Neil Gaiman's Journal

Several people have been asking about Charles Vess's wife, Karen. Karen was in a particularly nasty car accident, a few years ago, which damaged her spinal cord. She's learned how to move again, and how to walk. We did a benefit portfolio to help raise money to cover her medical costs, with some wonderful artists. I wrote a poem or two for it, and we printed the first chapter of a novel called WALL that is a sort of sequel to Stardust a hundred and fifty years on, and Susanna Clarke wrote a story that was reprinted in last year's YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR about the Duke of Wellington in Wall, and a whole bunch of the best artists in Comics did a set of Stardust-inspired prints.

Anyway, people were asking, so I sent Charles an e-mail. And he said...

Karen's doing pretty well on her road to recovery. It's funny she's at the point right now of visually looking quite well and that frustrates her sometimes.To most she looks fit and healthy and they assume that she's completely over the accident but there is still a limited range of motion in her right hand and leg as well as an ever present level of nerve pain. She has been pursuing several alternative medical treatments as a means of furthering her recovery. With the aid of weekly visits to the acupuncturist Karen's been able to wean herself off of one of the MD prescribed meds that did indeed lower that nerve pain but as a side effect also relieved her of her short term memory. Not a good thing! She still greats each day with an encouragng smile, so on we go.

I do still have a box or two of the portfolio, A FALL OF STARDUST that we produced as a benefit for Karen. What with an unpublished anywhere else short story by you and 29 gorgeous full color plates interpreting various scenes from the world of Stardust by a great lineup of artists I thought that some of your readers might want to order them directly from me now, before it goes out of print. If they do order from me they'll also receive the wonderful Sergio Aragones plate that is available no where else but from Green Man Press.

Here's the link:
http://www.greenmanpress.com/merch/prints.html

Thanks for asking,
Charles

And take a look around the greenmanpress.com website while you're there. It's got a terrific message board, a gallery, and lots of information on what Charles is doing these days... And you can also buy Stardust Fridge Magnets there. Which is more than you can do here