Slowly coming out of a too-much-travel induced haze, a day at a time. The weather is vaguely evil -- spatters of frozen rain patter and tap against the window-glass. Am typing this in bed, and truly, it's just an enormous link-dump, higgledy piggledy with little rhyme and less reason:
A Publishers Weekly summary of the 92nd St Y event: http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6613285.html
The Bookwitch interview with me: http://bookwitch.wordpress.com/interviews/neil-gaiman-%E2%80%9Ci-worry-that-i-might-be-respectable%E2%80%9D/
Pat Nugent's interview -- and review of The Graveyard Book -- in the Irish Sunday Tribune
http://www.tribune.ie/arts/
http://www.tribune.ie/arts/
An audio review of The Graveyard Book at Green Man Review - http://www.greenmanreview.com/book/book_gaiman_graveyardbook_audio.html
The second of my 2000AD Future Shocks (from September 86) is up at http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=10100
I think it was the fourth comic story I'd ever written, and for quite a while it was the only one I was satisfied with. Looking it over now, I'd noodle the dialogue a bit, but it's still a nice idea.
People sometimes ask me where they should start with my stuff. Geeks of Doom has a suggestion list:
http://geeksofdoom.com/2008/11/10/a-beginners-guide-to-neil-gaiman/
A while ago I mentioned that I started my day by checking Locusmag.com, the online version of Locus, and got this question:
Why is locusmag.com such required reading? Caveat: I've been an sf pro for nigh unto two decades (ye gods! can it truly be 20 years?), and when I started (before this pesky internet thing existed), Locus (the magazine) was definitely where the news was. But with the growth of the web sites and blogs (and not to break my arm patting my own back, but SFScope.com, too), it seems to me that locusmag.com is sort of a backwater, occasionally posting links to items elsewhere. Their indexes of past information are great, but why do you find it the first stop to find out what's going on?
--Ian
It's mostly due to taste -- I mostly like the links they point to, their news although sparser than other places tends to be real news (I assume they learned their lesson about ever using Wikipedia as a source for anything last week), I'm of an age where when Locus says someone died it's probably someone I know or have met, and partly because it's still the online segment of an SF oriented magazine done by actual journalists with real reporting and criticism in it. SFscope (since you mentioned it) seems to reprint every press release vaguely having to do with SF or fantasy -- it's stuff to winnow through, and I don't want to winnow. There's too much winnowing to do on the web already. I assume that on most days there won't be any news on Locusmag, and I like it that way. Also, it has essays by Cory Doctorow, reprints of bits of interviews and criticism, bestseller lists (within the field and without), and links to things that mostly aren't stupid.
Incidentally, they've put the last issue of Locus up online as an experiment -- you can read the whole interview with Ursula K LeGuin, of which the online extract is merely an extract: it's up at http://issuu.com/locusmag/docs/1k45kdsx87
Back to links...
Paul Levitz tells you how to do a letter-writing campaign that has a chance of working. Probably applicable to fields other than comics as well...
Authors and Cats in the Guardian: this blog gets a shout out (and then, there's the famous photo of Princess and me in the back of the illustrated STARDUST).
I am a children's librarian on our local county mock newbery committee. We have all read and loved The Graveyard Book, but are wondering if it can be included, due to Mr. Gaiman's status as a British citizen.
We have heard a recent rumor that he has become an American citizen. Is this true? If so, you'd make a large group of librarians very happy.
Sincerely,
Sharon Kalman
Children's Librarian
Paramus, NJ Public Library
Nope, I'm not an American citizen. We've had to apologise to the American Book Award people a couple of times for this one, but I'm glad to say that librarians can be as happy as they like, for it's irrelevant to the Newbery. According to http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyterms/newberyterms.cfm:
TERMS
1. The Medal shall be awarded annually to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children published in English in the United States during the preceding year. There are no limitations as to the character of the book considered except that it be original work. Honor Books may be named. These shall be books that are also truly distinguished.
2. The Award is restricted to authors who are citizens or residents of the United States.
3. The committee in its deliberations is to consider only the books eligible for the award, as specified in the terms.
See point two? I'm an American resident. Do not worry.
A few people sent me the link to http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1392-carbon-copies-i-write-dead-people -- pencils made from dead people. I thought that pencils were graphite, not just any old carbon, and wonder how well you could actually write with dead people, or how much of the ash would actually go into the pencils. I do like the idea, though.
A video review I was sent of Coraline: http://kidsknowstuff.com/2008/11/coraline-by-neil-gaiman/
A reminder that many of the shops I signed in on the last tour still have signed copies of The Graveyard Book (and, sometimes, other books) -- and here's an online store with some signed ones as well.
Todd Klein's Blog has the details of his next print on it -- with another entry with more details at http://kleinletters.com/Blog/?p=2268. (I have to sign the second edition of my Todd print today... Green Ink sounds good.) It also has the picture of the actual cover of Absolute Sandman 4 (as opposed to the one on Amazon).
Right. Enough for now...