Journal

Friday, November 14, 2003

Saying goodnight, mostly.

If this one is short too it's not Lucy's fault. ("Stay up as late as you like," she said. "Write a long post on your blog. Otherwise your journal readers will start sending me hate mail or something." I told her that they wouldn't do that because they are nice, and she said she was sure they were very nice, having met about a thousand of them in the last week, but she wasn't going to risk it. "Anyway," she said, "The taxi will get to your hotel to take you to BBC Broadcasting House at 9:45am. You can sleep until, oh, 9:40 if you want.")

Anyway, the Foyles event was really good. Jonathan Ross was hilarious, Dave McKean and I enjoyed ourselves, and I loved reading the whole of Wolves in the Walls in a room with great acoustics, where the nuances worked. I saw lots of family, and lots of friends, and lots of people I last saw at last year's Foyles signing. Dave flies off to New York tomorrow to attend the Vampire Lestat musical read through, and to go to the New York Times Best Illustrated book event.

Holly, my daughter, flew in for the weekend to see me, and is having fun, although she sensibly slept in the green room through the many hours Dave and I spent actually signing.

I immensely enjoyed the Foyles event yesterday, it was the first signing of any kind I have ever been to, and it really made my day.
I hadn't brought anything with Dave McKean's work to the signing, and I very much wanted Dave McKean's autograph, but I wasn't really sure if I could ask him to sign my copy of American Gods for me, without offending him. So do you think I was right in thinking that it might annoy him if I asked him to sign something he wasn't a part of?
Do people ever ask you to sign the work of others, and how do you feel about that?
Anyway, thanks for signing my books Mr. Gaiman, can't wait until the next event, whenever that may be.

Love,
Xu


No, you wouldn't have offended him. He would probably have said something like "you know I didn't really have anything to do with this...?" just to make sure that you did know that. Dave, like me, is very hard to offend, at least by polite requests from people you're signing books for.

Neil,

Just attended the Foyles "Wolves in the Walls" reading and must say it was HUGELY entertaining.

Unfortunately my friends and I were unable to stay and say 'thank you' to you Dave and Jonathan (inspired!!) in person, but we'd like you all to know we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and very much looking forward to ALL your future collaborations, as well as those tantalising solo projects! (please tell us more!)

The love and enthusiasm you both have for your work is truly infectious. So much so that we (my friend who can write and myself who can kind of draw) are conspiring to do a story together, it doesn't matter that we have no formal training! It doesn't matter that she is a Doctor and I'm in I.T! It doesn't matter whether we "get anywhere"! We're just going to have fun! By heck!

Thanks again and many good wishes,
Rachel
http://www.the-whispering.com



I honestly don't mind that a couple of hundred of people left after the reading and interview and Q&A. If they hadn't, we'd still be signing... Just glad people enjoyed it as much as we did.

...

By the way, lots of people have started sending me the 1997 article about the theology of the street kids in Miami again. I linked to it first back when this was still the American Gods blog, but I'm now getting a couple of messages a day from people who are discovering it for the first time. It's very wonderful, and is at : http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/1997-06-05/feature.html

And it's 2:00am and it's goodnight time.