Journal

Friday, February 27, 2004

oddments from the mailbag, and how YOU can WIN a FREE POSTCARD!!!

Right. The mail is stacking up...

Dear Neil,
I'm a student and am presenting a paper on American Gods at a conference at the end of March (The International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts) anyway, just wanted to let you know and more importantly ask for your blessing/spiritual guidence. Anyway, thanks for enriching the world with your writing.
Regards,
Jude Wright



I'm not sure I'm much in the spiritual guidance department, but you certainly have my best wishes -- I love the ICFA conferences -- I wish I could be there this year (I'll be in London, that week, working on the initial theatrical discussions of a musical WOLVES IN THE WALLS with several people, one of whom is the mysterious Julian Crouch, so will not be in Fort Lauderdale). Great places for writers, academics and readers to interact. http://www.iafa.org/ for anyone who might be thinking of going.


Dear Neil,

Please come to Australia.

Thanks
Palila

p.s. I intend to send this request periodically until you announce plans to come to Australia. Just letting you know.


Thanks for the info. One day... Australia and the East.

Hiya,

I have the audiobook of yourself reading Coraline on CD and would like to the version with Dawn French narrating. Problem is, I can't seem to find a CD edition anywhere (tried searching on and off this site) and am beginning to suspect that there isn't such a thing. If there isn't, do you know if there are any plans to release it on CD?

Thanks!


No plans that I know of, I'm afraid: you could write to Bloomsbury (it might have more effect than the author suggesting it). The Dawn French version is really brilliant, but only available on cassette.

Hello,

In the late 80's I purchased a Harlan Ellison Story, 'Broken Glass' from Avenue Victor Hugo in Boston. The story was printed as a broadside - a single sheet of paper about 2ft x 3ft - with high-quality paper and elegant typography. Essentially, it was a written piece produced as a visual art piece, meant to be framed and hung on the wall (which is what I did with the Ellison piece, although those who spent the time to read the story through often gave me an odd glance or two thereafter). There's something about blocks of text, with odd patterns and traceries running through it, that is visually arresting. (I wonder if one could write a story in which the visual appearance of the word/sentence/paragraph structure is an integral part of the story's message?)

Any chance that some of your short stories could receive the same treatment? There are some in 'Angels and Visitations' I'd love to hang on the wall for all to read. You could run a poll, and print up the winner(s)....

Regards, David


Okay. This one's weird, for I was thinking about the Harlan Ellison "Broken Glass" story-print-signed-poster a couple of days ago (my copy is also framed, and hangs on a wall in the house) and I started wondering whether I had any stories that were the right length to be posters... "Other People" perhaps...

So, yes, maybe.

Hello Neil.

In regards to the proceeds of "1602" going towards your legal costs of the (apparent non-issue... uh, no pun intended) of "Miracle Man"... is it exclusively from the sales of 1602 as a serial or inconjuncture with the hardcover/trade paperback collections of it?

I had purchased the first issue (and quite enjoyed it), but I am currently waiting for it to be released in a collection. If the sales trade paperbacks and hardcover editons of "1602" is included in the umbrella of the direction of the proceeds... how would that work with the later editions, second prints... etc? Just curious...

Thank you for all of the wonderful work... and thank you for just being you.

Be well. Be kind.

Take care,

George


Well, Marvels and Miracles gets all the profits from 1602 in comic form. Once it comes out in collected form, Marvel will start making money on it and M&M will just start getting a normal royalty.

Don't feel bad about getting the hardback or waiting for the trade -- I figure these things work out in the long term, and I certainly don't begrudge any money to Marvel (no more than they begrudged any to me). 1602 has sold astonishingly well over the last 7 months (the last one will come out late in March) -- in sheer dollar value, it's probably the best-selling miniseries of the time it's been out, and it leaves Marvels and Miracles with a very healthy fighting fund indeed. And I got to try to figure out how to write superheroes, which was nothing if not educational, and often enormous fun.

Neil,

I'm not exactly sure what you were giving us the old link for yesterday - I thought it was going to take me to an old journal of yours that had something to do with being a "horror host," and well, I never found that, but I did find all sorts of neato stuff I hadn't read (I don't manage to read everything you write here) that was rather interesting.

I found myself looking at Tori's chef's page, or rather, I found myself trying to look at it. Your link takes one to www.duncsdiner.com. That doesn't get there now. I had to put in the "an" to make it duncansdiner. While I was there, I noticed that all the links are broken - because they go to duncs without the an. You can put the an in if you want, but it doesn't work for generating the little script (probably) to register you for the free prize. Someone really ought to tell him, and I didn't find a way to get the info across on the site (although I did find a very nice cold asparagus soup recipe that I will use when it finally gets warm), so I am telling you and maybe next time you see him or Tori you can mention it.

--Kelley



I sent him a message, and (possibly coincidentally) the http://www.duncsdiner.com/ link seems to be working very well. I think it's an excellent site, although I wish he had more outside the "sign up to see more" fence, even though you get a free five days. But what he's doing, in terms of ways of teaching cooking, is really interesting. (I have eaten Duncan's food. It is incredibly good.) Several excellent Duncan recipes over at http://www.foodporn.com/celebrities/duncan/

...

The amazingly talented and brilliant Thea Gilmore's US gigs in March are now all confirmed. From her website they are:

2004 gigs..
Tuesday, March 16 2004 The Mucky Duck
Houston TX USA
email: theduck@mcgonigels.com 713 528 5999

Thursday, March 18 2004 South By South West Festival Austin TX, The Cactus Club 10:00pm Contact No. TBC

Saturday, March 20 2004 Lobero Theatre
Santa Barbara CA ,
33 East Canyon Perdido 805-962-7941

Sunday March 21st 2004 Gunther Murphys, Chicago 773 472 5139

Monday March 22nd 2004 One Trick Pony, Grand Rapids, MI 616 459 4788

Thursday March 25th 2004 Club Cafe, Pittsburgh 412 683 5363

Friday, March 26th 2004 Skippers ? Tampa FL USA 813 238 8001

Saturday March 27th 2004 Eddies Attic, Decatur, Nr Atlanta 404 377 4976

Wednesday March 31st 2004 Joe's Pub, New York 212 625 3750

I am, of course, faintly perplexed that she will finally be in the US while I will be in the UK, and will not be able to see her. (And I've been looking forward to seeing her play live for a long, long time.)

I've spoken to Thea and suggested that if any of you go to any of the US gigs and mention that you've learned about the gig from reading about it here on this journal, you'll get cool a free something-or-other from the merchandising table. Probably a postcard of Thea looking grumpy. Possibly even two postcards. Or something else. Details to be announced in about a month, because you'll all probably have forgotten about it by then. Go and see her; she's brilliant.

...

A really interesting interview with DC Comics' Paul Levitz -- part one here and part two here.