal and my father dying threw the whole planned shape of the year out of whack, and it's not back yet).

I finished a short story called "The Thing About Cassandra" and the editors accepted it (hurrah, especially because they were most gracious earlier this year when a story I was writing for them crumbled into dust and ash in my hands before it was done). I'm trying to finish a short story about a cave on the Misty Isle before I leave, and I'll be recording my stuff for my NPR Morning Edition piece. Sxip Shirey is working on the music for my short film soundtrack and every day he sends me bits of music and I play them, and send back a yes, or a no, or a why don't we try this?

We harvested the honey on Thursday, and Cat Mihos chronicled it all on her blog (http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/2009/10/bees-glorious-bees-title-suggested-by.html) including film footage of me shaking bees off a frame, so I refer you there for photos and an account of our day's Beeing. Strangely my favourite moment was when the bees from the Green hive got upset, and suddenly I found myself crouching by the hive in the middle of a storm of very angry bees... and found myself feeling very peaceful and placid, and didn't move and I let them stop being grumpy, and all was good. (Except for Hans and the Birdchick both being stung on their ankles and through their bee suits).

Let's see. Here's an account of the Toledo talk http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091006/ART02/910060367, and of the Cleveland talk (http://www.clevescene.com/scene-and-heard/archives/2009/10/05/a-geek-heros-welcome-for-author-gaiman).

Both were fun, and started giving me ideas for how to do the CBLDF Reading Tour next year.

Hi Neil,

I know Banned Book Week is over, but since you discussed it on your journal, I hope you won't mind one more question about it.

When is it OK to challenge a book? Should a book be challenged at all if it seems inappropriately placed? For example, I read a lot of young adult, and I found myself reading a book that was distasteful to me, as an adult. (I thought the language and sexual incidents were gratuitous to the story, and beyond what I would want a teenager reading.) I pointed this out to the children's librarian, and she said it would be reviewed. Afterward, I panicked a bit. Had I done something wrong, I wondered. Had I just banned a book?

In your opinion, is there ever a time to challenge a book's placement? For the record, I still don't believe in outright banning a book from a public library, but now I'm not sure how I feel about challenges to young adult sections.

Sincerely,

Amanda R., Louisville, KY

I'm not a librarian or part of the ALA, so you're getting one author's opinion here.

I don't think drawing a librarian's attention to a book, or even suggestion that it's been mis-classified is in any way wrong, or an attempt to ban books. My collection M IS FOR MAGIC exists mostly because I'd noticed some middle schools had begun to buy Smoke and Mirrors and really wasn't comfortable with that book, which contains some stories that really were just intended for adults, being in middle school libraries. (I don't have a problem with it being in High School libraries.)

I think librarians make judgment calls all the time, judgment calls based on community standards, on what they believe about books, and about those books that exist in the grey areas between Children's Books and YA, between YA and Adult Fiction. (Occasionally, as when I hear about The Graveyard Book being kept under the counter, or away from kids under 14, I find it irritating. But, as I say, I also think that librarians are allowed to make judgment calls.)

At the end of the day, I don't think the problem is the people who want to figure out where books get shelved. It's people who want to remove the books entirely, and would very much like to burn them. It's people stealing books as a way of making sure that other people don't read them.

(Here's an excellent article from the School Library Journal about the dilemma of shelving The Graveyard Book - http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6635766.html?q=graveyard+book+children%27s+collection -

which concludes,

Are some libraries shelving Gaiman’s book in the YA section because of its disturbing opening scene? If so, then that “clearly smacks of self-censorship,” says Pat Scales, president of the Association of Library Services to Children. Scales, who says that although determining what materials belong in the children and young adult section is oftentimes difficult, “Anytime you keep something from its intended audience or make it difficult for them to find, that’s self-censorship.” And that’s against professional ethics.
Scales’s advice is to buy one copy for the children’s section and another for the YAs. “Kids have loved ghost stories from the beginning of time,” she says. “What are you going to do? You can’t keep all ghost stories out of the children’s room.”

but truthfully, I wouldn't blame any librarian who decided they wanted The Graveyard Book kept in YA. I would get grumpy if confronted with librarians who had decided not to get The Graveyard Book for their libraries, despite the Newbery Medal, because they thought kids should be protected from it.

Dear Neil,

I’m sure you get loads of nice mail from lots of people around the world. How much nasty mail do you get, though, and does it make you feel bad? If it does, how do you deal with that? I’m a beginning author and I just got my first piece of nasty mail, wherein the writer said she had an absolute “hate crush” on me. I consoled myself with cake and wine but the effects were predictably fleeting.

Thanks,
C.B.

There are mean and crazy people out there, and the relative anonymity of the Internet means that there are always those who will glory in their ability to do the online equivalent of pushing a dead rat through your mail box and running away. You just have to pay attention and you rapidly notice,

a) they're a bit mad.

b) they are very few in number and

c) it's only the internet.

I get well over ten thousand FAQ messages in on this site every year. Most of them don't get posted, because most of them are people saying, in various ways, thank you. Out of that ten thousand there will be a handful, no more than a dozen or so, of weird, poisonous, creepy or crazy ones that come in (from a distinctly smaller number of people than there are email addresses). Most of those get filtered before they reach me. And the ones that make it through normally leave me with a strange, joyous feeling that I must be doing something right if those people don't like me. I'm fascinated by how much more upset they get whenever I get a big award or something good happens.

(On Twitter, I learned very rapidly that any people who posted something nasty, to whom I gave a second chance, would then post something REALLY nasty. So I learned to block first offenders without any troubling of my conscience.)

My advice to you would be to do with creepy emails what Kingsley Amis used to say he did with bad reviews: he let them spoil his breakfast, but didn't let them spoil his lunch. Let the effects of the creepy people be fleeting too. And keep writing, and keep doing well, because it really seems to irritate them.

Which reminds me, The Graveyard Book was made a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honours book, this year, and you can see video footage of the awards ceremony at http://www.hbook.com/bghb/video09.asp, including my editor Elise Howard reading the actual speech I wrote, and the video I recorded for them just as I went down with the hell-flu of last week.

...

Right, more Tabs closing:

I was sorry to learn that Henry Selick and Laika, the director of and studio who made the Coraline movie, are parting company. They were an unstoppable combination, and I wish both of them extremely well in whatever they do in the future.

Why you should dress up as Delirium for Hallowe'en.

Was thrilled to see One and a Half books by me on the Australian Favourite Books of All Time list.

Was fascinated by this New Scientist article -- I've been interested in this ever since I read Ann Hubble talking about the experiment breeding Arctic Foxes for tameness, which, in a couple of decades, produced an animal profoundly doglike. (And the footage of the tame vs aggressive rats is a little chilling...)

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I just noticed that to celebrate our Year On The Bestseller Lists, over at http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx, where you can still watch me read ALL of The Graveyard Book for free, new Q&A videos have started appearing.

(It looks like they've been going up for the last 5 weeks. I should have mentioned them here, sorry.)

If you head off to http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx?VideoID=16 you will see lots of me answering questions. It's surprising to me how tired I look in them -- I'd forgotten just how gruelling the schedule was, and now all I remember is how immensely enjoyable it was to read stories to and answer questions from so many people across the USA.

Labels: bees, videos, Cabal and me, mad people, dog photograph, the unbearable whiteness of beeing