The End of the Auction

The Waterstones auction happened. The J.K. Rowling Harry Potter un-prequel card went for a bit less than the $10 million that some newspapers were predicting (about $9,951,000 less), but I don't think the auction was really being run to raise money as much as to raise awareness -- of the charities and PEN and of (most importantly) the existence of the upcoming all-profits-to-charity-and-PEN 5 pound-a-pop postcard book, and I think it did that and did it well...

Read the stories at http://www.waterstoneswys.com/

(You can pre-order the postcard book here -- limit of 2 per person.)

And the answer to my puzzled wondering of how on earth did Ms Rowling squeeze a reported 800 words onto that card? I was pushing to write a legible short story in about 300 words... was revealed. She turned it over. Fair enough. (Richard Ford also cheated and used two cards.)

There's a full report over at The Guardian:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2284857,00.html

As I said, you can read all the stories at http://www.waterstoneswys.com/. I've not read them all yet, but my favourite of the ones I've read so far was the Tom Stoppard "Idiomatic Farm" one. I was interested in the Atwood one when I read that,

Margaret Atwood appeared at the ceremony via videolink from Paris, wielding her celebrated LongPen - which reproduces handwriting remotely via sophisticated electronics - to handwrite her card "live". Her story, which she said she had struggled to condense into a form barely more capacious than a simple joke, provides a fresh spin on the Canute story, working in both domestic and ecological politics.

Which it may well do, but I found it more or less unreadable and cannot tell if this is because of her handwriting or the way the LongPen reproduces it.

Mine went for about $2500 to someone who really wanted it and was thrilled to get it, so I am happy, and most of all I like the idea of people actually sending the stories to each other through the post. (Using, I hope, classic Hammer Horror stamps. Or better still, the Carry on Screaming stamp...)

lunch break post

I'm talking to Waterstones about the story card auction. It's very invitation only -- for people bidding in person on the cards and for people bidding from a distance. So if there's anyone out there who was hoping to be able to bid on my card (which I can confidently guarantee will go for less than the 5 million pounds -- ten million dollars -- that J. K. Rowling's card is predicted to go for) then let us know through the FAQ line and I'll put you in touch with the relevant people at Waterstones, who will put you in touch with the relevant people at Sotheby's. It is, after all, for a couple of good causes.

(You'll be able to read the story cards at the Waterstones site from the 11th of June.)

...

Incidentally, I just got sent the starred Kirkus review of Craig Russell's Coraline graphic novel:

CORALINE
by Neil Gaiman
Adapt. by P. Craig Russell
Illus. by P. Craig
Russell

A deliciously dark graphic adaptation of Gaiman’s modern classic is delivered with
pitch-perfect accuracy and presented in a striking palette. Staying true to the
original text, Russell’s adaptation follows young Coraline Jones as she
discovers a strange door in her otherwise boring flat. Once over the door’s
mysterious threshold, she meets her ghastly “Other Mother,” a horrid-looking
beldam with sinister, button eyes, long, yellowed teeth, spindly, tapered
fingers with sharp, brown nails and a wry, baleful smile. Coraline’s Other
Mother intends to keep her in this horrible new world forever, and captures her
real parents, prompting young Coraline to seek them out in this strange
dimension. Russell, a veteran illustrator and collaborator with Gaiman, makes
the novel positively jump off the page, sending shivers down its readers’
spines. Colorist Lovern Kindzierski deserves special kudos for utilizing a
masterful array of hues, working in smart synchronicity with the nuances of the
tale. A stellar reworking of the original text, this is sure to delight
established fans and to mesmerize newcomers. (Graphic fiction. 10 &
up)

What's Your Story?

I asked Jon Howells, Waterstones National Press Officer, about the story card on which I wrote an original short story -- what would happen to it and when. There's some information at the Waterstones website , but he filled me in on the rest of it:

What's going to happen to your card? The original, along with those by all the other authors involved, will be auctioned on June 10th at Waterstone's Piccadilly, the largest bookshop in Europe. This is an invitation only event (your invite will be with your shortly - it would be lovely to see you there but, given where you live, we'll understand if you can't make it), and the auction will be run by a Sotheby's auctioneer. Margaret Atwood will be joining the proceedings live from Paris, and will write her story using her LongPen machine. All the money from the auction will go to English PEN and Dyslexia Action.

The following day, all the storycards will be available to read at Waterstones.com. Outsize facsimiles of the cards will also be on display in the windows of all our stores for people to read, and they will remain there for a month.

There's also a chance for our customers and the general public to get involved with writing a story for the What's Your Story? campaign. They can pick up a storycard in our stores to fill in and return, and online we've developed a nifty tool that allows people to write (and customise) their own stories - full details can be found at http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/navigate.do?pPageID=200000637. This has only been live since late last Thursday and already over 700 stories have been posted.

Three (2 adult and one child) of the best of the public's stories (and the best from a similar competition for our booksellers) will be published alongside all 13 of the author stories in a one-off print run Postcard Book, which will be available from the beginning of August at our stores and Waterstones.com - price is TBC. The winners of the public competition will also win a place on an Arvon Foundation writing course (if they are over 18), or £500 of Waterstone's vouchers (if under 18). All profits from the sale of the postcard book will go to English PEN and Dyslexia Action.

So now we all know. Sounds a wonderful project. (I assume the writing a story competition bit is only open to UK residents, but I may be wrong as it's not listed as such in the terms and conditions.) I don't know if I'll be able to get to the auction in person. But it sounds wonderful. And I need to find out how people can put in remote auction bids and suchlike for the cards (or, if they plan to bid in person, how they can get invitations to the event).

...

I took this yesterday from the kitchen window. As a small child, I was convinced that all animals walked around on their hind legs when we couldn't see them, and spoke fluent English; sometimes they wore clothes and probably drove really tiny, brightly-coloured cars down hidden streets between the bushes. This raccoon did nothing to disabuse me of the idea:

...

Michael Dirda wrote a lovely article about Charles Fort, and Jim Steinmeyer's biography of the man. When I read,

Steinmeyer views Fort as a representative 1920s figure, but to me he seems in a slightly earlier mode: The antiquary with a hobby horse. Fort and his 40,000 slips of paper recall Marx researching economics in the British Library, H.W. Fowler compiling his picky Modern English Usage, the editors of the Variorum Shakespeare and the Oxford English Dictionary noting arcane interpretations and elaborate etymologies, J.G. Frazer tracing hanged gods and ancient ritual in The Golden Bough.

I remembered a long-abandoned idea for a short story I meant to write, probably called "Charlies", in which Karl Marx and Charles Fort, both working obsessively in the British Museum Reading Room Library sixty years apart, wound up with each others notes and books, so Marx published The Book of the Damned in 1867, prompting international revolution followed by a Russia organised on Fortean lines, with falls of fish and such everywhere, while Charles Fort published Das Kapital in the 1920s, and is still remembered today as a beloved crank, The Fortean Times a small press publication dedicated to economic theories about the eventual downfall of capitalism. (I gave up on it mostly because, whenever I'd tell communists about it, they'd look disapprovingly at me, which I figured took out half the potential audience for the story then and there.)

(On the other hand, the companion piece, "Kens" about Kenneth Williams and Kenneth Halliwell, may still get written one day. You never know.)

...

Here's a review of The Dangerous Alphabet.

And finally, The Graveyard Book has its own dedicated website at http://www.thegraveyardbook.com/, courtesy of Subterranean Press. It has an interview with me on the front page, but it also has many exciting things up, such as Dave McKean illustrations -- http://www.thegraveyardbook.com/illustrations/...