Last year I was asked if I wanted to be my favourite literary character for an exhibition at the Oxford Storytelling Museum. I chose Badger, from The Wind In The Willows, for my own reasons.
After I had had my photo taken as a Badger, by eminent photographer Cambridge Jones, Philip Pullman stopped by for tea, and it wasn't until much later I realised that I was still made up as a badger when we spoke. (You can hear us talk about it, and many other things, on this "in conversation" at the Oxford Playhouse.)
If you want to know what my reasons for being a Badger were, or who Mr Pullman was dressed as in his photograph, you will need to visit the 26 Characters Exhibition at the Storytelling Museum, in Oxford, between the 5th of April and the 2nd of November, where you can learn about all of us, and see me as Badger, Terry Pratchett as William Brown (from Just William) and the rest of us. All the information you could need about it is at http://www.storymuseum.org.uk/26Characters
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Today the Audie Award nominations for Best Audiobook were announced: I was thrilled to see that my reading of The Ocean at the End of the Lane is nominated for two awards (Fiction and Narration by the Author or Authors), delighted that Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman's The Fall of the Kings, in which I perform, and which is part of the Neil Gaiman Presents line was nominated for two awards (Audio Drama and Multi-Voiced Performance) and I was cock-a-hoop when I saw that John Hodgman was nominated for Solo Narration - Male for Robert Sheckley's Dimension of Miracles, another of the Neil Gaiman Presents books, and one I'm really proud of having brought into the world...
But, oddly, the one that put the biggest smile on my face was learning that I was nominated for an Audie Award as the narrator of someone else's book: The Dark, by Lemony Snicket is nominated for best children's book up to the age 8. I don't read other people's audio books, and I always say no when asked, but, unfortunately, Mister Snicket knows exactly where the bodies are buried, and he has photographs and mummified hands for souvenirs. Also, the book was very short: six minutes, altogether.
I have won Audie Awards over the years, and been nominated for more, so I do not mind whether I win or lose, but hell, it's fun to be nominated.
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Just a reminder: I'm really not doing Social Media currently. Even the little blitz of posts of links to ticket info on performances of THE TRUTH IS A CAVE IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS this morning was automated -- I plugged them into WhoSay the night before, which then sent them to Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook and Google + as the tickets went on sale.
You can find out where I'll be and what I'm doing at Where's Neil: http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/ and it's worth checking back on it, as things get added.
For those of you who missed it:
June 25th, I'm onstage with THE TRUTH IS A CAVE at the Warfield - with the amazing FourPlay string quartet, and pictures by (and, in person) Eddie Campbell.
Location: San Francisco, CA
Wednesday, 8:00-10:00pm
Showtime: 8:00 PM
Doors open: 7:00 PM
Ages: All Ages
TICKETS:
Advanced Ticket Prices*: $40.00
Day of Show*: $42.00
* Service and handling fees are added to the price of each ticket
WHERE:
The Warfield
982 Market Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
While on June 27th we do it again onstage at the Carnegie Hall in New York:
Location: New York, NY
Friday, 8:00-10:00pm
WHERE:
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Carnegie Hall
881 7th Ave
New York, NY 10019
http://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2014/6/27/0800/PM/Neil-Gaiman-The-Truth-is-a-Cave-in-the-Black-Mountains/
Ticket prices from $39-$129.
Then we go to London and do it there on July 4th and 5th... http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?id=16044
Let's see. I should answer a question. It's been ages:
hey!
our name is Ina and Simen we go on Gausel skole.Her school Harvi a literacy project and we have been asked to ask a writer about this: what did you read when you were 11-12 years old?
please reply instantly.
With Kind Regards Ina and Simen :-)
I read anything I could get my hands on. At that age I was particularly obsessed with Michael Moorcock and Harlan Ellison, Ursula K. LeGuin, Roger Zelazny and Samuel R Delany, but I would read anything, and I did.
Labels: Audie Awards, badger, Practice Practice Practice, The Dark, The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains, Where I am and where I will be