Two New UK Book Covers, and a Small Philosophical Thought

Bloomsbury just sent me the cover for their paperback of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK. It is coming out in the UK on June 5th, 2014. I love the cover, and was impressed by the Children's Book of the Year tag, as I had forgotten. (It's been a mad year. There are too many things to remember.)

And seeing I am posting that, I also thought I should post this:

...which is a photo I stole from Sam Eades's Twitter Feed. (So I think we can safely assume the aquamarine nail-varnished thumbnail is Sam's.)  Sam was the publicist at Headline all through Ocean. She's amazing -- cheerful, sensible, a delight to be around, and the kind of person who can come up with a mad idea like getting a road named after a book and just make it happen while being on a signing tour like no other, and still getting the author fed.

(She's just left Headline for Pan MacMillan, and she will make authors there very happy and I miss her already.)

It's the UK paperback cover of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. The paperback comes out in a week. 

And it was only when I looked at them both, I realised I've got two books coming out in the UK with, actually and honestly, "Book of the Year" on the cover. And I thought, I'll probably never have that again. It's really unusual for me to have two books out, one for adults and one for all ages, in the same span of time. And lightning doesn't strike twice. For a moment I started feeling glum, finding myself worrying about backlashes and things that probably don't ever happen again and the nature of time and life...

And then I thought, I should remember what Stephen King told me, something I put into the Make Good Art talk and book. I should enjoy this.

So, contrary to my vaguely worried nature, I am doing my very best to enjoy it.  Book of the Year, twice, for two books. That's pretty good, isn't it?

...

It's Art Spiegelman Week. Not only will Art and I find ourselves in conversation at Bard tomorrow night, but there is more Spiegelmanny wonderfulness in New York this weekend, some of it accompanied by Ditch artist Joost Swarte. You can read all about it here, at the Drawn and Quarterly blog: http://drawnandquarterly.blogspot.com/2014/03/its-art-spiegelman-week-in-new-york.html

The coolest bit of all might be this Sunday Morning, when you get to see a stained glass mural...

Sunday, April 6th: PRIVATE VIEWING & BREAKFAST WITH ART SPIEGELMAN
Manhattan, NY: A rare chance to join Art Spiegelman (class of '65) for coffee, carbs, and juice as he gives a personal guided tour of the 50' x 8' two-sided glass mural he designed for the school. Secrets-literally-behind the window will be revealed!

And he'll have special guest Joost Swarte on hand, showing slides of his own stained glass windows in the Netherlands!

The tour begins Sunday, April 6th, at 10:30 am, at the High School of Art and Design cafeteria, 5th floor. That's 245 East 56th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues.Get your tickets here now! Tickets are $20, but $15 for those of you with a MoCCA pass, and free for current A&D students! Proceeds go to the Alumni Association to benefit the students of Art and Design. 

...

St Mark's Bookshop in New York has slowly become one of my favourite bookshops around, I think because it's so well curated. I never walk in there and think "So many books are being published. Why don't people just stop making new books and read the ones that are already out there?" which I sometimes find myself thinking on walking into huge chain bookshops. Instead I just walk around going "I didn't know that existed. I'll have that, and that, and that, and I'll get that for a friend...".

They are doing an Indiegogo fundraiser to help crowdfund their move. Support it, if you can. (I'm going to donate a hand-annotated book or two to their rewards.) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/st-mark-s-bookshop-on-the-move

...

Reminder: the Symphony Space "Selected Shorts" evening has sold out.

The only remaining event on the East Coast this year is the Carnegie Hall TRUTH IS A CAVE IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS reading, with the FourPlay String Quartet and Eddie Campbell paintings and all, on June 27th. It's happening at the same time that THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE is coming out in the US in paperback.  (Amazing things will be happening on that that night: trust me. This is the big one...)

Tickets at http://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2014/6/27/0800/PM/Neil-Gaiman-The-Truth-is-a-Cave-in-the-Black-Mountains/

Labels: Book of the Year, Carnegie Hall, Fortunately the Milk, It's pretty but is it art spiegelman, The Ocean At The End of the Lane, What does Book Of The Year mean anyway?, What Stephen King said

How I cope with the social media cravings, and in which I begin to become a blogger once again...

It's my third Wedding Anniversary today. Amanda and I are in Boston, and there's a blizzard warning. We have our house in Cambridge for another five days. Amanda goes to Australia on Saturday morning.

Two days in to Neil off Social Media, and it's interesting. I've a novel I'm reading on my phone's Kindle app, and whenever I would have been tempted to go and look at my Twitter Feed or Tumblr or Facebook, I read Gene Wolfe's THE LAND ACROSS instead. This is a good thing because 1) it is a very good book, and 2) it reminds me of the joy and power of fiction and 3) it distracts me from what had become a very automatic thing to do.

I wrote a rather sad email to friends yesterday, about not going to Australia, which is what I'd planned to do in January: accompany Amanda to Sydney, where she is playing in the Festival, and then on to Melbourne. I have people I was looking forward to spending time with, and things I was looking forward to doing... and then Amanda's book deadline moved (she's writing a book) and we both knew that if I went with her, she wouldn't make her deadline: when we're together we talk and we do things and we spend time together and are nice social human beings, when apart we are driven lunatics who make art.

My friend Kelly Fogarty wrote back from Melbourne and said, "If you're sad today you're only creating a memory of sadness for whenever you think of your last day with Amanda before she comes out here. People keep telling me that the way you spend January 01 is indicative of the rest of your year. If you spend it surrounded by sadness rather than excitement about both your upcoming adventures then where's the fun in that, or anything, for the rest of 2014?"


.... and I looked around. The contents of the house in Cambridge that's been our home together for 14 months is mostly in boxes right now, preparing to be moved out. But yesterday, the first of the year, our friends Rachel (from the Army of Broken Toys) and her partner Clare got married in the house: they decorated it with lights and string and repurposed ancient musical scores, and made it more beautiful in a day than we ever had when we were there.

The wedding was wonderful, the house was filled with happy people, the music was wonderful, I was having marvelous conversations with glorious folk dressed in their best clothes, and cocktails  and punch and mulled cider were being drunk, and you could feel the love and fellowship and joy in the air. I even danced with my wife. I thought about writing a wedding, one filled with love and joy. I think I will (although it is true that when I told Amanda the wedding plot that was in my head, a mysterious murder happens in the middle of it).

I couldn't think of a better way to start a year, surrounded by joy and warmth and love. I hope that 2014 is a gentle year -- many amazing things happened in my world in 2013, but there were too many deaths, too many small tragedies. I'll take love and fellowship and twinkly lights and brown-paper decorations.

...

It's been a while since I've answered questions from the FAQ line here, mostly because the things coming in mostly stopped being things that could be answered, while people were really good on Twitter or Tumblr about asking easily answerable questions. But for at least the first six months of this year, questions and answers are going to be here. And look, a question I can answer. So...

Is it true you are selling your Minneapolis home and buying a house in Cambridge? If yes, WHY?

Nope. The house in Cambridge was the one we moved into last November, mostly to be near to Amanda's friend Anthony while he went through chemotherapy. We rented it, and we're moving out in a few days.

We're planning on buying a house together in New York state right now.

I've no plans to sell the house near Minneapolis. It's such a happy place in my life and in my heart: it's where my children grew up. It has the best library ever. In the long term, I may well make it a Writers Retreat for writers who mostly aren't me.

I love it, and spent over 20 years making it somewhere I wanted to be and wanted to write, but had never planned to die there. That was my home. The new place will be my house and Amanda's house. I'm happy to have the adventure of building a life and a home together.

...

I just got a delighted email from Rosemary Brosnan, my editor at Harper Childrens, to tell me that FORTUNATELY, THE MILK is now is its 15th week on the various bestseller lists. I love that it seems now to have become one of those books that sells through word of mouth, through people telling each other they ought to read it, that it's funny, that kids are staying up late and reading it under the covers with flashlights, that adults have discovered it's funny if you're an adult, that kids are reading aloud to their parents, all that...

So, as a thank you to all of you who have bought it or read it or told each other about it, here's a picture nobody's ever seen in this form. The art that Skottie Young did to convince my publishers that he would be right to draw the book:

Which Skottie wound up colouring in and making into the cover. Because it was perfect.

...

And finally, here is the amazing Lady Rizo, singing a song by me (with chords by Amanda) on her first solo album. She has a remarkable voice, and if you ever get the chance to see her, you will not regret it...

Labels: A Wedding, Anniversary thoughts, Australia and my not being there, Fortunately the Milk, Gene Wolfe, Houses and why we live in them, lady Rizo, The first of the year

A Perfect Week

The tour started on about June 13^th, with an event and a signing in Bath. It went to the US and to Canada, then came back to England via Holland, and it finished in Scotland at the end of August. I signed about 75,000 books while I was on tour, most of them copies of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. Six weeks on, I came back to the UK and did a mini-tour for FORTUNATELY, THE MILK. It was the appendix of tours, the last bit. Even so, it had a few of my favourite moments of the year, in it and one of my favourite evenings ever.

My first day in the UK, I went to the opening night of THE LIGHT PRINCESS, Tori Amos's beautiful musical, at the National Theatre. It's a fairy tale, and is about feminism, ecology, and the importance of showing and having emotions. It contains some amazing performances, beautiful songs, and flying (and floating) effects that are jaw dropping. The audience loved it, and gave it a Standing Ovation. I came out certain that it would divide the critics, and the papers the next morning were mixed – the Daily Mail's reviewer gave it one star and described the audience who had loved it as “weak minded”, the Daily Express gave it five stars and said:

 With shades of panto, ballet, circus and opera as well as musical theatre, this bonkers but beautiful fantasy defies categorisation. Amos has said that any man taking a woman here on a date is guaranteed to get lucky afterwards. I’m not the best judge of that kind of thing. All I know is I’d go again tomorrow, and again the day after that.

I thought it was magic.

Ian Lamb, Bloomsbury's Children's Books Publicity Honcho, had set up several really enjoyable events. They began with a literary lunch at the Savoy Hotel, which reopened in 2010 after a three year long remodel. The food was wonderful, and between courses I wandered around with a microphone, talking about the book, reading from it and answering questions. This was only the second of the lunches, and I don't think that any of the people there were Savoy regulars: the ones I recognised were all regulars from signings and events, most of them looking a bit nervous and intimidated. The Savoy staff were really nice.

I was on SATURDAY LIVE, the BBC Radio 4 Saturday morning show, along with a comics creator, a Rock Manager, Tori (and elks), and a former Yeti. It was a delightful 90 minutes of radio. I forgot to talk about FORTUNATELY, THE MILK.
(You can listen to it here.)

I went to Cheltenham, and talked and signed at the literary festival there: 400 people queued up afterwards, most of them in the rain, and I felt very guilty indeed. I met Marcus Brigstocke for dinner – the first time we'd talked properly since we did the commentary on the DVD of A SHORT FILM ABOUT JOHN BOLTON, my short film in 2002, which Marcus starred in. From Cheltenham to Manchester, where I did another book event and signing, less formal and significantly less rained on.

Up first thing the next morning to do the BBC Breakfast Show (the segment is up here, but you may need Tunnelbear or equivalent to watch outside the UK). Normally Breakfast TV book spots are an excuse for the interviewers to not talk about the book, but the presenters (and their children) had read and loved FORTUNATELY THE MILK, and asked me about it, and I made up for not having mentioned it on the radio. (The Amazon rating went up from about 240 to 12 in an hour, for the curious.)

That night was astonishing: I gave a speech on behalf of the Reading Agency. It's about reading, and about libraries, and about our obligations to the world and to the future. Before the speech, I sat in my seat, and I looked down at the words I'd written to say and was consumed by a strange form of stage fright in which none of the sentences that I looked at seemed to make any sense. In a kind of awkward terror I got up and delivered the speech, and somehow it all made sense and all the sentences were sentences after all: it worked.

It's been widely reported, and published in edited form in the Guardian, and people everywhere have started using it to explain to other people why books and libraries and such are to be protected and endorsed, which is a wonderful thing.

The next day was the best day of all. It began early when my wife, Amanda, flew in to the UK to surprise me. And, because she knows me, she texted me the day before to let me know she would be surprising me at that night's performance of the whole of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK at the Westminster Central Hall.

I had spent a few weeks gathering together a motley and wonderful band of performers to help with the night's entertainment. In addition, Chris Riddell was going to come on the stage with me: I would read, and he would draw.

It was amazing, and I was amazed.

About 2,500 people were there. The tickets had sold out immediately – we could have done an event twice the size. My only regret was that there could have been more kids in the audience.

Andrew O' Neill was our master of ceremonies. T.V. Smith and Tom Robinson played two acoustic songs (and played pirates and such); As the story started Chris Riddell quick-drew amazing illustrations; Siobhan Hewlett was a pirate queen and stole the show; Mitch Benn stole it back with a song about Lady Pirate Captains; Tasha Hawley and Niamh Walsh were ponies – and got a round of applause from the audience – and Niamh returned as a wumpire; Lenny Henry brought the house down as a special surprise Dinosaur Space Patrol T. Rex, and asked me twitter questions. Then Amanda came on and played her Ukulele Anthem with final lyrics rewritten to be about FORTUNATELY THE MILK. And then it was all done.

Chris Riddell draws...

TV Smith and Tom Robinson perform THE THIN GREEN LINE

Mitch Benn, Andrew O'Neill, TV Smith, Niamh Walsh, Tash Hawley, Siobhan Hewlett

Mitch, Tim and Andrew do a very important plot dance. Lenny Henry and I do not dance.

(All of these photos from this great photoset I found on Flickr.)

I cannot thank any of these people enough for a perfect night.

(In the background, making things work for us and for the 2500 people, were Andy Quinn from Foyles, Alex Rochford from Time Out, and their respective teams, the lovely and talented Holly Gaiman, and the extremely terrific Kelly Fogarty who helped make everything easier and took the following wonderful backstage photographs.)

Labels: breakfastry, Fortunately the Milk, Mitch Benn, nine photographs, photographs, radio, The Light Princess, Tom Robinson, TV Smith

Back from the Blog Dead.

My whole tour is done, and I am tired and happy.

I just saw a beautiful, moving play called THE EVENTS at the Young Vic, starring Neve McIntosh and Rudi Dharmalingam (and a choir). It was about empathy and violence, and I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow, I will tell you about the last week in the UK, about FORTUNATELY THE MILK, about the astonishing show last night at Westminster Central Hall, about Breakfast TV and the Reading Agency Speech.

I will give you some tidbits first, though. Here's my BBC Breakfast Time appearance
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jq6kd

The Saturday Live Radio 4 programme with me (and Tori, and a yeti) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03ccvtp

Here's the Guardian's edited text of my speech: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming

And here's the School Library Journal on the Alamagordo N.M. attempted banning of NEVERWHERE: http://www.slj.com/2013/10/censorship/neil-gaimans-neverwhere-banned-at-new-mexico-high-school/

But now... I hand this blog over to the lovely Amanda Palmer. Who is very beautiful and wise, but uses capital letters only when she has to:

neil and i did a kickstarter about two years go, to sell pre-orders/pay for a tour recording of our “evening with neil gaiman and amanda palmer” tour up the west coast in fall 2011.
the kickstarter raised over $100k with about 3k backers, and we took two engineers on the road with us (many of you know jaron luksa, my veteran sound guys…he was one of them, and he brought his pal ken). they recorded every show in HIGH FIDELITY and then neil and i spent the rest of the fall and winter picking out our favorite tracks from what was probably about twenty+ hours of recordings. (that was slightly agonizing). that tour was pretty magical, and lots of unexpected things happened…including a fan of ours dying at occupy vancouver a few days before we got to town. one of the songs is dedicated to her. neil combatted his stage fright. i tried to work on my stage-control issues. we both learned to give each other space. we took questions every night from the audience and surprised ourselves, and each other, with some of the answers (so now there’s a “best of ‘ask neil and amanda’” on the record). mostly, we watched our fanbases merge, like a giant family wedding, and were relieved that no brawls broke out.
we asked our friend cynthia von buhler to make the art (it’s a hand-made cut-out, and gorgeous) and we packaged the whole she-bang onto 3 CDs.
around christmas 2011 – to tide them over, since the kickstarter backers were waiting for their discs (it took a WHILE) – we sent everybody a digital collection of material that didn’t make the final cut. it was called “a prelude to an evening with…”
here’s the variant cover (still cynthia’s art, adapted by @indeciSEAN):

and then eventually everybody got their discs in the mail and everybody was pretty happy, so yay.
this was the original artwork on that first kickstarter-edition:

then we didn’t do anything…..we didn’t release it online to the public or put it on sale in stores….no iTunes, no bandcamp, no topspin, no nothin. we wanted the kickstarter backers to enjoy it and i was already in the full throes of preparing “Theatre is Evil”. so we waited.
NOW – or, well, next month – is the moment we’ve picked (ta da) to release it to the general public…ALMOST the same tracklisting, but all-new packaging (so that the kickstarter edition stays super-special).
we also made VINYL. the whole album would have taken up (gulp) 6 sides, so we pared our favorites down even further and condensed everything onto two records.
this is the NEW packaging:

we also thought long and hard about what kind of merch to offer along with the album – since we know you love good merch, and christmas is coming.
we picked things we’d give each other and our friends and families: moleskine jounrals (blank, of course, cuz fuck lines), teapots & tea towels, mugs, and fuzzy velvet posters. we tried to bundle things in such a way that made the ordering pretty simple. the pre-sale of these bundles will end around november 1st. some of these items will make it to the webstore, but some may not – it all depends on order quantities. here’s the “super deluxe” bundle with all this awesomeness:
SO, your best bet is to order NOW before halloween night…all orders placed during this period will definitely arrive in time for the holidays.
(while we’re on the topic: all orders made from the webstore by december 1st SHOULD also be good for holiday delivery, but we can’t control international customs so…)
i deliberately chose songs for this tour that i HADN’T ever released but was aching to…songs like “dear old house”, “gaga, palmer, madonna”, “i want you but i don’t need you”, and “look mummy no hands” have been huge live favorites but didn’t quite fit on “Theatre is Evil” so they were burning a hole in my pocket. i consider these the official versions.
there’ll be plenty more noise on the socials to remind you, and i DO hope you all pre-order, but if you’re holding out for any reason…
on november 19th, the album should be available in stores (more on where as we get details) and online in the usual spots (bandcamp,amazon, iTunes, etc.)
we’ll have the ENTIRE digital collection (the three disc’s-worth and the “prelude” EP – over 5 HOURS of material) up on my webstore for $10+
if you *ARE* one of the 3k kickstarter backers, WE THANK YOU SO MUCH for making this project possible. we wouldn’t have done it without you.
and if you want to help the cause and push the album forward, write some thoughts/reviews about it all (you’ve had it for a while, you’re entitled) down in the comments (or anywhere on the web) to help us, please. and include the pre-order link – bit.ly/EveningWithPreOrder – anywhere you are talking up the record.
here’s the final track listing:
Disc 1: NEIL SOLO1 – My Last Landlady
2 – The Rhyme Maidens
3 – The Day The Saucers Came
4 – Feminine Endings
5 – The Winter Gardens
6 – In Relig Odhráin
7 – The View From The Cheap Seats
8 – I Will Write In Words Of Fire
9 – The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury
10 – Making A Chair
11 – 100 Words
Disc 2: AMANDA AND NEIL1 – Margaret Cho Introduces the Show
2 – Makin’ Whoopee
3 – (Introduction to “The Problem With Saints”)
4 – The Problem With Saints
5 – Jump (for Jeremy Geidt)
6 – Ask Neil And Amanda
7 – (Introduction to “Broken Heart Stew”)
8 – Broken Heart Stew (by Amanda)
9 – Poem for Amanda (by Neil)
10 – Poem for Neil (by Amanda)
11 – Electric Blanket (a duet, feat. Amanda Palmer & Jason Webley)
12 – Psycho
13 – (Introduction to I Google You)
14 – I Google You
Disc 3: AMANDA SOLO1 – I Want You, But I Don’t Need You
2 – (Introduction to “Dear Old House”)
3 – Dear Old House
4 – (Introduction to “Gaga, Palmer, Madonna: A Polemic”)
5 – Gaga, Palmer, Madonna: A Polemic
6 – (Introduction to “Judy Blume”)
7 – Judy Blume
8 – I Don’t Care Much (with Lance Horne)
9 – Map Of Tasmania
10 – (Introduction to “Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass”)
11 – Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass
12 – (Introduction to “I Will Follow You Into The Dark”)
13 – I Will Follow You Into The Dark (for Ashlie Gough)
14 – Look Mummy, No Hands
15 – Ukulele Anthem
Bonus: A PRELUDE TO AN EVENING WITH… (which is available with the digital)
1 – Intro
2 – Ampersand
3 – Runs in the Family
4 – Shoggoth’s Old Peculiar
5 – Blake Says
6 – Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire
7 – Do You Swear To Tell The Truth, The Whole Truth & Nothing But The Truth So Help Your Black Ass
8 – Zombies and Shy People
9 – Drinking With John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
10 – Making Mixtapes
11 – Everyone Should Have a Hobby That Could Kill Them
12 – It Was All Going So Well
13 – On-Stage Dating Service
YOU CAN ORDER HERE.
AGAIN, ORDER BY NOVEMBER 1st FOR THE XMAS DEADLINE!!!!!!!!!
if you have any questions not covered here, eric’s being a dear and helping out HERE on the forum.
also, do us a solid: ONCE YOU ORDER, share the joy & link, spread the word! please? make friends jealous of velvet posters!
BONUS for OZ/NZ: @POSstore has 1 of 10 LIMITED EDT 7″ vinyl that you have a chance at winning…more info at bit.ly/AFP7inchOH!! and ONE MORE LAST THING!!
NEW YORK (and surrounding areas): to celebrate the release of the record, we’ve added a (second) EVENING WITH NEIL & ME show on FRIDAY NOVEMBER 22nd at town hall (since the first night sold out super-quick). there ARE still tickets available, but they’re moving fast. you can grab yours HERE. it’s gonna be a fun couple o’ nights.

.....

And just adding that the ordering window on the teapots is just about to close, so if you want a teapot, order now at http://bit.ly/AnEveningWithPresale.

Labels: amanda palmer, an evening with neil and amanda, BBC, daydreaming, Fortunately the Milk

Urgent Letter From A Man Now Off Twitter, Tumblr & Tea

This leg - the UK leg, and the last - of the mammoth signing tour that started on June 13th, has just finished. About 50,000 people, probably about 150,000 things signed. (Said things including body parts, dolls, and a hairbrush. But mostly books and books and more books.)

It had many remarkable bits, of great joy. For example, they named a lane in Portsmouth THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. And not just any lane: it's beside the Canoe Lake, where I was walked in my pram, where I went with my grandparents (it was round the corner from their house at 36, Parkstone Avenue). There were a few hundred people assembled in the sun: the Lord Mayor of Portsmouth made a speech in which she put me on the list of Portsmouth Writers (Dickens, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Kipling were the other people on the list), the poet laureate of Portsmouth read two lovely poems, and then I pulled the cloth off the road sign and hugged lots of members of my family, and talked to people, and even met a 90 year old gentleman who told me how, when he was sleeping rough after  being demobbed from the army in World War 2, my grandmother took him in for Friday Night dinner and my Uncle Ronnie gave him his spare suit...

It made me smile. Then again, everything that day made me smile.

(These photos are from Elliott Franks's website at http://elliottfranks.photoshelter.com/gallery/Neil-Gaiman-event-18th-August-2013/G0000BGlc8FWrkSA/. Elliott was there as a photographer -- and also as my cousin.)

That night there was a really fun event at the Portsmouth Guildhall (preceded by tea for my family, who were all a bit baffled and delighted by this. Best bit was hearing several elderly aunts explain to another why she should watch Amanda's Dear Daily Mail video.) There was also a Dalek.

 

The next event of magic was held in Ely Cathedral.

The queue looked like this:

...only there were over a thousand people in it, and it wound up going all the way through the town. (photo from here.) The place was magical, and I signed for people until the small hours of the morning, while, as the perfect summer evening became twilight and then night, the cathedral bats flittered overhead.

(Photo, along with some of the best  signing photos I've seen is from http://narshada.co.uk/neil-gaiman-book-signing-ely-cathedral).

From there, to Oxford, and the Oxford Playhouse, and my favourite ever conversation-on-a-stage. Possible one of my favourite ever conversations. It was with Philip Pullman, who is smart and honest and has everything that you'd every want in a favourite English teacher...

Fortunately a lot of it was recorded and put up on the web. (Not, alas, the audience questions...) You can hear it here. It's Philip Pullman and me talking about books and authors we love, children's fiction, and whether we ever get to bring back stories from dreams.



And from there to the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

I talked about Memory and The Ocean at the End of the Lane with Charles Fernyhough, talked about my children's fiction with Vicky Featherstone (who brought along a surprise wolf head and the pig puppet from the National Theatre of Scotland's The Wolves in the Walls), talked comics and Sandman in particular with Hannah Berry, and talked to Margaret Atwood about, well, everything really. (Did you know she does an astoundingly scary impression of the Wicked Witch of the West? Oh, she does...)




Also, I CO-JUDGED A LITERARY DEATH MATCH. Amy Mason won. I'm reading her book, and I'm reading Briony Hatch by the Skinner sistren, and Craig Silvey's book, and Craig Collins's comics... frankly, I made out like a bandit.

And I was interviewed (and semi-heckled hilariously by Phill Jupitus and Mitch Benn) as part of the Ad Lib Comedy thingummy at the Fringe, and it was marvellous.

Here's a great audio interview by the Scottish Book Trust towards the latter, even more brain dead, part of the festival:
http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/blog/reading/2013/08/neil-gaiman-interview-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane

From Edinburgh to Dundee, for a lunchtime signing and on to Inverness for the end of it all.  A wonderful conversation with my new friend Stuart Kelly, one last last last signing (event photos here) and I was done.

This is a photo of me being done.

(Photo from here.)

There's now a video up of the US leg of the tour... it gives you an idea of what it was like -- 20 cities in 80 seconds...




I'm now recovering and going back to being a writer again. It's a bit odd. Currently I have the kind of headache you get from from caffeine withdrawal, having survived the tour on massive amounts of tea. I'm going for walks and just getting everything back together. I look a bit less battered, which is good.

So, I have gone cold turkey from things like Tea, Twitter, Tumblr and, er,  probably other things too.

I'll put up the occasional photograph of a hill here, I expect.

....

This interview with Amanda makes me happy. It's the only interview I can remember that was about the two of us: http://blogs.citypages.com/gimmenoise/2013/08/amanda_palmer_on_neil_gaiman_he_desperately_loves_to_be_surprised.php

...

Right. Nearly done. Some housekeeping before I vanish: First things first. PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO. Then spread it around. Share it. It will make you smile, and you get a great sense of Skottie Young's wonderful artwork...

That's the US trailer.

The UK trailer... well, that doesn't exist yet. They want YOU (yes, you) to help, by recording part of the trailer:

http://www.gaimanbooks.com/ftmtrailer is the link that explains all the voiceover competition...

and they've put an extract up at http://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/fortunately_the_milk_extract.

While, not to be outdone, Harper Collins are themselves giving away copies of Fortunately The Milk at  at http://harpercollinschildrens.tumblr.com/post/59489655003/giveaway-fortunately-the-milk-by-neil-gaiman

I'm afraid the UK Fortunately The Milk event (the one Bloomsbury are doing in association with Time Out and Foyles) is now sold out.

...

I'm off to be a writer for a bit, as I said. I'll blog if there's anything important: unplugging from the twin delights of Twitter & Tumblr.

I will next surface on the 14th of September at the Hackney Empire, where I will be the Voice of the Book on the opening night of the stage version of the radio version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (Tickets at http://www.hackneyempire.co.uk/hitchhikers)

In New York, the tickets for the Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer we are doing at the Town Hall to celebrate the release of the CD of the original tour is ALMOST SOLD OUT. There are still tickets, though, at the back of the balcony.  http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/03004B0CE260F20A

And finally, BlackBerry have made a very limited, not for sale, number of books of A Calendar of Tales, which are going out as gifts to the contributors and to those who helped make it all happen behind the scenes. You can see what the book looks like at http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2013/august/neil-gaiman-book (and read the tales and look at the pictures at http://acalendaroftales.com/)

...

And now I am going to sleep. Last night, my dreams were of signing books for people.  Everybody I had ever known was in the signing line, and I signed, and I signed, and I signed...

Labels: Bats, caffeine, Edinburgh Book Festival, Fortunately the Milk, Inverness, Margaret Atwood, philip pullman, Portsmouth, signing as much as I can, Southsea, tea, The Last Signing Tour

ATTENTION: OCTOBER 15th ALERT. NB DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU.

Right. This is the plan.

If you are going to be in London on Tuesday, October the 15th 2013, you should buy tickets to come and see me read the whole of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK... on stage at the Central Hall, Westminster.

The event is being presented by Time Out Live and Foyles.

Things that will definitely be happening that night:

1) I will read all of Fortunately, The Milk... live on stage. This will take around an hour.

2) Chris Riddell will be drawing stuff live as well, on the stage for everyone to see.

Here is a picture that Chris Riddell did of either the dad in Fortunately, The Milk, or of me. I do not dare ask him which it is.

3) The tickets will cost £10, £8, and (these ones come with a special limited edition of the book) £20.

Things that will most probably be happening but I really need to start sending out emails and making phone calls to make them happen:

1) There will be mysterious guest stars. Some of them may get to read lines from the book...

2) There will be mysterious guest stars. Some of them might make some music to accompany things.

Things that have been announced as happening that might actually happen, you never know:

1) I will "reveal all" about the creation of Fortunately, The Milk...

There won't be a signing after the event. A lot of the books available for sale at the event will most probably have been signed by me that afternoon, however.

There won't be a second performance. We're talking about taping or webstreaming this but no decisions have yet been made, so if you want to be there, you should do your best to be there.

Things that will definitely not be happening on stage that night:

1) Ice skating and ladies who dance through hoops of fire.

2) Real live dinosaurs attacking.

3) Human sacrifice.

This is how you get tickets:

http://www.timeout.com/london/things-to-do/neil-gaiman-and-special-guests-fortunately-the-milk

And go to the bottom of the page, and click on buy tickets. Tickets are already selling fast, so you may want to strike like a cobra. Or at least, click on the link.

FAQs

Here are some possible questions about this event you might frequently ask, with useful and informative answers by me:

WILL THIS BE FUN?

Yes it will. Please come.

I MEAN, IT SOUNDS PRETTY BORING, YOU JUST READING A STORY. ALSO IT'S TUESDAY EVENING. I HAVE MACRAME ON TUESDAY EVENING.

You really don't have to come. I don't mind. Although it won't be boring. It will be fun. (See previous answer for details.)

WILL THERE BE REAL LIVE DINOSAURS AND ALIENS AND WUMPIRES AND PONIES LIVE ON THE STAGE, AND HUMAN SACRIFICE, ICE SKATING AND LADIES WHO DANCE THROUGH HOOPS OF FIRE?

There will not. I thought I covered this already. Come anyway. Fun, remember?

SHOULD I BRING MY CHILDREN?

I would, if I were you. After all, if you tell them that you went to see the only performance of Fortunately The Milk without them they may grow to resent you and eventually plot against you and bring you down at your moment of triumph.

I WANT TO COME BUT I LIVE IN BRAZIL.

Brazil is a lovely place. On October the 15th you must drown your sorrows in cachaça-based alcoholic drinks, and go to the beach, and think about what you are missing.

WHAT IF I DO NOT LIVE IN BRAZIL?

Why don't you live in Brazil? The weather is wonderful, the people are delightful. One day we shall all move to Brazil, drink cachaça-based alcoholic drinks and sit on the beach, where we shall talk about art.

ARE YOU SURE ABOUT THIS? THE WHOLE MOVING TO BRAZIL THING?

No. I just ran out of useful questions and answers about the October the 15th FORTUNATELY, THE MILK night. Here, have a caipirinha.

Labels: Brazil, Cachaça, Central hall Westminster, Dinosaurs, Fortunately the Milk, Human sacrifice

Fortunately, the book... (Explained)

So I'm not certain right now if I have one book coming out or two, this September. So I will let you ponder the question for me.

I have a book called Fortunately, the Milk coming out from Harper Children's on September the 17th. It's published in the US, Canada, and many such places.

It's illustrated by the brilliant Skottie Young.

This is what the cover looks like:

I have a book called Fortunately, The Milk... (note the ellipses) coming out from Bloomsbury on September the 17th. It's published in the UK, Australia and various other places.

It's illustrated by the amazing Chris Riddell.

This is what the cover looks like:

(You cannot actually tell from this how astoundingly SHINY the cover is. Trust me. It is the shiniest cover you have ever seen.)

And I'm not really sure why there are two books. I know that different places and different publishers like different styles of illustration. And I am not grumbling, because I love Skottie's art, and I love Chris's art, and they are completely different -- in approach, in style, in storytelling.

You can get the feeling for Skottie's art, and the way the US version looks here:

http://issuu.com/harpercollinschildrens/docs/fortunatelymilk_usexcerptreveal

You get a feel for the UK edition with the same pages told in a British Way at:

http://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/fortunately_the_milk_extract

You are, of course, allowed to order the edition you like best from the country of your choice. But in UK bookshops you'll find the Bloomsbury, in US ones you'll find the Harper Childrens...

Why is the milk in a bottle in the US, where milk almost never comes in bottles? Why is the milk in a carton in the UK, where milk actually does still turn up in bottles? Why does the dad in Chris Riddell's artwork look mysteriously sort of like me?

There are no answers to be found in this video of Chris Riddell drawing...

there ARE however, some answers, to all of your Fortunately, The Milk (...) questions here, in this video.

Watch it. All will be explained. Well, something will be explained, at any rate...

Labels: Americans and English people, chris Riddell, Fortunately the Milk, mysterious ellipses, Skottie Young

YOUR LONG, PAINFUL WAIT IS OVER! A Cover is Revealed!

This is the cover of the UK edition of Fortunately, The Milk, illustrated by the amazing Chris Riddell.

And when I say illustrated, I mean there is a glorious Chris Riddell drawing on pretty much every page.

This is quite possibly the most exciting adventure ever to be written about milk since Tolstoy's epic novel War and Milk. It has aliens, pirates, dinosaurs and wumpires in it (but not the handsome, misunderstood kind), also a never-adequately-explained-bowl-of-piranhas, not to mention a Volcano God.

It will now be released on the same day as the US edition, September the 17th.

If you are wondering what Fortunately, The Milk is about, here is a video of me describing it:

REMINDER:

I'LL BE ON THE ROAD A LOT THIS SUMMER AND AUTUMN.

The information on where I will be will be continually updated over at  Where's Neil, which is http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/. (It looks like the thing I've cut and pasted in below.)

The Portland signing has already sold out. The London Royal Society of Literature event has sort of sold out -- they're not selling any more tickets but are keeping a large handful to go out on the day.

 Canadian dates and Summer UK dates and events haven't been announced yet. And then there's the Autumnal Amazing FORTUNATELY THE MILK special event I am not even allowed to mention here...

05 May 2013	Los Angeles, CA	EW CapeTown Festival: Coraline screening with Q&A
14 Jun 2013	Bath, UK	Neil Gaiman in the Bath
17 Jun 2013	London, UK	Memory, Magic and Survival: Neil Gaiman in conversation with Claire Armistead
18 Jun 2013	Brooklyn, NY	The Last US Signing Tour: A Night at the Opera
19 Jun 2013	New York, NY	The Last US Signing Tour: Broadway Neil
20 Jun 2013	Saratoga Springs, NY	The Last US Signing Tour: The Shire
21 Jun 2013	Washington, DC	The Last US Signing Tour: Mr. Gaiman Goes to Washington
22 Jun 2013	Decatur, GA	The Last US Signing Tour: Gaiman on My Mind
23 Jun 2013	Coral Gables, FL	The Last US Signing Tour: Coral (signing) Line
24 Jun 2013	Dallas, TX	The Last US Signing Tour: Fright-Hair on Elm Street
25 Jun 2013	Denver, CO	The Last US Signing Tour: Under Cover Gaiman
26 Jun 2013	Phoenix, AZ	The Last US Signing Tour: Phoenix
27 Jun 2013	Los Angeles, CA	The Last US Signing Tour: Visitations and Angels
28 Jun 2013	San Francisco, CA	The Last US Signing Tour: Mr. Gaiman, with the book, in the Conservatory
29 Jun 2013	Portland, OR	The Last US Signing Tour: City of Books
02 Jul 2013	Seattle, WA	The Last US Signing Tour: Call of Clarion
06 Jul 2013	Santa Rosa, CA	The Last US Signing Tour: When We Walk in Fields of Copper
07 Jul 2013	Ann Arbor, MI	The Last US Signing Tour: A Man, A Book, A Theater, Ann Arbor
08 Jul 2013	Bloomington, MN	The Last US Signing Tour: Rock 'n' Roll High School
09 Jul 2013	Chicago, IL	The Last US Signing Tour: Gaiman Unabridged
10 Jul 2013	Nashville, TN	The Last US Signing Tour: Of Course You Know This Means War Memorial
11 Jul 2013	Lexington, KY	The Last US Signing Tour: Manchester Reservation
13 Jul 2013	Cambridge, MA	The Last US Signing Tour: The Parish at the End of the Tour

http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/

Labels: chris Riddell, Fortunately the Milk

AN AMAZING THING CAN NOW BE REVEALED

I am VERY BUSY writing the last of the Keep Moving stories. They embiggened. It's been amazing.

More tomorrow.

Here, let me give you something fun for today.

This is the cover of the American Edition of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK, which is being illustrated as we speak by Mr Skottie Young, and will be published in September.

It is the silliest book I have ever written, and is quite funny also.

And I love that I have the cover up before they even have it shown on the Amazon entry for the book.

Labels: Fortunately the Milk, Skottie Young

Memory

How to tell my dogs apart in the water. Cabal looks like this:

While Lola looks like this.

Or this.

Or this.

...

These were the blog posts I wrote here exactly ten years ago:

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

The phone lines to New York aren't doing anything, and the cell phone numbers I've been dialling are dead. I'm scared for my friends. Watching CNN, worrying.

posted by Neil Gaiman 9:12 AM

---

Now got BBC America on. Many e-mails from friends to say they are alive... Many more I'm waiting to hear from.

Was meant to be going to the UK in a couple of days for Douglas Adams' memorial service, and then to Trieste in Italy for a festival. Right now we'll see whether or not planes are going to be flying...

posted by Neil Gaiman 10:24 AM

This is what I did today.

I picked up lots of fallen sunflowers and propped them against the side of the house for no real reason other than they looked nice like that. I did some baking. I wrote some of a movie. I phoned friends I hadn't talked to in a while, just to say hello. I failed completely to get hold of anyone in New York by phone. I answered the phone a lot, because there were people calling in from New York. I decided not to fly to London on Saturday. I watched the documentary on The Wicker Man on the DVD (puzzled that the version I taped from the TV years ago is longer than the theatrical version, and shorter than the 99 minute 'extended' one). I read a book about the Lazzi (or comedy routines and business) of the commedia dell'arte, with a weird sort of theory that they might make a metaphor. Cleaned the catboxes. Worried about the last couple of friends of mine in New York I've not heard from yet. Read Maddy tonight's chapter of Howl's Moving Castle. Made a Red Cross donation at Amazon.com. Taught Maddy several card tricks.

Trying to assert normality.

There are worse ways to spend a day.

posted by Neil Gaiman 1:16 AM

A few days later the servers for AmericanGods.com, where the blog was located, were in New York, and got some kind of virus, so the entry that was up at the top of the blog was the entry for June the 18th 2001, which finished,

See you at Borders World Trade Centre tomorrow, if you`re in the NY area. The Libretto is working fine but if the bloody thing has a real apostrophe I can`t find it. So I`m using these.

The American Gods tour began in the World Trade Centre, and then I got home from the tour and nobody would ever sign in that bookshop ever again.

It's weird reading some of the old posts, and remembering:

From Sept 14th 2001, two posts:

An e-mail arrived in the FAQ thing explaining, very reasonably, that AMERICAN GODS made the World Trade Centre Disaster happen. It began by quoting Jerry Falwell's recent comments, The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' And then explained that the reader had read much of American Gods before realising that even reading it was an act of idolatrous demon-worship, and had burned his copy. (Or her copy, I suppose.) It wanted to know if I was happy now?

The implication, I guess, was that God was just about tolerating the pagans, Lesbians, ACLU etc., but then American Gods was published, and it tipped Him over the edge.

Insert picture of author here, sighing, shaking his head, getting back to work.

...

Lots of nice letters from religious people of all stripes and sects who like reading books, disavowing both Mr Falwell and the previous correspondent. S'okay. While I didn't take it any more seriously than the American Family Association "boycott" of Sandman (like Donald Wildmon and his people were buying Sandman to begin with) I did take it as a cautionary tale,and a reminder: as long as you know who God wants you to hate and to hurt then anything you do to them is justified.

Abbot Arnold's line in the Albigensian Crusades (around 1210 from memory) still turns up on Tee shirts. The Albigensian Crusade was an internal French Crusade to root out heresy. When Arnold was asked how the troops would know how to tell the heretics from the believers in the city of Beziers, he replied simply, "Kill them all. God will know his own."

and a few days later...

And an e-mail comes in on FAQ with a heartfelt request:

Will you try to use your status as a celebrity to protect against the violence done to Muslim Americans? I'm sure and other famous people speaking out against these acts would be great...

Well, sure, for whatever good it will do. The people who would do violence to Muslims, or to Americans of Arab descent, are probably not reading this blogger. (And considering the first death in 'retaliation' of an American was some people in Arizona shooting a Sikh (from the Punjab, and, as a Sikh, obviously not a follower of Islam), I don't even think that, for example, explaining that the Taliban no more represents Islam than Torquemada and his thugs represented Christianity or the Nazi Party represented neo-paganism would do much good. The Arizonans who killed the Sikh spotted the guy with the beard in the turban and figured that the gentleman had committed the crime of being brown-skinned and foreign, and that was enough for them.)

(And me, I wish people would reread Sandman # 50, RAMADAN, and the ifrit chapter in American Gods.)
posted by Neil Gaiman 12:33 AM

and finally, from Trieste, on September the 23rd 2001..

It rained all day today -- grey, and misty. Yesterday, also in the rain, we walked across the Square of Unity, and found ourselves watching jugglers and suchlike, in unconvincing costumes, and a parade of re-enactors from nearby towns, wearing things people didn't wear, carrying weapons they didn't have. It's all going renfest, I think. The whole bloody world. Not that I minded; there's nothing to cheer you up like other people wearing wet chainmail.

En route today to the home of Maximilian, the rain forced us into a dry space which happened to be holding an exhibition of Robert Capa photographs: astonishing stuff, of the Spanish Civil War, of the Second World War, of the Japanese-Chinese War of 1938, and I found myself looking at the photos of combat, of wounded civilians, of people whose worlds had crumbled and fallen, without any sense of irony. These people were us. Whatever side they were on. They were us, and the images had a truth and an immediacy I couldn't have imagined until recently.

...

I'm typing up Fortunately, The Milk, a very silly children's book that Dave McKean will draw (and he made me promise that after this, the next thing we do will be very dark and very adult). I finished writing it yesterday, and called Dave and read it to him. It was meant to be about the length of The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, but it's actually about four or five times as long.

Labels: dogs, Fortunately the Milk, Memory, September the Eleventh