quick one

It's an odd thing, being away from the internet for a month. China has the "great firewall" which meant that lots of things, including the blog and blog archives parts of my website, the entirety of livejournal , and lots of random other places, simply weren't accessible. (Yes, I could have set up a proxy server, but my proxy experiences last time I was there weren't very encouraging, and mostly by the end of each day I was too tired to do more than check urgent email anyway.) So if this has been wandering around the internet in the last month and by now everyone has seen it and is tired of it, my apologies. I just read it and was delighted -- it's Robert Heinlein's form letter for his fan mail.

I smiled broadly at, " ( ) It is not just for a student's grade to depend on the willingness or capacity of a stranger to help him with his homework. I am ready to discuss this with your teacher, principal, or school board."

http://kk.org/ct2/heinlein.php
for the full document. (via bookslut)

...

What about an opera libretto?
/Opera fan

Did one of those already. Sort of.

...

Hello Neil, I was just idly wondering about the location selections for the upcoming tour, what with all the churches. Just seems a weird choice. Is it for The Graveyard Book? And if so, will there be cemetery-related games, like tag or hurdles?!

There were even more churches on the Anansi Boys tour. It's more to do with auditorium size than subject matter -- if you need to seat about six hundred people, you're going to wind up in churches and university halls, because that number of people won't fit comfortably in the bookshops.

Occasionally you get a proper theatre, and that's always fun.

I've just looked over the Where's Neil information on the various appearances, and it seems a bit incomplete -- no info on how much tickets will cost for the ticketed events, for example -- so I'll get all the information and post it here.

I think this has already been posted, but Marcus Gipps from Blackwell sent me a note and I thought I'd mention the

London Talk and Signing

Friday, 6:30pm, 31st October 2008
Old Theatre
London School of Economics
Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE


Blackwell Charing Cross Road are very pleased to announce an exclusive London event with Neil Gaiman, to celebrate the launch of his fantastic new novel, The Graveyard Book.

Join us on the 31st October, Halloween, for a talk and signing, starting at 6.30pm.

Tickets are priced at 8 pounds and 6 pounds (concessions), and will entitle you to 2 pounds off either edition of the book on the night. The book officially goes on sale on the 30th October, so this should be a fun one.

Tickets can be purchased in two ways: come into the shop (Blackwell, 100 Charing Cross Road, London WC2H 0JG), or contact us by phone on 020 7292 5100 and we will send your tickets out to you. We expect the phone lines to be very busy for the first couple of days, so bear with us!

...and to suggest that it might not be entirely inappropriate if people wanted to come in costume, given the date and all. And that if enough people do turn up in costume, I suspect that I could talk Bloomsbury or Blackwells into making some kind of prize for the best one, as long as I didn't have to decide which it was. (But make sure that any costume is comfortable enough to sit for a couple of hours in, and won't stray into your neighbour's seat or jab them with sharp bits.)

Labels: hallowe'en in london, ways to deal with fan mail, why churches?