catching up

Today I read chapters one, two and three of The Graveyard Book into a microphone. As always, I can never believe that the human stomach can make quite that much noise, or how easy it is to forget how to read English. I was pleased that I got to do the readings in Australia from the book that I did, especially for the ghoul voices. Practice is a good thing, always.

Dear Neil,

Why is your biography on this site so confusing?... It seems to me that somehow, the person who wrote it first decided to introduce you, then to talk about your latest achievements (it was probably 2005 back then), then to go round and round through some other works in something that almost, but not quite, resembles an approximately chronological order and in the end remembered to mention the fact that you were born somewhere, sometime in England.

And you need a haircut. (everybody seems to mention that. Why? It's not that bad.)

Shouldn't there be more info there on you? Or at least more organized?

Sincerely (maybe too much so),

Roxana

Because, like most of the things on this website, it's accreted over the years, was posted first in 2001 when the web site when live and people have updated and added to it every few years when we noticed it was out of date. The truth is I probably need to do a from-scratch bio with awards and publications and everything, and because it's not very high on my list of things to do, it hasn't happened yet. Sorry.

This week, I don't need a haircut. It's very odd.

A reminder that the Phil Foglio Good Omens comic pages go on eBay today, to raise money for Alzheimers research: http://girlgeniusonline.com/stories/goodomens/GoodOmens01.php

Here's the eBay link: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=320259668084

The breakfast at Book Expo is a podcast... http://bookexpocast.com/2008/06/03/childrens-book-and-author-breakfast

The Chinese Earthquake is very much on my mind these days. I was going to go back to China to do some research but have postponed it for a little, just because it seems wrong to head out there right now. These comics, little stories from the earthquakes, are heartbreaking and, sometimes, inspiring:

http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/133_china/133_china.htm (There's an interview with Coco Wang, who did the comics, at http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/122_coco/122_coco.htm)

Labels: audio books, biographies, The man at the crossroads

The view from Bissette

Over at Steve Bissette's blog, at
http://srbissette.blogspot.com/2007/11/brief-before-bedtime.html
and
http://srbissette.blogspot.com/2007/11/visit-with-neil-part-iii-much-to-tell.html
you will get a Steve's eye view of our last three days, including the Fantasy Matters conference I spoke at. (It was fun -- I spent time with Jack Zipes, and got to meet a bunch of authors, including Pat Rothfuss and Nnedi Okorafor-Mbachu.)

It's been great having Bissette and Hank here. I'm not sure I had much of a brain though...

On Friday last you wrote about Steve Bissette and Hank Wagner interviewing you for an unauthorised book, and said "I'm happy to help, although am also happier that it's unauthorised --"If you are helping, isn't that a sign of authorization? Have I misunderstood what an "unathorised biography" was all these years?I love learning new things.
Siri

I suppose that if it was authorised I'd have to read it and sign off on it and approve of any opinions or inferences and so on. As it is, I'm happy for them to write their book and, because I like Chris Golden and Hank Wagner (and Steve Bissette, but he only got involved recently) I was willing to be interviewed for it, but it's nothing to do with me, and thus I don't have to think about whether or not I'm comfortable with people writing books about me (I'm not really, but that's just me).

...

And I leave in about 18 hours for the Philippines.

Labels: biographies, steve bissette