Australia and the Magic Quiff

Right. Off to Australia.

If you are on a plane to Australia today and you hear the sound of weeping coming from a nearby seat, it will be me, fighting to lose ten pages from a pretty tight script. (I bet I will lose two or three pages easily. Then the pain will start.)

I leave you with this remarkably photoshopped Russian magazine cover. (You can see the line on the left where my real hair stops and an enlarged version begins.)



What puzzles me mostly is, my hair is weird enough anyway. Why make it weirder?

(For the hair detectives amongst you: here are lots of photos of me from the same day that that Russian photo was taken. http://satu-san.livejournal.com/49214.html)

Labels: Moscow, suspicious hair, sydney

Three Quarters of The Way Around the World...

I didn't expect to have time to blog until tomorrow, but I'm awake early.

So, let's see. I'm in the UK. Arrived friday night, saw my daughter Holly and my scary goddaughter Hayley, who now share a flat. Holly and I ate at Kikuchi in Hanway Street. She told me about the voluntary closing of The Hump, and suggested that Michael Sheen and I may have precipitated the raid.

Up early on Saturday and I took the train to Brighton, where I was a surprise guest at the World Horror Con. James Herbert was the Special Guest of Honour, and I was there to interview him in front of an audience. I'd first interviewed Jim back in 1984, when I was a young journalist. Seeing him and his wife Eileen, and meeting his family, made me really happy. Later in the day, Ingrid Pitt was not up to being interviewed for the full hour of her programme item, and so Kim Newman interviewed me for about 35 minutes. I signed for Stanza Press's Off The Coastal Path, which has my poem "My Last Landlady" in it

A few people complained that if they'd known I was going to be there they would have brought suitcases filled with my books, which I think might be very good reason for not telling people I was going to be there. I had a great time and actually met people I didn't know before the con, and caught up with old friends, neither of which normally happen at conventions. Hmm...

Yesterday was really fun. There's a project I started in 1996 that is now coming to fruition. We'll call it Mystery Project X for now. It's making me happy. And I'm getting to work with producer Hilary Bevan Jones, who produced "Statuesque", which also makes me happy, while possibly dragging Paul Cornell into my madness, ditto.

The hard part of yesterday was learning about the Moscow suicide bombers. Five days ago I was riding the Moscow tube, was at one of those stations, was discovering just how much I liked the Russians. A week ago it would have been another sad news item, now it was horribly personal: these were my friends.

(Here's a journal filled with photos of me and Russian readers: http://satu-san.livejournal.com/49214.html)

And my favourite me in Moscow photograph:

Today belongs, for the next 13 hours (beginning as soon as I get out of this hotel bed and go and have a cup of tea and walk up to to Soho) to the Graveyard Book movie.

Tomorrow morning belongs to Doctor Who, when I will see Mr Moffat and learn what I'll need to do to rewrite my episode from being a Season 5 to being a Season 6 one. Then I fly home, having gone, very literally, around the world.

After that, in a couple of weeks it's National Library Week, for which I am honorary Chairman, and a couple of events I'm doing to go along with it: Indianapolis on the 16th, where I will be delivering the McFadden Memorial Lecture (a free, first-come-first-seated event), Chicago for the CBLDF on the 17th (Prime Seats now gone, General seats still available,buy tickets now http://c2e2.com/en/Events/Neil-Gaiman), and a talk at Minnesota's Washington County Library on April the 18th...

(Here's a competition that my friend Laurie King is running as part of National Library Week. Go and take part: http://www.laurierking.com/events/twenty-weeks-of-buzz/fantasy-library-contest)

And then, the fourteen months of madness that started with Coraline's release at the same time as the Graveyard Book was awarded the Newbery Medal will be over with and done, and I will go back to being a quiet sort of writer who makes stuff up. And about time, too.

Labels: Moscow, Mystery Thing, National Library Week, tea and not-tea, the Brighton Horror

Another Post From The Eternal Transit Lounge of the Soul

I loved Moscow, except for the traffic. The people were wonderful, my publisher was bemused and delighted that hundreds of people showed up for every signing, talk and event. I want to come back.

I'm writing this in the Aeroflot First Class lounge. It has luxurious seats and fast wifi and absolutely bugger all else in the way of nice things for international passengers. This has cheered me up immensely: I'd asked to fly Aeroflot because I'd heard so many horror stories from people who had flown it, and always felt vaguely left out. And even though I am doing this leg on my publisher's dime and am thus doing international business class, which probably spoils the point of it, I thought I should definitely go Aeroflot.

I wrote about going to the Oscars in today's Guardian. It's up at http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/mar/25/neil-gaiman-oscars-coraline

and the lovely photograph I mention at the end is at

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-oscar-red-carpet-mcadams-theron-pano,0,7005862.htmlstory although I was touched, amused, and just a tiny bit disappointed to see that I now am actually named in the caption of the LA Times photo. It was funnier when I wasn't.

It's 10:06 am and the men next to me are doing vodka shots.

I did more Vodka shots in the last three days than in the previous lifetime. Mostly because my Russian hosts were convinced that it was the cure for the flu-cold-thing I arrived with from Poland. I suspect that they would also have pitched Vodka as a cure for anything else I had arrived with, including broken limbs, heartbreak or psoriasis.

(Last night was Horseradish Vodka at a Russian Restaurant, which was guaranteed to clear my chest and sinuses. And it may well have done.)

For the record, the very best potato latkes I've ever had were in Poland.

There's a roundup of the New Zealand Festival from a book perspective at http://www.booksellers.co.nz/book-news/trade-news/new-zealand-post-writers-and-readers-festival-success-many-levels

There's a great blog (in Polish, but with many photos) by the beautiful, talented, intelligent and sweet people who translate this blog into Polish, of photos and background on my Polish trip with Amanda last week: http://neilgaiman-pl.blogspot.com/ with their entries at http://neilgaiman-pl.blogspot.com/2010/03/neil-i-amanda-w-polsce-dzien-drugi-neil.html,

http://neilgaiman-pl.blogspot.com/2010/03/neil-gaiman-w-warszawie-galeria.html and http://neilgaiman-pl.blogspot.com/2010/03/neil-i-amanda-w-polsce-dzien-pierwszy.html

(Here's my Polish Publisher's page for their beautiful edition of Odd and the Frost Giants.)

I'm putting up the blog-translators photos here (one of me, one of me and them) to say thanks. This blog is intermittently translated into lots of different languages, always by volunteers, and I'm always grateful.

Let's see.... Michael Swanwick has received his advanced copy of STORIES. And they've just announced boarding.

I go. More later, when I come to land.

Labels: Moscow, new zealand, No I do not know where you can get horseradish vodka probably they make it by putting horseradish into vodka for 6 months, Osca, Poland

A Quick One From Moscow

I was in Poland. First to see Amanda open a music festival in Wroclaw (which, by the time I left Poland, I had decided is pronounced something fairly closed to Vrotswaf) and then we went to Warsaw, where I did lots of interviews, and we filmed a segment for Polish Breakfast TV ("It is about people coming to Warsaw as romantic destination"*) and I did a signing while Amanda did a ninja gig in a nightclub basement.

My publishers kept me fed.

And then there was a half day that was meant to be sightseeing, but I spent it having a bad cold or something and sort of trying to sleep it off. In the morning Amanda flew home, and in the afternoon I flew to Moscow. I am writing this in my extremely fancy hotel.

Today there is a signing at 6 pm at BiblioGlobus (st. Myasnitskaya, 6 / 3, p.1), followed at 8 pm by a reception in a literary club bar Literary Club "Comma" (bar "Friday", ul. Pyatnitskaya, 3 / 4, building 1, entrance free) http://ast.ru/onews/2453/.

Tomorrow there are two signings: at 5 pm I am signing at Moscow House of Books on the Arbat (Novy Arbat, 8) http://ast.ru/onews/2453/ . Then at 7 pm (not currently listed in Where's Neil) I'm signing at DodoSpace (http://www.dodospace.ru/).

I'm not really sure how the word gets around on things in Moscow, so if you're reading this and you're in this part of the world, please tell people.

...

And you should go and look at CRAFTS FOR A CAUSE -- lots of cool musician/actor types making magical things to benefit Haiti. I was in a hotel in Hollywood without anything much to make art with, so Cat Mihos donated two tee shirts and two uncut four-panel postcards from Neverwear.net, and I made art all over them. You can see them (and me doing it) at this auction link.

....

* this just came in.

Dear Mr Gaiman,

"A Date in Warsaw" is now available at

http://www.tvp.pl/styl-zycia/magazyny-sniadaniowe/pytanie-na-sniadanie/wideo/neil-gaiman-w-polsce/

or direct link to the video stream, if you prefer not to watch it on Windows:

mms://212.191.235.6/31UJqecc0WGnBnPlwCvQTvR77DqNYJuQRFutG9UpWT%2bZLrP%2b1ArT9eopMrOmNw6vWLApXRiHNuk8LEN40KjGlk9xyESb24t5epiy3yG18CnWXAa6QUyZ61h%2fC954NePWgjXETiM0oCqlBraDUb98lQFFlUBuDCGwq6OUBSb7cayF4%3d/1.wmv

I get some strange demon-like voice interjection in the middle. Hope it's due to my slow Internet connection and not an actual evil spirit trying to spoil your stay in Warsaw.

Best regards,
Marcin

Labels: crafts for a cause, Moscow

From the Eternal Transit Lounge Of My Soul etc

In Changi Airport, changing planes. Tomorrow and Wednesday are my events in Manila (hurrah!). Then Poland and seeing Amanda again (I miss her already).

Just nipping on to mention a little more information that came in on MOSCOW events.

Greetings from Russia, Neil,

You've asked in your post from 14/03 to tell you about the details of your Russian signings. Now that I've come across your post, I feel it my duty to inform you that at 6 p.m. on March, 24th you have a signing at Biblio-Globus Bookstore (http://www.biblio-globus.ru/history.aspx?controlId=5&recordNo=3919). And before that - yet another one at a literary Cafe (I suppose, it's going to be more of an informal interview) at the Pyatnitsa (Friday) Bar - 8 p.m., March, 23rd. (NOTE: According to the publisher's website, this event is on the 24th, not the 23rd. -- web goblin)

Excuse me my English - I could've written everything in Russian, and it would certainly sound better, but I fear, you would've not been able to understand a word of it.

Anyway, hope this info will come in handy.

And - your Russian readers will be waiting for you (it's in no way a threat, just expressing my joy)

Someone wrote to say

Dude... has no one ever handed you a list of exactly what's planned for your own tour dates and whatnot? Kind of wierd to go on your blog and ask people for information you of all people ought to have. Not being snarky, just very confused.

And the answer is, normally, yes, I get that information. I post it here when I do.

And the Russians have been amazingly helpful about getting me Visa information, hotel and travel details, all that, when we needed it. But they hadn't sent actual signing and event information, although we'd asked. I don't think asking the world was weird. It worked, after all - the information came in from the world before it came in from the publishers. (Who might not even know that there are Russian readers reading this blog.)

oops. I have a plane to catch. I land at 11:10 in Manila. Then, I sleep.

Labels: Moscow

An apology for May 2008

A few days ago someone wrote to me and asked about Moscow in May '08, and the Eurocon at which I would be a "Guest of Honour".

It was the first I'd heard of it.

Now, I don't have the greatest memory in the world, and I sometimes lose track of what I've said yes to, but I thought it was rather unlikely that I would lose a whole convention, especially one in a country I really wanted to visit and had not yet gone to.

So I emailled my agents and assistants and asked if any of them knew anything about a convention in Moscow in 2008. None of them did. I searched my hard disk for mentions of Moscow and Euroscon, and found nothing at all.

Still, there it was and is up at http://www.convent.ru/Euroscon/. The first two Guests of Honour listed were George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman. Luckily, George is an old friend, so I wrote to him and asked if he could shed any light on this. He wrote back to say,

This is news to me.

My calendar for 2009 has been set for some time, and
Moscow is not on it.

Not that I wouldn't like to visit Russia some day,
mind you... but unless they plan to kidnap me, I won't be there.

I hope our clones have a good time at the convention.

I'd really like to go to Moscow, but many years ago, when a convention announced me as a guest, then asked me, then told me when I explained I couldn't go as I had a prior committment, that they'd because already announced me as a guest that they would announce now that I'd unexpectedly pulled out, and it was pretty much an act of blackmail, back then I decided that if a convention announced me as a guest before they asked me that I'd simply and automatically say no.

So when I do go to Moscow, it won't be for Euroscon, I'm afraid.

Labels: Conventions I won't be attending, Euroscon, George R R Martin, Moscow