A huge thank you, and some life and some death...

Thank you all for taking part in the Humble Bundle, or just for putting up with me blogging, tweeting and facebooking about it. It's been over for a couple of days now: We just got a letter from the guys at Humble letting us know it was:

#1 on the Humble Book Tab
#1 Highest Overall Average for any Bundle.
#1 Media Coverage for a Book Bundle 

And they went on to say:

This bundle was particularly special since it elicited such a beautiful and positive reaction from both our fans and Humble newbies alike.   I talked with our Customer Service Manager yesterday and he reported that there wasn't a single negative comment.  (Except new customers not understanding how to redeem their bundles.  A very common complaint.)   This has never happened before either!
There was a tremendous amount of delighted energy at Humble HQ since the launch.    Everyone here was stoked to be involved.   Dare I say that it was almost in the realm of The Magical. 

 I was so happy how many friends, acquaintances and people I do not even know gave it a push.

John Scalzi went further -- he reviewed my 1985 Duran Duran book, and let the review become a gentle meditation on who we are and who we were and who we become. It's at http://whatever.scalzi.com/2015/09/22/duran-duran-neil-gaiman-and-beginnings/ and you might enjoy it.

Here are the final results for your interest:
Humble Book Bundle: Neil Gaiman Rarities
https://www.humblebundle.com/books?view=pPpiWRbzesK-Launch Date:  September 9th 2015
End Date: September 23rd 2015
Avg. price per bundle: $19.63
32,294 bundles purchased
Total Revenue: $633,787.98
(Note the numbers might change ever so slightly over the next few weeks.)  

I'll post the actual numbers here, and how much money that actually makes and how much is going where, when I get the information from Humble.  Hurrah for transparency.

(Also, I commend to you the Banned Comics Humble Bundle that's going on right now: $231 of forbidden comics for Pay What You Like https://www.humblebundle.com/books )

...

Meanwhile, so many things. For example The Sleeper and the Spindle came out in the US on Tuesday. So did the new Sleeper and the Spindle Full Cast Audio. You can listen to it at https://soundcloud.com/harperaudio_us/sleeperandthespindle_gaiman or

And read a great interview with Chris Riddell (and see pictures from the book) at http://epicreads.tumblr.com/post/129147915806/books-for-keeps-window-into-illustration-with

The Moth put up a new radio show and weirdly, in a week a son is born, it includes me talking about my father and my son: http://themoth.org/posts/episodes/1520 (This was actually recorded somewhere on the Unchained Bus Tour of 2012.)

I recorded a documentary for the BBC  Radio -- I'm presenting it -- on Orpheus: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06cw171  I'm really proud of it, and it has wonderful people, like Margaret Atwood and Jonathan Carroll and Peter Blegvad in it. (And this is the poem I wrote for Kathy Acker that's extracted in it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/5gmSz0PkBn6G81cdsySP8mJ/orphee-a-poem-by-neil-gaiman)

Miracleman, The Golden Age stories by me and Mark Buckingham is coming out right now on a weekly schedule. You really want to go to a comic shop and buy it. It's thrilling for me rereading it now, and really strange starting the process with Mark Buckingham of finishing the story we began so many years ago.

...

The baby is nine days old, happy and healthy and, slightly to my surprise, he makes amazing noises: squeaks like mice and gentle burbling like mourning doves and little chirrupping grunts like guinea pigs. I adore him. And his mother's doing really well too. In case you were wondering. 

Labels: banned books week, Fathers and Sons, Humble Bundle, Miracleman, Orpheus, The Moth, The Sleeper and the Spindle, Unchained Bus Tour

Taking A Story Out In Public...

The Unchained Tour is over, and I will write a blog about it, when I get a moment.

It was amazing.  I feel like I'm learning a whole new skill.

I'm in San Diego today with Amanda, and talked her into letting me try something a bit odd: I want to tell one of the stories I told on the Unchained Tour at her gig tonight, before she hits the stage. I like the idea of seeing what happens if I do this without having the Unchained Team around me, without Edgar and Dawn and Peter telling stories, without Peter keeping the show running.

It's not a reading.

It'll be closer to this (from The Moth in 2007):

Not sure how it'll work out of context and at a rock club, but it might be fun.


If you want to come and see me, get there early. I'll probably sign afterwards with her and the band.

This is probably much too late notice for anyone not actually here in San Diego, but if you're here, come down to the House of Blues around 7 pm.

Labels: San Diego, The Moth, Unchained Bus Tour

In which I am Unchained...

I am typing this on an old blue school-bus. There are eleven people on the bus, including me. Two of them are asleep. There are two musicians, a sound man, a PR-wrangler, a driver, a videographer, and six storytellers. We are a motley and disreputable bunch, a diverse mixture of genders and skin-colours, sizes, ages and body-shapes.

I am one of the storytellers.

The outside of the bus is hand-painted with scenes from stories.

Two of the storytellers in the bus have scenes from stories they have told painted on the outside of the bus. They are Edgar Oliver, and George Dawes Green. George's story picture shows him listening to stories as a boy, while the moths flutter into the porchlight. When George grew up he founded the storytelling movement/institution/ organisation called The Moth. This bus, and the tour, is George's idea too.

 Edgar Oliver's story shows Edgar and his mother and sister, and painted next to it, the opening of one of Edgar's stories about Savannah, and his childhood. Edgar is from Savannah, and he lives in New York, but his accent is unlike anyone else's, probably in the world: it is musical and it is theatrical and it is unplaceable, vowel sounds that are English or Eastern European.

The bus is a storytelling bus. Every day – sometimes twice in a day – the bus will come to rest and we will tell our stories.

I am here because George asked me to come, and it seemed like an interesting way to spend nine days of my life.

Last night I told a story about chains: about my dog, who spent the first three years of his life on four foot of chain, and about the chains that bind us, and about love, which, only after I told it, I realised was peculiarly appropriate, given the name of the tour. It's called Unchained.

I was really nervous: one reason I was nervous was that I hadn't told the story before, or even rehearsed it. (The rehearsing time had been eaten because the bus had blown a tyre on its way to Columbia, where I was connecting with it.) But once I started telling the story, it seemed to work. People listened.

I haven't done anything to promote that I'm on the tour so far, mostly because I didn't want to change the nature of the tour or the audiences too much by being here. It's not a Neil Gaiman show or a Neil Gaiman tour: it's the Unchained tour, and I'm just one of the storytellers, and that is the way I like it and was the reason I agreed to come out.

The tour has pretty much sold out without me saying anything. Right now there are only two venues with any real tickets left for sale (Charlotte SC and Charleston NC) and a couple of venues with a handful of tickets left.

http://theunchainedtour.org/events-calendar/ is the website with the venues on it.

(It may say Over 18 Only on the website, but they are fine with under 18s turning up - they just wanted to make it clear that this wasn't an event for kids.)

I am typing this as we chug down the freeway from Columbia to Spartanburg. I'm happy: there are nice people around, and a table in the bus I can type at. I have lots of things to write, and it's always good to write with people around you, all of them working on their own projects, or reading, or talking. There's a No Internet on The Bus rule too, which I may break in a moment, and put this up. Or I may enjoy the No Internet rule, and wait until we get to where we are going, and find a coffee-shop instead.

There is no air-conditioning. Instead we are driving through a hot day with the windows of the bus rolled down, and we are cool, and there is a breeze, and tonight we will sit in a room in Spartanburg (“It's called Sparkle City,” said someone this morning, "and Hub City".) and we will tell true stories about our lives, of our childhoods or our longings and desires, our fears, and there will be music, and we will feel human.

Someone came back to the Green Room last night after the show and handed me some comics he had written. “These are for you,” he said. “Because stories... I guess, stories are the nearest thing I have to a religion.”

“Me too,” I said. “Me too.”

If you are in the area, come on down to the shows, if they are not already sold out. Last night's was very sold out. Someone Twittered this photograph of a sign at the front of the line to get in. 

I promise you nothing except stories.

(This is me not working yet while Jose, who is driving the bus, does something that makes the bus go.)

Labels: Storytelling, The Moth, Unchained Bus Tour

If this is thursday then I must be at home

Hullo.

I've been all over the place. I went from Scotland to London (on the sleeper train. Nobody was murdered, which disappointed the Agatha Christie-loving part of me) where I made breakfast for my daughter Holly, ate breakfast with Mitch Benn (whose comedy song podcast is now essential listening) then flew home for long enough to hug Maddy and walk the dogs, then flew to San Francisco.

I had a late dinner with the Chabons and got up early the next morning, worked out for an hour (not as virtuous as it sounds, the getting up early - I think I was still on UK time) then went to breakfast. A gentleman who looked sort of English looked at me and said "you're Neil?" and I admitted that I was. He was actor Mark Sheppard. I moved my food over to his table, and we were soon joined by director Toby Haynes and Nerdist Chris Hardwick.

And we chatted and we chatted. There was a small background crisis, because I wasn't comfortable with the original clip from my DOCTOR WHO episode that was going to be shown. I'd got permission from the BBC to show another, but we weren't sure how to get it shown until I said "Er, I've actually got it on a flash drive.." and had to go off to my hotel room and rummage around until I found it, marvelling at the magic of living in the future all the while.

We did a panel. It was great fun.



We also did lots and lots and lots of interviews. The title of my episode has now been announced, so I was able to at least say that, although not to go any further into it. Probably still said too much, all things considered.

Here's the whole panel for the curious.



The bit I think I was happiest with is about 16 minutes in, when I was asked what I would say to someone worried about having to know 47 years of backstory before watching Doctor Who, and I said:

“No, look, there’s a blue box. It’s bigger on the inside than it is on the outside. It can go anywhere in time and space and sometimes even where it’s meant to go. And when it turns up, there’s a bloke in it called The Doctor and there will be stuff wrong and he will do his best to sort it out and he will probably succeed cos he’s awesome. Now sit down, shut up, and watch ‘Blink’.”

Toby, Mark, me. Why do we look so pleased with ourselves?

Later in the afternoon, I wound up walking down Geary Street with Mark Sheppard, enthusiastically singing Ian Dury's "This is What We Find" but it was San Francisco, so nobody batted an eyelash (or, come to that, eyelashed a bat).

Up the next day at 4:30 am to fly to LA, where I attended a meeting on the mysterious upcoming American Gods adaptation project. The results were all I could have hoped and more. (I know I sound coy, and I'm doing my best not to, but I can't really talk about it until everything's ready, and the real announcements won't come from me.) More meetings. An earlyish night, an airport hotel, another bloody hotel gym and now on Chapter 47 of Bleak House. Then I flew home...

Which is where I am now. The snow has not quite finished melting, but it's warm enough, and sunny, and very very muddy, and, in E E Cummings' words, puddle-wonderful.

Let's see. Upcoming things...

You should keep an eye on WHERE'S NEIL as we're trying to keep it up to date. But I'm putting things up here that haven't made it to there yet...

I'll be in conversation with Audrey Niffenegger on April the 12th in Chicago. These are both for One Book One Chicago -- there are lots of other great Chicago events, including a play reading of Neverwhere on Monday.

Then doing a reading, talking and answering questions about Neverwhere on the 13th. (Still in Chicago.)

On April the 14th I'll be interviewed by Paul Levitz for the University of Columbia at Symphony Space in New York

On April 25th... well, that one's so unlikely as to make me think I might have imagined it. Ben Folds, Amanda Palmer (aka my girl) Damian Kulash (from OK Go, last seen on the stage of the Fitzgerald Theatre singing "Happy Together" with me during John Hodgman's WITS episode) and I will be writing and recording 8 songs in a day, with the aid of Twitter and madness. On the 26th we'll talk about this and perform them. This is all at the Re-Think Festival at Berklee in Boston.

"I'm excited and nervous both because there is so much room for things to go wrong, and because it shows people how art is actually made," says Gaiman. "Or would actually be made if you locked three songwriter performers and an author in a box for a day and forced them to collaborate with Twitter to craft and record songs. When I write it down and look at it, it looks even more unlikely than it did in my head."

Then on April the 27th, it's Selected Shorts - again at Symphony Space. This event has already sold out, I'm afraid, although per the website there will be standing room tickets on sale on the day. You'll be able to hear it on your radio eventually though. Four short stories, two read by me, two not read by me.

On June the 24th you can see me, host John Moe, and my musical guest Josh Ritter in WITS at the Fitzgerald Theatre in St Paul. Tickets and info at http://minnesota.publicradio.org/radio/programs/wits/

Right. Having typed all that, I'm going back to work. Here's the just-posted video of me telling my tale on The Moth in 2007 to keep you company in my absence:

Labels: all the places I will be, ian dury, mark sheppard, puddlejoy, The Moth, the nerdist, toby Haynes

A Coffee Table Book and why reality is being replaced by small pieces of paper

My scary goddaughter Hayley Campbell is here, working on a book of The Art Of Neil Gaiman or somesuch, and she has disappeared off to

...maddy gaiman is so cool.....

(I just stopped blogging and took the dogs for a walk. I'm sure it didn't say that when I left.)

(Just for that, a photo of Maddy Gaiman and Hayley Campbell from last week. Maddy is wearing Hayley's hat.)

Anyway. Hayley has disappeared off to the attic where she is scanning things and going through tubs of old artwork and faxes and wanting me to explain why I used to draw vampire bunnies and fax them to Steve Bissette back in the 80s.

Also, she is taking art from the walls to be scanned.

Where art used to be on the walls, there are now random PostIt notes, describing what should be there. I keep feeling like I'm in a Philip K Dick novel.

...

I wanted to plug a book here. I got my copy free, and was delighted, because it was a huge and impressive book. Then I read it and got much, much more delighted.

It's really heavy. It's also really good. Here is a photograph of it that amused me, because it is a coffee table book that takes up a whole coffee table..

The book is called 75 Years of DC Comics: the Art of Modern Mythmaking, and it's published by Taschen with production values that I've never seen from a comics publisher. Fold-out pages, amazing reproductions of old art, rarities, wonders, along with a history of DC Comics since the beginning. The majority of the text (although, probably not all -- there are captions, timelines and suchlike as well) is by Paul Levitz, who knows where the bodies are buried, and is too much of a gentleman to tell all, but tells more than I ever thought he would. It weighs 15lbs (7 kg) and comes with its own carrying case.

The production values, as I said, are amazing. They raise the bar for what any comics publisher can do in the future.

This is the Taschen Books website page for the book, where you can look at the first hundred pages of the book in a pop up window.

There's also a great photo on the Taschen site of Paul displaying the book, which makes Paul look a bit like a garden gnome holding a normal-sized book.

Paul Levitz is a normal-sized human being and not a gnome of any kind.

Also, it has a Marc Hempel Sandman drawing on the spine, alongside the five iconic superheroes and Swamp Thing. You have no idea how happy that makes me.

The only downside is that now I am starting to fantasize about a Taschen quality Complete In One Volume All 2000 Pages of Sandman book, like the one that I've suggested over the years to DC Comics. They've always looked at me and shivered whenever I've suggested it. (It could have its own carrying case. Or wheels. Or screw-on legs for making it into a table.)

Actually, that's not the only downside. The other downside of owning it is realising that there are people who I now have to buy it for as the ultimate xmas/hannukkah/winter solstice/etc present. It's really expensive. But it's the perfect present.

Here's the Amazon link, if you want to check it out. It's on a fairly serious discount there. (But it's still not cheap. It works out at about 50 cents an ounce.)

Here is the indiebound link, so you can support your local indie bookseller.

And it's very probable your local comic shop has a copy as well. (Here's a local comic shop locator so you can find out.)

...

Right. A couple of things: first of all, Patrick Rothfuss's blog is doing the wonderful Heifer International thing he did last year. Go and read this: http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/2010/11/worldbuilders-2010/ and then just look at the amazing things in the raffle at http://blog.patrickrothfuss.com/ and marvel. You make a donation to Heifer International. You feel good. You probably come away from it with a signed book of amazing wonderfulness.

As he says,

Remember folks, for every 10 dollars you donate to Heifer International, you get a chance to win these books and hundreds of others like them. Plus there’s the whole helping make the world a better place thing. That’s nice, too.

Don’t forget, Worldbuilders is matching 50% of all donations made. So why not head over to the Team Heifer page and chip in. Trust me. You’ll feel great afterward.

...

Over at Kickstarter, the fundraising of pledges to make an animated film from my story "The Price" is up to 983 backers and $68,000 pledged. That's almost half-way there.

I'm thrilled and amazed that it's gone so well so far, and I suspect Christopher Salmon is too.

He needs a lot more people to pledge money, obviously. We've got 12 days to go. If you have a blog, can you blog it, or put up the widget from the site? If you have a news site, go and interview Chris, or just mention it as a way for people to get involved. Twitter it. Facebook it. Tell people.



To encourage things along, I just went over to last.fm and put up a full length audio of "The Price" from the Speaking In Tongues CD for streaming:

http://www.last.fm/music/Neil+Gaiman/_/The+Price.

So if anyone wants to know what "The Price" is about, give them the link, and tell them to listen...

...

The SF Playhouse (in San Francisco) is doing the Stephin Merritt CORALINE musical. Details, video, photographs and such over at http://www.sfplayhouse.org/season1011/coraline.php?video=1#link_video

...

Here's something Hayley just found in a tub of old faxes. Somebody didn't like Death Talks About Life. Click on it to read why...

...

Right. A quick wander into the mail on the FAQ line...

Any chance there will be a reprint of GHASTLY BEYOND BELIEF? I miss it.

All best,

I'm afraid not. That book, like the Duran Duran biography, won't be reprinted. Cherish your old copies.

Hi Neil,

I saw you give a talk at Washington University in Saint Louis back in 1999. As you can imagine, it left quite an impression seeing as I'm writing this note to you more than 11 years later.

Back then, I was a philosophy student with aspirations of changing the world with esoteric babble and the like. It was a stroke of luck and fortuitous timing that I found myself there, at Graham Chapel, listening to you talk so openly and candidly about your own creative process.

Little did I know then that I'd end up a painter now. So much of what you said still rings in my heart and in ears. I've always wanted to thank you for that - what you offered. You've been a sort of friend and mentor to me since.

I am writing now because things have come full circle in a way. I am now living in China - recently invited by Sichuan University to be their 'artist in residence' - a great gig which has lead to a invitation to deliver a series of lectures (arising from my sense of my own art, curatorial work, and creative process.) I will deliver my first talk to the University (and art community here in Chengdu) next week. It will be the very first time for me.

When i saw you talk 11 years ago, I actually imagined myself in your position. Of course I hadn't done anything momentous (not that I have now :) - but still, I imagined that it would happen...I imagined that I would have the opportunity to talk about my own work (whatever that was to be)...and I'm a bit taken back that it is happening now. I trust that this will not be the last time - and that such experience will impact my work in ways I can't imagine.

I am now painting in a studio space in a remote farmer's village, outside of the big city. It is not so far removed, practically, from your cabin in the woods...with your window. My rule is like yours, I can look out as I like, for as long as I like - and all the while my paint (and your keyboard) beckons the work. That is what it's all about.

I will talk about Phenomenology and the creative process. I will draw comparisons between cave paintings and Picasso while sharing my own humble paintings and curatorial history. I will make a reference to you - what I learned by watching you talk. I don't anticipate your being in the audience, but your ears may be burning next November 25th.

So here is a cheers and a genuine and profound thank you. I imagine that mine is one of countless affirmations that what you are doing is important and meaningful; all well deserved. I wish you the best along your creative journey.

I think that what makes it all so incredible is that what we do is so solitary and personal. We make art from nothing but our heart, our mind, and our hands. And then to talk about it so openly seems terrifying, not having done it...but it's what i've imagined so many times, so it is meant to be. Manifest destiny in a pure form, eh?

So thanks and cheers to you one more time. Have fun with your upcoming talks in San Diego. You'll be in mind when I offer my first.

Sincerely,

Will Kerr

PS - I have a studio cat too - a real Chinese farmer's cat that adopted me as a wee kitten... I named her 'Gui Mao' - which means Ghost Cat...and she sure is!

I remember that talk in St Louis, and how nervous I was -- it was the first time I'd ever been invited to give a proper We Are Paying You To Do This university talk -- and then getting there and being told by the Art Department who had brought me in that the English Department were boycotting it and me because I wrote comics, and feeling vaguely like a fraud as I wondered whether I really had anything to say that was worth hearing. Then standing up in the chapel, and just talking.

And then I read this, and it made me incredibly happy. Good luck with the lectures, Will. Not that you'll need it.

Dear Mr. Neil, a very happy Birthday to you! My B-day is the 20th of November, and they gave me as a present The Graveyard Book, which I´ve just finished. You made me cry in the end, young Bod wants of life what I have always felt and wanted while I was young, whilst reading the Jungle Book or Robinson Crusoe. Thank you for deeply moving me.

Did you know none of your books are sold in Bolivia? your comics yes, but I bought Anansi Boys in Buenos Aires, Argentina and The Graveyard Book was purchased for me in Valparaiso, Chile.

It took me a little while to realize, while I was reading and wishing to have adventures like the ones I read, that I didn´t live in an "ordinary place" like England, that the jungle, the gold hunters and the "indigenous people", were in fact very near. We speak Aymara at the market place and have wild parties with Afro Bolivian saya being played with loud drums, but I thought, when I was a child, that foreign and adventure where elsewhere...not in my home country, if you know what I mean.

The Graveyard Book set me thinking that, in truth, the real adventure is life itself, and growing up, and learning your challenges, your asserts and your mistakes...

I just wanted to share my impressions with you. Thank you very much for your beautiful books, and, again, a very happy birthday to you...

Mar

You're right. Adventure is where you find it, and so is romance. (You might like this Kipling poem about Adventure and Romance and where it isn't, and why you're wrong if you think it's dead...)

Neil,

Almost all of the photos in your last blog are broken.

Also, the tags you use are cute, but inconsistent and not really functional. I was trying to browse dog posts and nothing I clicked came up with much.

The dog pictures are fixed, and I've learned never to link to tumblr images.

There's nothing I can do about the labels, though. Inconsistent and not really functional is what we aspire to here in the labelling department. Here is the complete list of blog labels, weighted by size showing frequency of use: http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Journal/Labels where you will see that, to my shame, one of the most frequently-used labels on this blog is COMPLETELY ABANDONS THE IDEA OF WRITING LOTS OF LABELS AND GOES TO BED INSTEAD.

I suppose I couldn't persuade you that inconsistent and not really functional is a feature, not a bug? No... Oh well.

...

The Moth auction just finished. It's made money that'll help support The Moth in its storytelling mission this year.

Here's a final comment from someone who won a twitchange auction, a couple of months ago, which says it, I think, better than I ever can:

As a recent winner of a Neil Gaiman auction, I felt the need to respond to the comment someone made about cronyism and the benefits of money after your story on The Moth. First, my wife and I are in no way rich. We bid what we could afford, and did so not just because it would be cool to win, but because it was for charity. Believe me, had it not been for charity, my wife would not have gone for it.

The point of these auctions is to raise as much money as possible for those in need. Yes, $4,400 is a lot of money to some (myself included), but that money went to a good cause, not into Neil’s pocket. And yes, we would all love to have the money to bid on the things we want, but that just isn’t the case. If you’re looking at these auctions with jealousy instead of appreciating how they help others, you’re missing the point entirely.
Kris Dalpiaz

Labels: 75 Years of DC Comics, a maddy gaiman hit and run blog-bombing, I'm happy to hear that yes people do indeed read these labels, Pat Rothfuss, The Moth, The Price, tubs of old faxes

Where I am and what I am doing. Also, Dogs.

In case you are wondering where I am, which is something I often do, I am in New Orleans for a small birthday gathering for my 50th birthday, which is tomorrow, and for the Amanda Palmer Dresden Dolls gig on Friday (it's a special gig - a gulf oil spill relief-benefit forBTNEP, an organisation that is working to preserve, protect, and restore the Barataria and Terrebonne estuaries of Louisiana).

(Here is a link to a photo of me yesterday in my natural habitat.)

...

Given that my dogs are not here and I miss them today, I thought I should do a brief tutorial in dog recognition.

Cabal's on the left here, Lola's on the right.

There. That was easy, wasn't it? Mm, probably not. So...

Here are two photos by the Birdchick that I just went and stole from fuckyeahcabal.


Cabal looks sort of noble. A lot of the time he also looks serious, as if he is doing complicated long division problems in his head and does not want to be disturbed. He has a pink nose. He likes staying close to me and is still recovering from a couple of spinal operations, and a couple of leg operations, but is now walking again, and even running, sometimes. He's almost 8 years old, which means he's sort of my age in dog years.



Lola would not know noble if it sat on her head. She has a slightly pointy face, an embarrassed grin and a black nose. She bounds and is impossible to exhaust. She's about 9 months old, and seems like a teenager. If I leave things on the floor she may chew them. She likes leafpiles better than anything in the whole world.



They get on really well, and on the whole, Cabal seems much happier with Lola around, and Lola is settling down. She plays well with us. We're hoping that eventually she'll play well with other dogs. (As a smaller puppy, she was Sent Home from Doggie daycare with a Stiff Note.)

...

And The Price is on the front page of http://www.kickstarter.com/. You should go and see what other great projects they have that people can help fund. Also, if you can, help spread the word about The Price. It's been up on Kickstarter for less than a week and is already almost 1/3rd funded. It's Christopher Salmon's dream project. I'd love to see him make it.

...

I'm feeling so odd about turning 50. The last time I felt like this was, strangely enough, when I turned 24.

I'd liked being younger than 24. Anything cool I did, people would say "And he's so young," and that felt good. And then suddenly I was 24 and I felt like I couldn't be a boy wonder any longer, and the world had become level.

Turning 50, I feel like, damn: I can't be a promising young writer any longer. For the last decade, I've hated getting Lifetime Achievement awards, they'd make me feel squirmy and awkward, and now I'm going, ah, I'm going to have to accept them with good grace.

But I'm glad I'm a writer. There are a lot of professions in which you're done by my age. And I don't feel done at all.

...

Hi Neil

I received an email this morning from the Sydney Opera House which revealed that you and Amanda are performing there together on Australia Day, January 26th.

http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/amanda_palmer_goes_down_under.aspx

Needless to say my wife and I grabbed tickets (G25 & G26 if you would like to wave to us!).

I have not seen any mention in your Journal or Where’s Neil as yet. Are you in a position to give us any information on this concert as yet?

Also will you be doing any other events or signings whilst in Sydney this time? I would like to get my final two Absolute Sandman’s signed and I’ll need a lot of warning so I can get to the gym and work out. Those mothers are heavy.

All the best
Chris Harcourt

Sorry about that -- the gig is Amanda's, and I was waiting for her to announce it, and I think the Opera House may have announced it themselves before she expected it. She put up a hasty entry on her blog.

I don't know about signings and such, I'm afraid.

The TRUTH IS A CAVE IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS reading I did in Sydney earlier this year with FourPlay string Quartet and Eddie Campbell art is going to happen again, with, I think, some extra paintings, at the MONA festival in Hobart on January 15th - details at http://www.mofo.net.au/MOFO_Highlights.pdf

With respect to the tea party gone awry but actually for the better tale, told in the "A gallimaufry" blogpost, does it worry you that as charming as the story is, it also smacks somewhat of cronyism and a reminder that privilege begets privilege? I mean, I'm sure the young lady was lovely, but how nice for her that her mum could afford $4,400 for her to have tea with you, and that led to a masterclass from Paul Levitz, and then to an internship. Not a lot of kids at Cooper Union or RISD could afford $4,400 for tea, could they? It pays to have money.

I'd love to love your tale of the tea that went rightly wrong, but it gives me a slightly sick feeling instead. I wish you had a different tale to inspire me about the Moth auction.

You know, I've known too many people who won auctions and such, and then told me sometimes heartbreaking stories of how they managed to pay for it, to ever take it for granted that anyone who paid for something like that (or her mother) could easily afford it.

My attitude is that if you've managed to win an auction for a good cause that I support- for something like the CBLDF or The Moth or RAINN,- then I'm going to look after you as best I can.

It was lucky that the young lady was interested in comics, and had already told me she wanted to edit comics, because, when we discovered that the afternoon that the Moth had tried to set up for us had failed completely and utterly, I hailed a taxi, headed for DC Comics, hoped that everyone I knew hadn't left for the day, and talked my way in.

It could have gone wrong another hundred different ways. We were lucky that Paul Levitz was knocking off for the day, and had wandered down the corridor to say goodnight. We were also lucky that Paul is someone who thinks that knowledge should be shared and passed on to the next generation, and that the young lady asked smart questions, and impressed him enough that he told her how to apply for a summer internship. And it came as a pleasant surprise to me a few weeks ago to find that she had applied for one, and that was how she'd spent her summer.

But you obviously (or maybe it isn't obvious, so I will say it here) don't need to pay thousands for a Moth Benefit tea with me to get a summer internship with DC Comics, or with Marvel, or with Dark Horse. You don't need to pay anything at all. What you need is to keep an eye on their web pages, to apply in time and make yourself sound like someone they'd like to have around the office for the summer. (Here's last year's MAD Magazine internship applications, for example.)

And as far as I was concerned, the point of the story was that, while the adventure happened last year, the Moth have promised that it won't happen again, and that this time wherever I turn up for tea, will have tea and will be expecting me.

Personally, I keep hoping that one year they'll suggest SUSHI WITH NEIL GAIMAN as a Moth prize. For now, it's tea. Unless something goes wrong. https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/Item.action;jsessionid=FCG-PzM5xkCyEjNyq4b0yw**.app3-i?id=120626095

...

The way the FAQ line mailbox works, most of the letters that come in are people saying thank you for the stories, and while I read them, I normally don't post them here. But every now and again, one touches me in an unexpected way. Take a look at the part of this journal entry from 2005...

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2005/04/jetlag-morning.asp

Go and read it. I'll still be here when you get back.

Right. This just came in, as a sequel...

I wrote to you in 2005 about my son, Jared. I'm sure you don't remember, but you posted my comment on your April, 29, 2005 journal entry.

I had been told that Jared, then 5, had visual and auditory processing disorders and that he'd never learn to read. We went to a book reading of yours, and then, a couple of years later, Jared found his signed copy of Coraline and decided he would teach himself to read it. He did it!

Jared is 12 now, still homeschooled, and I'm happy to say is reading and comprehending on a college level. We found out that he 'only' has a visual processing disorder (VPD), a fine motor delay and he's highly gifted. Because of the VPD, he has no visual memory... he cannot make 'pictures' in his mind. He describes it as 'just being black in there'.

We were talking about his VPD, and I asked him how he taught himself to read. He replied that he remembered your book reading, so he decided to figure out how to 'translate' the weird squiggles on the page into auditory sounds so he could remember them. (This explains the difficulty he had transitioning from reading aloud to silently!)

I'm almost certain that if he had had someone try to teach him to read, he couldn't have done it. It seems that you gave him an idea that allowed him to figure out how to overcome his disability.

Over the years, this has given him the confidence to overcome a number of hurdles. He simply thinks back to teaching himself to read, after several adults had told him he never would, and he is reminded of how remembering you reading aloud gave him the idea to 'translate' written words into sounds... and he thinks outside the box to figure out a way around whatever he's having trouble with.

As I said, he's 12 now, and reading "Grey's Anatomy", the medical school textbook, for fun! He has decided to be a trauma surgeon.

I honestly don't think his life would have turned out this way if we hadn't taken him to your book reading.

So, thank you again for writing, for reading, and for changing my child's life.

Heather (Hubbard) Conrad

Thank you, Heather. Tell Jared I'm a fan.

Hi Neil,

Do you know when the Absolute Sandman vol 1 will be reprinted? Or if it will be?

It's out of stock pretty much everywhere I have looked.

Cheers,

Nat

They've been reprinted already, and are in a boat crossing the ocean. I think they'll arrive in January. I also checked the DreamHaven Books neilgaiman.net site, and they have it in stock as well.

Labels: australia, birthdays, Cabal, hearts and how to warm them, L-0-L-A Lola, The Moth

A gallimaufry.

Last year, the daughter of the winner of the Moth auction of "afternoon tea with Neil Gaiman" met me for afternoon tea, and it all went a bit wrong.

The winner was the mother of a very nice young lady, and she had paid $4,400 for her daughter to have tea with me (all the money goes to support The Moth, which is something I love and care about: people telling true stories about their lives. Check out their podcast). Unfortunately, when the nice young lady and I went to the tea place they explained that they'd never heard of us, and for that matter they didn't even serve tea, and it all went so wrong that I took the young lady in question up to DC Comics (she had told me that she loved comics, Vertigo in particular, and wanted to edit comics when she graduated) and then DC Publisher Paul Levitz, who was passing by, gave her an hour's masterclass in matters editorial and said something about a summer internship.

I saw her at the signing for the Year's Best American Comics last month and the young lady told me that she'd just done a summer's internship at DC Comics, and loved it, and that the failed tea had been a wonderful thing better than any actual tea could possibly have been, and she was incredibly happy and grateful..

I cannot guarantee you that the afternoon tea with me this year will go anywhere nearly as wrong as that. But the Moth are at it again. Also, you could be an "area man or woman" in the Onion.

https://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/Browse.action?auctionId=120612926

...

I don't do much journalism any more, and I do even less book reviewing (I think the last book I reviewed was the Annotated Grimm's Fairytales for the New York Times, six years ago), but if I'm not reviewing at all I feel guilty, as if I am no longer being part of the cultural dialogue, so I just reviewed Stephen King's Full Dark, No Stars for the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/05/full-dark-stephen-king-review.

I'm happy to say that I liked it.

....

I turn fifty on Wednesday. Ivy Ratafia gets in there early, with a birthday LJ post for me.

And I am putting it up here because Ivy answers one of the great questions of the universe here, viz. Which were the nine true panels in this two-page comic? In 17 years, no-one has been able to guess it correctly.

You should probably read the comic first before you read Ivy's explanation. It comes from a 1993 "Roast" comic done for the Chicago Comic Convention, and was drawn by Scott McCloud and written by Scott and Ivy.

Read what Ivy has to say at: http://ivy-rat.livejournal.com/104712.html

...

I really don't do much journalism, and I'm amused to see that the only pieces I've done in so long are both being published-on-the-web on the same day. Since I typed that first paragraph, SPIN MAGAZINE just posted an article I wrote for them yesterday.

They asked me to review the Dresden Dolls Hallowe'en show.

I'm not sure that that was quite what I gave them, although it's that as well. I'm happy with it, and I'm not normally happy with my non-fiction writing. It's up at http://www.spin.com/articles/neil-gaiman-amanda-palmer-dresden-dolls

People like it, and I'm glad that they do.

...

And finally, All Hallow's Read appears, at least anecdotally, to have been a huge success. It's not too early to start thinking about what we ought to do next year. The website is up at http://www.allhallowsread.com/ - it's primitive, as it was thrown up in hours two days before Hallowe'en. I'd love to crowdsource this more - what kinds of things would people like to see on the website? What kinds of things would you like to see in real life? Posters? Suggestions? Should we enlist bookshops or publishers or libraries or all of the above? Should we start an online group?

And what did you do (or give, or receive) for All Hallows Read this year that you'd like to pass on to the world?

(I gave Joan of Dark a copy of Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House, and I gave random strangers copies of Carrie.)

Use the "Leave a reply" form at the bottom of any of the AHR website pages. We'll start to plan next year's give-a-scary-book festival together.

...

Right. Now I'm off to the (very small) bonfire.

Here's a photo of Cabal today, when we went down to winterise the beehives.

Labels: All Hallow's Read, amanda palmer, bonfire night, book reviews, Ivy Ratafia, Moth, tea with me, The Dresden Dolls, The Moth

Revealed! The Rulers of the Darkness of This World

So about 40 bookshops had Graveyard Book parties in the Hallowe'en period. The grand prize was to be a signing by me, in the Winter Holiday Season. One. One signing.

The people at Harper Collins winnowed it down to the final eleven stores -- it would be one grand winner and ten runners up -- and sent me eleven reports on eleven parties. Some of these were videos, some were photos and descriptions. There were big bookshops and small, and all sorts of different kinds of parties.

(And it can't have been easy getting it down to those eleven. I'd read on the web a description of 13 Graveyard Book Parties, all of which looked like they could have been finalists.)

I looked at the videos and read the reports and looked at the photos. The parties were amazing. I watched them again. And again. They got no less amazing. Still, two were ever-so-slightly out in the lead. I watched their videos over and over, trying to decide. I wondered if I could legitimately award points for climate, or for whether I actually wanted to go there or not, (suddenly throwing Octavia Books in New Orleans into the lead), or deduct points for it being probably rather cold in, say, Winnipeg, in the winter. No, I couldn't. It was all about the parties.

Then I called Elyse Marshall at Harper Childrens. "Look," I said. "I can't in all conscience pick one of these over the other. If you're willing to give two grand prizes, and fly me to two bookshops, I'm willing to give up another day to do another signing."

She said she'd check.

She checked, and reported back. They were willing. And so was I.

So here is the official announcement, along with the second and third prize winners. (And, truthfully, the 28-odd runners up were good enough that I need to figure out something nice for them too.)

I'll sign in Decatur on Monday the 14th at 6.00pm, and in Winnipeg on Tuesday the 15th at 6.00pm.

...

I spent the last few days on the road with Amanda. It was mostly fun. I loved visiting Northhampton Ma - my first chance to wander the streets since I lived in The Old Bank on Main Street, writing the last two parts of A Game of You en route to Tucson, in 1991.

The venue, on Pearl Street, was run by the kind of people who save money and lose goodwill by not turning on the heat in the winter. Ever. There were two dressing rooms backstage, but only one had a little heater, so everyone crammed into that room (which did not ever make it to warm. It just wasn't cold) and read the sad graffiti from bands not (as is usual in these cases) bragging about their sexual conquests or drawing bits of their anatomy, or just writing the name of their band (size of band-name graffito is always in inverse proportion to whether you will ever have heard of them). No, the Pearl Street Ballroom dressing room wall was covered with mournful comments from bands about how much they hate the venue and the people who own it and how much they wish they could turn on the heating.

It was a wonderful gig, although I wore a sweater and a coat to watch it. We signed for people afterwards.

On Saturday Amanda and I drove through the rain to Brooklyn, which went fine until the car in front of us stopped suddenly, and we stopped suddenly, and the moment of triumph as we didn't hit the car in front of us was slightly spoiled when a car slammed into us from behind. We got to the side of the road, did all the things you do in circumstances like that, traded information, waited for the police to arrive, worried that Amanda might miss the gig (this may just have been the people in my car, which was me and Amanda), and were generally shaken. I wouldn't have wanted to perform after that (and in fact I declined to, when Amanda asked if I'd like to read a story from the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book that night) but she did an amazing gig that night - one of my favourites ever. Her backing group (who are also the support act), The Nervous Cabaret, are incredible, and they sound fantastic as a team. I've only ever really known her as a girl with a keyboard alone on a stage, before. Other highlights (for me) included the Brel song "Amsterdam" (which I knew as Bowie B-side, as a teenager) and a "Pirate Jenny", which always makes me think of Watchmen, and, for Maddy (who was originally meant to be there, but wasn't, so will see it onYouTube) a Ting Tings cover. And we did a signing afterward.

That was not the most exciting thing. The most exciting thing was that up in the dressing room beforehand (which was warm and nice and carpeted and had no sad graffiti at all) Sxip Shirey and I listened to the last of the music tracks that Sxip had done for my silent movie as we watched it in Quicktime on Sxip's powerbook, I chose the strings instead of the piano for the scene in the car when Bill Nighy is driving away from the pub, and we watched it all through, with Sxip starting each bit of music at the right place, making it the first ever play-through of the film with finished music.

The film (which is called STATUESQUE) will be broadcast in the UK over Christmas, on Sky 1 and (I think) Sky Arts. I am not sure which day yet, as there are eleven of these films, and the running order has not yet been decided. I'll post it when I find out.

...

With all the links to the film versions of the Hallowe'en Other Mothers (and Coraline families) I put up here, it's nice to put up a link to someone who was the Other Mother from the book:
http://never-travelled.blogspot.com/2009/10/other-mother.html

Which reminds me a bit of this wonderfully slimy article at http://www.magic-city-news.com/Old_Embers/Two_Stories_for_Children12574.shtml which I found actually offensive. Not because of how it characterised me and Coraline...

Those who made "Coraline" are also likely to endorse the evils of abortion and homosexual marriage, and given a chance, could easily change America into a Soviet-style hell on earth. That is - if you will - Mother Hulda shows the soul of the Right, and Coraline, the tormented soul of the Left.

A side-by-side comparison of the two stories reveals that ours is much more than a political struggle. Ours is truly "a battle against principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places.*"

...but because of the way it mis-described and omits important things from the Grimms' fairy tale it opens with (and ineptly compares Coraline to). Here's a link to the actual story: http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/diamondstoads/stories/holle.html

(Ah. A Quick Google showed me that someone had already done a sane demolition job on it.)

...

And finally, it's that time of year again. Tonight is the Moth Ball, a ball that exists to support The Moth, the wonderful true story-telling entity. And, as they did last year, they are auctioning off Tea With Neil Gaiman: It's at http://www.cmarket.com/auction/item/Browse.action?auctionId=99195129 and the auction has two days to go.

Theoretically it's tea in New York. Last year it was tea (and many small cake, sandwich and sweet-like nibbles) in New York in January, but was not at the Player's Club, because they were closed at the time that worked best for the people who won the auction. In truth, if you're somewhere I'm going to be near in the next six months, then we could probably arrange things to be near you.

I don't suppose I need to point out that, no, I don't get any of the money, it all goes to support the Moth - http://www.themoth.org/ -- but you never know.

It's going to a very good cause. If you aren't a Moth fan, check out their podcasts.

*i.e. me. Well, me and Henry Selick.

Labels: auctions, me and St. Paul and the Brothers Grimm, tea with me, The Graveyard Book Halloween Party Competition, The Moth

tea for two (or three, I suppose)

I'm sleeping a lot, coughing a bit, sleeping a bit more. During the waking bit I'm mostly listening to Radio 7 or podcasts, and the best podcasts are from The Moth, the storytelling thingummy based in New York I discovered last year shortly before I found myself on a stage telling the story of how I got home from Hamburg in 1977.

(A quick search found it up on the web at http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/2104/prmID/1064)

Anyway, the Moth is a marvellous thing, and needs to be supported. Tomorrow night is the annual Moth Ball. You can read all about it at https://www.themoth.org/ball .
If you're in New York, you could go. It is hosted by

John Turturro

and

Garrison Keillor

and Salman Rushdie will be getting an award. It looks like a marvellous evening of storytelling. There will be wonders and things in a silent auction as well.

And then, in conjunction with the ball, there's an online auction, to support the Moth. Nine things are up for auction.

One of them is me.

Not literally. I mean, you don't get to keep me.

It's afternoon tea. At The Players Club.

Here's the link to the auction:

Enjoy Afternoon Tea with Neil Gaiman at The Players in Gramercy Park

There's two days to go on the auction -- it ends at Nov. 19, 2008 at 11:59 PM EST. Right now you can get afternoon tea with me for a bid over $350.

I hope whoever wins it is nice.

[Edit to add:
Hi Neil,

I am seriously considering bidding on the afternoon tea at the Players in Gramercy Park, and I was curious as to when this event would occur, to make sure I can attend (and not be out of the country due to work). Perhaps I'm blind, but I didn't see it indicated in the auction. Help?

Thanks,
Jeff

P.S: I'm fairly confident that I'm a nice person, and can probably even get a few friends to vouch for me!

That's because the actual when-it-happens of it all is something that will get figured out between the winning bidder and me, and depend on where they are and where I am. The idea is to be able to make it work for whoever bids.]

Labels: auctions, No label can do this post justice so study it carefully and take wisdom from its teachings for entertainment only offer void where prohibited by law, The Moth

Elfless in Gaza

I am, for the record, having one of those days where I really wish that I could get hundreds of tiny elves to come in the night and do the mountains of overdue writing for me, and more elves to sign the pile of 2000 sheets of UK Graveyard Book limited edition papers with my signature, and maybe a couple of tallish elves who look an awful lot like me to come in and take over all of my possible personal or professional commitments that might involve traveling anywhere in the world, and frankly while we're on the subject I'd like a handful of elves to deal with the email backlog, the towering piles of things I really need to read, and even someone to blog for me. And don't even get me started on things that want blurbs or introductions. (Looks around balefully.)

I was convinced that all was doom and despair and hopeless and I would never write my way out of this and there weren't enough hours in the day or days in the week or anything when I finally got out of the house and went down to the bottom of the garden to write, and discovered, on the way, masses of late and forgotten raspberries on the raspberry canes. So I stopped and ate raspberries, and you can't be properly miserable or grumpy eating sun-warmed raspberries you're picking and eating yourself.

I'm just saying. You can't.

.....

Tor.com has gone live. This is a really good thing. Lots of excellent writers blogging. Much stuff to read. I learned that illustrator Pauline Baynes was dead from Tor.com, and I was saddened. I read Jo Walton on Eric Frank Russell and found myself posting a reply. I suspect that Tor.com will become what Patrick Nielsen Hayden said he was hoping it could be about when he first mentioned it to me at Eastercon -- a social and professional hub for SF on the interwebs. The automatic place to go if you're interested in genre, immediately after you've checked Locus online -- http://www.locusmag.com/.

....

iTunes has the latest Best of The Moth Podcast up. You can hear me telling my story of my sixteen-year old self's travel trouble, and also, from the same event, you can hear Edgar Oliver telling what happened when he returned to Savannah, which was my favourite of all the stories told that night. The open iTunes instruction (the downloads are all free) is http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=275699983. Sometimes these things do not work out of the US.

But here's some Edgar Oliver in conversation (and reading a poem) on YouTube. Yes, he really talks like that, his voice and accent musical and strange:



Hello
i went to Kyle Cassidy's live journal to see what was so objectionable with the photos (was it the t-shirt?...shrugs...they didn't look so evil to me) and i happened to see: NEIL FREAKING GAIMAN singing "i google you". Any chance of an audio clip of that being put up on your site? pretty please? i'm sure i'm not the only fan out there that would love to hear it!

Well, that was me actually singing while Kyle was blogging. Shortly after that Amanda went off and came back with a small recording device and said "Sing that again into this," so I did. And I don't think anyone will ever hear that recording except her. On the other hand, she apparently sang "I Google You" last night in LA... so I imagine that it'll be out on the internet soon enough, sung by someone who can sing much better than I can.

(Goes and looks on YouTube.)

It's up already. (Warning: It's a very dark film, more or less an audio track, and the last two words of the song are cut off.) I love what she's done with the chords...



Edit to add -- I promised Amanda I'd replace this with a better version if one shows up on YouTube.

Edit even later, try this one:


...

Okay. I'm going back to the bottom of the garden to write about Selina Kyle and Joe Chill.

Labels: edgar Oliver, i google you, the astonishing comforts of raspberries, The Moth, tor dot com, where are the elves when you need them