Much Harry Clarke stuff, and more...

More information on the UK publishers age-banding proposals :

http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2008/06/07/news-flash-soapbox-special-darren-shan-on-age-branding-in-childrens-literature/
is Darren Shan telling it like it is, while Philip Pullman talks to the Telegraph over at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2074620/Philip-Pullman-leads-author-revolt-against-age-banding-for-children.html
(I got a crazy thrill seeing Alan Garner in the comments -- an author whose books work if you're nine and work if you're twelve, and work if you're seventeen, and work if you're forty: they just work in a different way each time.)

I talked about my love for Alan Garner's books in this recent Australian interview -- http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2260549.htm. It's a nice interview even though it begins with someone saying, "Neil Gaiman has been described as 'the father of the graphic novel'," which I complete in my head with "But only by people who know nothing about graphic novels and fatherhood, who don't know who Will Eisner was."


....


Hello there.

I just came across an old journal piece of yours (journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/06/harry-clarke-and-small-gift-from.asp) whilst searching for an article someone told me about on a discovery of two new Clarke drawings.

I've a rather large interest in the man, so much so that I feel cursed for not being born early enough to write my thesis on the man. Yoshitaka Amano at least appears as a silver lining.

I'd equally imagine I'm not the only Clarke fanatic in the art history community - and wonder if you mean to scan or otherwise make available the drawings you discovered?

I'd doubt any great insight into his work, any more than any other drawing of his might provide as to method, but it would be a treat for those of us who would pursue completion with fanaticism.

Which struck me as a very good idea, the putting them up on line. I had meant to get in touch with Clarke expert Nicola Gordon-Bowes when I was in Dublin last, but it never happened... So I got the Clarke drawings scanned.

You can read the whole of The Year's At The Spring at http://www.archive.org/details/yearsatspringant00waltrich.



This is the one that was face out when I bought it -- it's from the illustration facing page 74, If I Had a Broomstick. The finished version looks like this:

Above is the rough for the illustration on page 109 of The Year's at the Spring, showing the two mermaids (three in the finished version); and also sketches for the details on page 93 and 74.

Finished, the one on page 109 looks like this:

On the reverse of those two are these are sketches for two Clarke drawings I don't recognise -- the cottage on the left, the dancer, the bearded man and the clown on the right. (Click on them to see them larger.)

(No idea why they've uploaded blue.)

...

Dear Mr. Gaiman,

With the number of young writers who look to you for advice, I thought that they might be interested to hear about a creative writing program called "Shared Worlds" being offered this summer at Wofford College. My friend, writer Jeff VanderMeer is serving as assistant director. Jeff, along with writers Ekaterina Sedia, Tobias Buckell and a host of tabletop game designers and other creative types will lead high school students through a very "hands-on" experience in creating their own worlds, learning valuable creative writing lessons in the process. Here's a link, if you think your readers might be interested:

http://wofford.edu/newsroom/content.aspx?id=27822
Thanks,

Matt (a reader and fan).

Consider it plugged.

Talking about which, the Memorare For the Hugo sticker on the right of the page is for this story -- http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/fiction/gw01.htm -- and is there because Gene Wolfe has never, ever won the Hugo Award. And he should.

There's an English ceilidh band called Florida - http://www.zen21456.zen.co.uk/florida/ - who do a wonderful version of Danse Macabre. They have a clip of it on their website - http://www.zen21456.zen.co.uk/florida/samples.htm

That's terrific -- and a brilliant start...

Danse Macabre for banjos and clarinet...

So Maddy is sick, and is fast asleep on the other end of the sofa, so I put on Shock Treatment on DVD -- it's been ages since I've seen it (I'm not sure I've actually seen it since it was on in London's West End in about 1981), although I've had the CD (and before that, the LP) for many years, grabbed a computer and thought I should start to catch up on my blogging. I'm way behind on everything (email? returning phone calls? blogging? I'm backlogged on all of them. Let us not even mention anything new I'm meant to be writing). I'm keeping more or less current with the proofreading of Graveyard Book in the various editions, though, and I'm hugely proud of having done the Graveyard Book audio over the last few days.

(Yesterday morning before the reading started I also did an NPR interview about Anansi Boys for the Bryant Park Book Club [you can read the discussion so far here] as a sort of warm up.)

The reading was, in some ways, the hardest I've ever done. I always forget how exhausting doing an audio book is -- sitting in the same position and reading 75,000 words, and getting every word right. The concentration involved is ridiculous. I do them once a year, and admire all the voice actors who do them day after day, reading books they didn't even write! It was hard, and longand somewhere in Chapter Seven I was scared my voice would give out entirely, and then I got to Chapter Eight and it felt like I was flying and could do it forever. (When I finished, I went back and did the very first four pages again, and nailed them.)

Director Michael Conroy flew in from New York. (He replaced the amazing Rick Harris, who recently retired.) He was a fine director -- picked me up on places I flubbed, let me go when I was doing well. We started talking about what kind of music we'd like on it. "The Saint Saens Danse Macabre," I said, "...as long as it isn't a version we've heard before."

By which I meant not a standard orchestral version, or a piano version. Not the Jonathan Creek version either. We started talking about takes on the Danse Macabre that might be odd and interesting, how we should go and find a string quartet version, or a version that's just double basses or accordions, or the danse macabre arranged for banjo and clarinet... and about how hard it would be to find versions like that.

And then we started to wonder whether if I mention it on this blog, we could actually get submissions...

So that's our current plan. No-one's going to get rich from something that's the chapter intro music on an audio book, I'm afraid. And it won't be a competition, more of an easy way for anyone from anywhere in the world to send in audition samples -- and we need to figure out how to do it, and what the technical specs would be. But that's the plan. If you play the Danse Macabre on the musical saw, this may be the opportunity you've been waiting for...

More information as we figure it out.

...

http://www.observer.com/2008/why-jane-friedman-suddenly-not-ceo-harpercollins

thoughts?

There seems to be a little more information at http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/06/jane_friedman_shoved_out_the_d.html and http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-et-friedman6-2008jun06,0,6511196.story

Honestly, I was shocked and a bit saddened.

Back in early 2002 I was ready to leave Harper Collins, when my then-editor left; Jane Friedman talked me into staying, promised a lot and then delivered on all of her promises. (There were things I wanted that were against Harper Collins policy, like having a trade paperback and a mass market paperback of the same book out at the same time.) I got to spend real time with her last year in Beijing, at the Book Fair, and she really impressed me with her understanding of publishing, of where publishing was going. She's very funny, very practical, ferociously smart. I don't think that Harpers would have been so supportive of the monstrous thing that http://www.neilgaiman.com/ has grown into without Jane -- nor would it have been as easy to push through the free online American Gods a few months ago.

I like Jane -- she's larger than life, and I like larger than life people. I'm glad I was at what turned out to be her farewell party at the Fox lot (even if I did spend much of my time reminding Matt Groening that I really need to be a head in a jar on Futurama) -- and I hope she winds up somewhere that's as challenging for her and as interesting as CEO of Harper Collins.

Hi,

What are your thoughts on the idea of age ratings on books? I personally think it's potentially off putting to children who want to read outside of their "age range".

I saw a discussion about it on BBC Breakfast this morning.

Cheers,

Sarah

I think it's deeply stupid. You can get all the information about who a book is aimed at across to a book buyer with typefaces and design. Putting more or less compulsory coloured bands on books saying what age the reader is expected to be seems like something that's just going to stop people -- of all ages -- reading books. Exclusive, not inclusive.

As far as I know, Bloomsbury, my UK children's publisher, has simply decided not to play, and won't be banding. (Bloomsbury are also doing one edition of The Graveyard Book for adults and another edition for children, and none of us have any idea what age group it's aimed at. People who like reading about a boy who was brought up in a graveayard, I suppose, of whatever age.)

There's a web site http://www.notoagebanding.org/ where a number of authors, illustrators, academics, librarians and editors have pointed out how deeply twerpish the banding is. I signed up for it with enthusiasm, endorsing the following statement:

We are writers, illustrators, librarians, teachers, publishers and booksellers. Some of the undersigned writers and illustrators have a measure of control over what appears on the covers of their books; others have less.

But we are all agreed that the proposal to put an age-guidance figure on books for children is ill-conceived, damaging to the interests of young readers, and highly unlikely, despite the claims made by those publishers promoting the scheme, to make the slightest difference to sales.

We take this step to disavow publicly any connection with such age-guidance figures, and to state our passionately-held conviction that everything about a book should seek to welcome readers in and not keep them out.

Neil--

When you first posted links and photos on your blog about "Blueberry Girl", your collaboration with Charles Vess,I was thrilled. Now, a bit after a month since it was supposed to be published, I haven't see hide nor hair of it. Was it published in late April, or pushed back?

Thanks so much,

~Madeline

It definitely hasn't been published yet. I looked around, and it looks to me like Blueberry Girl is going to be released in February 2009. (You can see pictures from it at http://greenmanpress.com/news/archives/185)

Come to Dance the Macabray

Just a few things....

Lucy Anne pointed out that there was a tiny promotional film up for Wolves in the Walls at the New Victory site. I just popped it up on YouTube, suspecting that they won't mind at the New Victory, especially if a few of you watching it are impelled to order tickets when they go on sale in August... (http://www.newvictory.org/show.m?showID=1028522)

[If you're on a feed that cuts off here, click to see the original post, as there is much stuff.]



YouTube embiggened it slightly, I'm afraid.

I was both saddened and sort of glad he was properly remembered when I saw that Melvin McCosh had died and had a nice obituary and photo in the Star Tribune. I loved going to McCosh's house of books (his motto, You Need Them More Than I Do) as long as it, and he, were there. I bought my favourite book in the whole world there (it's a huge 150 year old 500 page leather-bound blank accounts book. Either I will write a novel in it, or I will want to write a novel in it until I die. Either's fine). The obituary is up at http://www.startribune.com/west/story/1221731.html -- you may have to log in to read it.

Many years ago I put a character based on Melvin McCosh into an SF TV series I never made (it was called Back of Beyond), because I had never before met anyone so transparently fictional in real life. And my love for John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester's poetry goes back to buying some books from McCosh, and when he looked at the pile he wandered off into a back room and put a book of Rochester's poetry on top of the books I was buying. "If you like all that, you'll like this," he said.


Hey Neil,
I picked up American Gods this weekend and have been really enjoying the book. What's been bugging me, however, is the chili recipe you describe in Chapter 2. It sounded delicious and I'm pretty curious to try it. Is it a personal chili recipe you use? And if so, are you willing to share it?

Thanks,
WDW

It was my variant on the Silver Palate Chili for a Crowd recipe (which I just googled and found at http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_collections/simply_delicious/recipe_arch/06_01_29_R#r_1) I could never be bothered with the olives or sausage meat, and everything else was a sort of generalised "adjust quantities to taste", which is how chili works best anyway. I still don't think the dill ought to work in a chili, but it does, magnificently.

Neil,

Today is the World's End Message Board's 6th Birthday, and I just wanted to thank you for providing a place for all these lovely people to get together.

Thank you :)


amy/aitapata

Which is one of those unexpected side effects of something like this. You turn around and there's a whole community there, and I tend to forget they exist until they turn up at signings bearing red balloons and alcoholic beverages and chocolate and suchlike. Happy Birthday... (They can be found at http://neilgaimanboard.com/eve/forums for anyone not using the neilgaiman.com website as a way to read this.)

Just a short one ... did you know that there is a book out there, written by some Miss Laurell K. Hamilton, (fantasy and quite different from your writing) that is called DANSE MACABRE?

(It's not one of my faves by her, I admit, but I remembered the title and wondered how it comes that both of you got to it ... have to check my French and see whether it is some saying or ...)

BB

There are many, many things called Danse Macabre out there. Stephen King's excellent non-fiction book about horror, for a start, not to mention a very wonderful piece of music by Saint-Saëns. It refers to the Dance either of the dead, or of the dead with the living, to remind people that they are mortal. It goes back to the Fourteenth Century, to the plague times. Lots of interesting stuff in this Wikipedia article. Did you know that our word Macabre comes from the dance, and was a reference to the Maccabees? S'true. And it was originally pronounced macabray. (More details at http://thomondgate.net/doc/companion/Companion.htm#dance)

Rich and poor dance in the same way, said poet John Lydgate in The Dance of Death, and that squashed together in my head with Shelley's "I met murder on the way..." and instead of thinking "He had a mask like Castlereagh" I thought "I met murder on the way, come to dance the macabray..." and suddenly there was a story in my head where there wasn't one before.

Which is too much information, and won't make much sense until you've read the story, but there are probably a few word-buffs out there who will take as much joy in it as I did.

Hey Neil,

Its not so much as a question as shameless self promotion. I did an interview with Barron Storey today. It was for my radio show Inkstuds. The show is all about interviewing alternative and underground creators. I thought your fans would be interested in this interview. We talk a little bit about the 15 portraits of Despair.

Here is a link directly to the posting. http://www.inkstuds.com/?p=173
Cheers,

robin

Of course. (And if you don't know what Barron Storey's work looks like you can find some of it at http://www.geocities.com/negsleep/main/links/barron/barron.html)