Do I Actually Have or Need Diplomatic Immunity?

I'm typing this on a plane to Australia where I will hunker down and go back to being a man writing a novel, and life will turn into a long-running battle between man and blank page, between man and what happens next, between man and the people in his book who have other ideas about what they ought to be doing now.

I had a fascinating time on the road, though. I was never not exhausted: Initially I knew that all I had to do was keep going until the second weekend, and then by the time I got to that weekend plans had changed and now I was in Iceland for 36 hours, filming a mini-documentary extra for American Gods. It was wonderful: I love Iceland. But I was tired, and didn't really get to see much Iceland.

(My favourite moment was one where the director asked if I would mind being filmed in an alleyway reading American Gods. I suggested we wander into a bookshop instead, if they didn't mind, and have me look at books in there. So I did, and took the opportunity to sign as many books as I could, in the time we had, racing before the last of the February light went.)

Iceland really is beautiful. And if it wasn't for Iceland, there wouldn't be an American Gods...

I had some really fun times. The BBC radio interviews were all so different and all so much fun. My Royal Festival Hall event was a delight to do, and that lunchtime I showed up as Children's Laureate Chris Riddell's secret guest on the same stage, and I got to meet Posy Simmonds and turned immediately into a starstruck teen.

Chris stayed and drew while I spoke and was interviewed that night:

\

...

Now I'm in Melbourne, Australia and it's two days later and I'm not really sure where the last 48 hours went. I caught up on my sleep (Amanda and Ash are in Adelaide, where she's performing), started to clamber up the email mountain that was waiting for me, spent time with a sick friend, and, today, actually started to write some more of the novel.

Norse Mythology came out on February the 7th and went straight in at Number One on the US, UK and Canadian bestseller lists; in its second week it dropped to Number Two in the US, and has somehow stayed at #1 in the UK and Canada, despite a lot of bookshops running out of copies. The phenomenon of it becoming an incendiary sell-out hit has left me delighted and a bit baffled -- my books always sell, but they usually sell sanely and normally and I'm a bestselling author because they keep on selling in healthy numbers for ever.  It's not usual to see people online talking about visiting five bookshops and getting the last copy (or failing to find any) in whatever town or city they are in. People (friends, family, journalists, even Amanda) tell me that I and the publishers and the bookshops must have expected this sort of response, and I reply that if we'd expected this level of enthusiasm and sales, the publishers would have printed a lot more copies to begin with and the booksellers would all have ordered a lot more copies, and for that matter I wouldn't have taken over four years to write the book...

But then, I think it may be that this book happens to be ridiculously popular partly because it is now and this is the right time for it to have been published.

There have been lots of terrific articles about the book and a slew of amazing reviews.  I really enjoyed this article in the Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/the-politics-of-retelling-norse-mythology/517422/ and this blog review, which I felt articulately explains what I was trying to do, https://andrewfindlaywrites.wordpress.com/2017/02/11/gaiman-norse-mythology/.

I liked this James Lovegrove review from the Financial Times: https://www.ft.com/content/42fad176-ec96-11e6-ba01-119a44939bb6

Sarah Lyall interviewed me and came to the New York event for the New York Times:  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/12/books/neil-gaiman-norse-mythology.html

Here's me talking to the New York Times Book Review Podcast: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/books/review/neil-gaimans-myths.html

Michael Dirda starts  his review of Norse Mythology in a way that sent my stomach lurching, and the review itself was something of a roller-coaster ride (but the kind you are glad you have taken):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/neil-gaimans-suspenseful-and-surprising-norse-mythology/2017/02/13/986c0ffe-eef2-11e6-9973-c5efb7ccfb0d_story.html?utm_term=.5b6e58d98428

And I'm now realising that if I keep linking to reviews, interviews and such on either side of the Atlantic this blog will never end...

So here is the cover of a recent Australian Sunday supplement: do not let its 1977 cover date fool you.

....

On public events: If you go and look at Where's Neil  you will see the public appearances I'm doing this year.  Of the events in Spring, Seattle is sold out and so is Santa Rosa and Boston, Costa Mesa is almost sold out,  Mesa AZ is going fast, and there are... still lots and lots of tickets in San Diego.

I don't know why this is. However, if you fancy coming to see me talk and read and answer questions and such, and you can't get in to any of the other evenings, San Diego is a two hour train ride from LA and they even have wifi on the train,  andit's less than three hour's flying time from Seattle. And right now, there are seats. ("San Diego. It's not just for ComicCon.")

I have news on the only New York area event, too: it's on April 15th, at Bard College, where I am a professor. It's going to be all about American Gods, and I'm going to be interviewed by my special guest, American Gods' Executive Producer and co-showrunner Bryan Fuller. We are hoping to show you things on the big screen that night, too. After all, it will only be two weeks before the first episode of American Gods goes out.

It's free to the Bard community, $25 a ticket for the rest of the world. Info here: http://fishercenter.bard.edu/calendar/event.php?eid=132108

...

Which reminds me:


AMERICAN GODS now has a broadcast date: the first episode of the first season will be broadcast on Starz on April 30th in the US, and be watchable digitally too, via Starz on Amazon Prime.

Outside of the US, you can watch American Gods on Amazon Prime Video, from May 1st.

...

And my biggest news of all, even bigger and more exciting than a Number One International Bestseller, or a glorious TV series adapted from my novel launching, is this:

I've been appointed a United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for Refugees. I even have a certificate. (It is blue and the same size as a passport.) I'm not sure what this means in real terms: I'm going to keep doing the work I've been doing since 2013 to draw attention to refugees, to raise awareness and knowledge, and to help them.

I was disappointed to learn I won't get diplomatic immunity from parking tickets*.

Here's the Facebook Live interview announcement, in which I am interviewed by Jonathan Ross and answer questions from the people watching. The interview begins about 4 minutes and 30 seconds in.

https://www.facebook.com/UNHCR/videos/10156047439338438/





*Joke. Weak joke.  UN Goodwill Ambassadors pay their own parking tickets, air tickets, hotel bills etc.

Labels: ABBA, American Gods, chris Riddell, Iceland, New York Times Bestseller, Norse Mythology, Refugees, the mysteries of San Diego

Waiting, and Cinnamon

I'm in Florida, and I'm typing this on Wednesday night and setting it to post on Thursday because tomorrow I may not have power, or Internet. I'm slightly nervous: I bought water to drink, and just filled the bath with more water, have lots of food in tins and packets, and the house I'm in has stormproof windows. But still, if the hurricane comes and does its stuff things are going to be less than fun. And according to Snopes, the candles I bought because there were no more flashlights or batteries should be left unlit.

Um. I was impelled to get a haircut before the hurricane. I'm not sure why. It just seemed to make sense that if serious weather was coming I should be able to see out. The hairdressers had closed up shop and fled further inland, but there was a barber still working. Normally I can work with barbers to get a haircut that isn't too bad, but this time I had encountered a barber who obviously only did one haircut, and was going to give it to me no matter what I asked for. I should have shouted "PUT THOSE DOWN AND STEP AWAY FROM ME NOW" when he picked up the electric clippers as his first thing. Instead I thought "I wonder what he is going to do with those?" and then it was too late as half my hair had fallen to the tiles. So now I have the kind of haircut that means I feel like someone else whenever I pass a mirror or touch my hair. Perhaps the someone else I am now wears hats. I must find out.

As of a couple of days ago, there is a new book for sale in the US: it's the gorgeous hardback Chris Riddell illustrated edition of Odd and the Frost Giants; http://bit.ly/OddFrostRiddell Lots of Silver ink and gorgeousness. I'm very fond of the story, too.

IT IS THE MOST HANDSOME OF BOOKS. Silver ink and lots of Chris Riddell art makes it so. http://www.harpercollinschildrens.com/books/Odd-Frost-Giants/

And here is a book that won't be out until May of 2017. It's a story I wrote about 20 years ago, inspired by a Lisa Snellings carousel sculpture of a girl called Cinnamon, with pearlescent eyes, riding on a Tiger.

For the last 12 years or thereabouts, it's been available on the Audiobook The Neil Gaiman Audio Collection. Now it's finally going to be available as something you can touch and hold.

It's beautifully illustrated by Divya Srinivasan. (Divya lives in Austin, Texas. Her illustrations have appeared in the New Yorker magazine. She is the author and illustrator of the picture books Little Owl's Night, Little Owl's Day, and Octopus Alone.  You can see more of her work  at www.pupae.com.)

Right. I'm going to go to bed now, and worry, and then, I hope, take all the worry and give it to the people in my book...

Labels: chris Riddell, cinnamon, Divya Srinivasan, haircuts, hurricane, Odd and the Frost Giants, secret identities, storm warning

Prelude to Softly and Silently Vanishing Away

My plans for the rest of the year are basically, finish the last Good Omens TV script, and then to write a novel.

I'm doing one TV interview for THE VIEW FROM THE CHEAP SEATS.

I'm making a couple of mysterious appearances for the American Gods tv series.

I'm not going to entirely vanish from social media, but probably, pretty much, I'll be gone, and living in a book which currently doesn't exist except in weird notes and ideas and things in my head.

As a general rule, when I leave social media, I blog a bit more. So keep half an eye on this blog. There are some amazing things coming out this year, and I would be an idiot if I didn't let you all know about them, so you will...

For example, what on earth is this photo about?

Who are these people? And what does it have to do with Neverwhere?

All the BBC website tells us is 

...we’re thrilled that, later this year, led by the ever-dangerous Marquis de Carabas, we’ll be taking a short trip back to the land of London Below.

We're expecting high adventure and a spine-tingling ride, with a mix of brand new characters and old favourites.

...which is definitely interesting. And will need to be announced. And so will the amazing new Chris Riddell illustrated edition of Neverwhere from the UK: I've never seen anything like it before.

This is a photograph of Chris and the cover of the book, wrapped around a completely different book, to make it look like the actual book.

And then there's the wonderful secret thing we are doing with the US paperback covers, which is making me very happy indeed. And you'll learn about them here, and I'm sure I'll put that up on Facebook and Twitter too.

And then there's the announcement of the book I finished last month... That's happening soon. It's exciting. I'll announce that.

So I'm basically around for another week. 

Expect a vague vanishing. And an eventual return. And interruptions for information.

But mostly I'm planning to be low profile online and living in my head in order to report back, from dark strange places, the remarkable doings of some most peculiar people.

Labels: chris Riddell, how the marquis got his coat back, The Seven Sisters, Vanishing authors

Have I Actually Been Eaten By A Bear?

Amanda is now 8 and a bit months' pregnant, and she wanted to have our baby off the grid, in the middle of the woods with nothing and nobody around but midwives, a doula, and me.

Which seemed like an odd idea when she first floated it by me, but has come to strike me as more and more sensible in the last few months, especially when I would look at my deadlines. It's been a mad year anyway, and more and more things have crept onto my schedule: the idea of going off to a cabin in the woods and writing, away from phones or emails or any distractions seemed increasingly attractive. So I get the best of all worlds: undistracted time with Amanda, undistracted time with Amanda and the baby (when he appears), and relatively undistracted time to write.

Photo by Kyle Cassidy,  last Friday.

Except, the birth-month is September. And September is the month when everything is happening.

It's the month that the Chris Riddell-illustrated boxed set of my children's books comes out in the US, for example. 

It's still ridiculously cheap on Amazon, for three books you could not previously get in these editions in the US.

It's the month that The Sleeper and theSpindle is released in the US.

The last issue of Sandman Overture will come out in September (although not the hardback collected edition of the whole thing. That comes out on November 10th -- my birthday, oddly enough: details at http://bit.ly/OvertureDeluxe )

And, more personal for me even than these, it's the month that the Humble Bundle happens.

You know what a Humble Bundle is, don't you…? It's a bundle of Digital Stuff (usually games, sometimes eBooks or Graphic Novels) that goes out to the world on a Pay What You Like basis. Sometimes you can get hundreds of dollars of stuff cheaply.

But I think it's fair to say there will never have been a Humble Bundle like this before. Why ever is that? you wonder. Ah,  you will have to be patient. It's going to be remarkable.

But...

I'm going to be away. So I'm planning to learn how to use the various timed posting things on Twitter and Facebook and here on the Blog. People will think I am back from the woods, but no, I won't be. Magical timed postings will be going up to let people know what's happening.

(This may also result in a few tone deaf postings in September, as I apparently plug the Humble Bundle or Sleeper and the Spindle immediately after I hike into town to find internet to tell you that the baby has turned up. Forgive me if they happen.)  

Labels: Baby, chris Riddell, Humble Bundle, Sandman Overture, The Sleeper and the Spindle

In Which I am About to go to Germany, Austria and France. Also, notPorn.

It's autumn in this part of the world, and the trees are amazingly beautiful. A few weeks ago they were red and green, now they're mostly shades of brown, orange and gold, and every now and again a tree decides to simply shed itself of leaves, like someone taking off their overcoat and dropping it on the floor where they stand, and the leaves drop or spin and it's all so gloriously autumnal and pre-Hallowe'eny it feels like there's a set designer arranging it all.

And I'm leaving it all.

I'm headed off to Hamburg on Monday Night http://www.literaturhaus-hamburg.de/), Cologne on Tuesday, (http://www.literaturhaus-koeln.de/showtermine.php?id=931). These are sold out. Vienna on Wednesday, at 7:30 pm at Buchhandlung Morawa in Vienna Wollzeile 11, 1010 Wien (and it seems to be sold out too).


From there I go to Paris. On Thursday night (its the 23rd), around 7 pm, Dave McKean and I will be at the gallery opening for Dave's beautiful red and black and white SMOKE AND MIRRORS drawings at Galerie Martel, 17 Rue Martel, Paris.  http://www.galeriemartel.com, https://www.facebook.com/events/282927571907816/

On Friday the 24th, at 6pm I'll be doing a SIGNING in Paris. Well, technically in Vincennes, at the Millepages. Librairie 91, rue de Fontenay Vincennes. The page is here. No tickets or anything needed, just turn up and I will sign your books or comics or arm.

(There was a 3:00 on Saturday signing mistakenly announced for me and Dave McKean at Galerie Martel, but that's ONLY DAVE as I'm off being interviewed then. So if you are in France and you want something signed, come to the Vincennes signing.)

***

The Sleeper and the Spindle, illustrated by Chris Riddell, is coming out this week in the UK. I've been fascinated by the articles that have come out centering around this illustration, of the queen waking the sleeper. It's been applauded for things it is and things it isn't, decried as pornographic, and pretty much everything in between.  I think it's beautiful, but then, I think everything about this book is beautiful, from the transparent cover and the gold ink details on.  (Here's a restrained piece from The Guardian, from whose website I stole the above picture.)

(It's only for sale soon in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. If you are anywhere else and want it before the end of the year, you should probably order it. Here's the Book Depository Link (with Free worldwide delivery), the  Amazon.co.uk link and here is the UK Local Bookshop link. I should warn you also that the paperback edition you can preorder on Amazon won't be out for a year. But you will want to get the hardback, because it is an object of pure beauty.)

...

Are you an author? Are you someone who owns an independent bookshop who knows authors? Amanda and I wrote a letter to authors and bookshops, about the Saturday after US Thanksgiving. 

http://www.bookweb.org/news/neil-gaiman-amanda-palmer-call-authors-support-indies-first-campaign

Last year, Sherman Alexie came up with an idea so audacious and imaginative it could only have been conceived by an author who wanted to be allowed behind the counter in a bookshop.  The idea, “Indies First,” is this: authors get to spend a day hand-selling books and helping out in their local independent bookshop. 

Good, right? You, an author, will experience the joys and frustrations of being a bookseller. Mostly the joys — it’s one of the busiest days of the year for small businesses, especially in bookshops. The day in question is the Saturday after Thanksgiving, “Small Business Saturday.” People are beginning to buy gifts for the holidays (now is your chance to persuade people that they need your books — especially if you’ve signed them — and your friends’ books, and books you’ve always loved that, if widely read would make the world a better place). It will be, we promise you, a much more sociable day than the ones you spend staring at a blank screen or a white sheet of paper, communing with imaginary people and suchlike.

(You can read the whole letter at the link. We plan to work at three different local bookshops that day.We have a plan.)

Labels: chris Riddell, Cologne, Dave McKean, Hamburg, Indies First, paris, The Kiss, The Sleeper and the Spindle, Vienna

Secrets, a quiet life, and several random books by other people

Life is quiet. I'm jogging daily, enjoying juicing fruits and vegetables, playing with my new phone, writing, being proud that Amanda is getting all the five star reviews in Sydney but have got quite used to not being in Sydney myself.  I'm shifting the weight I put on during the May to October signing & promotional tour, and, I hope, getting back into the kind of shape I stopped being in when the tour started in May.

I love toys that help and encourage me: I just got a heart-rate monitor that talks to my ipod Nano while I run. I'm just getting to the point where I need a whole slew of new music to jog to, though, as my exercise playlist, which is about 20 years old, is starting to feel too familiar. (But it will always start with Sondheim's Something About a War. And it must always have Elvis Costello's Waiting For the End of the World on it. Otherwise the pillars of the universe might collapse.)

My not being currently on Twitter meant that you did not have to endure any grumbles from me about Federal Express leaving packages at houses they were not addressed to, or, alternately, handing over packages to the US Mail service, who then stoutly maintain that the house I'm in does not actually exist and returned said packages to the sender.

Lots of long phone calls happening, each of them about something really interesting I can't officially announce yet. I think there must be about half a dozen of these, now. I'm looking forward to being able to talk about them all.

Normally, the reason I don't talk about them is simply that the deal to make the thing isn't quite done. Although sometimes it's because the wait between the thing being announced and the time it's going to be available is so long as to be silly.

Still, in case you were wondering whether or not Fortunately the Milk artist Chris Riddell was quietly and secretively working away on a secret sort of thing by me that I'm not even going to even allude to, why, yes, he is.  There are many clues as to what it is in this picture, from Chris's tumblr blog.

Lots of book-related things out there. Let's see...

Headline Books have just found that the links to allow you to buy their ultra-deluxe signed edition of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE had all been taken down over the last six months, which explains why they still have a handful left. They've remedied that, and put up new web pages. It's only for sale to UK addresses and is an astonishingly expensive, very limited, beautiful object. They only did 260 of them, and have a few for sale: https://www.headline.co.uk/Articles/Deluxe+Edition+The+Ocean+At+the+End+of+the+Lane+Neil+Gaiman.page will tell you all about them. (All the other limited editions, which were less limited than this, have long since sold out.)

...

Polish artist Dagmara Matuszak illustrated a poem I wrote once, called Melinda, and made it into one of the most beautiful of my books. (Also one of the rarest: the few copies out there that book dealers have for sale are very VERY expensive.) 

I'm writing another poem for her, but not writing it as fast as I should.

She's selling the Melinda original art: http://boards.collectors-society.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=7352837#Post7352837 (and it's pictured here: http://s568.photobucket.com/user/hadriana_photos/library/Melinda%20OA?sort=3&page=1)

...

Brad Meltzer just sent me some books he's ridiculously proud of, illustrated by Chris Eliopoulos.

He told me, "This series was born because I was tired of my daughter thinking that reality TV stars and loud-mouthed sports players were heroes.  I tell my kids all the time:  That’s fame.  Fame is different than being a hero.  I wanted my kids to see real heroes...and real people no different than themselves. For that reason, each book tells the story of the hero when THEY were a kid.  We see them as children.  So it's not just Amelia Earhart and Abraham Lincoln being famous--but them being just like us." 

They are funny, and readable and, yes, probably inspiring. For small kids, about real people.

...

I learned from Cory Doctorow that Michael De Larabeiti's Borribles are back in print as ebooks, with a China Mieville introduction. And Cory's article also included an astonishingly patronising and cowardly letter from Collins Publishers to Michael's agent, explaining why they had decided to renege on publishing the third Borrible Book, Across the Dark Metropolis. (It was published by Pan Books, and it was in a cafe over the road from Pan, shortly after this, that Michael and I met and had coffee, long ago, and I told him how much I loved the books.)

The Borribles -- pointy eared street children, battling the police and evil rodents in the alleys and underground of a mythic London -- were remarkable, and definitely were one of the streams that fed into Neverwhere.

Go and read Cory's article, if only for the Collins letter. http://boingboing.net/2014/01/16/the-borribles-are-back.html

...

Talking about the delay between things being mentioned and them happening, Hayley Campbell came out to my house over 3 years ago, and rummaged around in the attic and the basement, found things written on things, and drawings, and all sorts of stuff. She even took objects away with her, and left post-it-notes in their place. (You can read about it here: .http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2010/11/coffee-table-book-and-why-reality-is.html)

Then she interviewed me and other people, and she wrote a book. It's about the art and the stories. In some ways it's a lot like the book I wrote, long ago, about Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I read a draft of the book a couple of months ago. Hayley is a smart and funny writer. She's also honest and opinionated. I liked it....

Today I saw a cover. Apparently, it's not the final cover. But, look! Hayley's book is coming into existence.

PS: Stop press - Amanda has become an Agony Aunt for the Guardian in Australia. I suppose it's fair exchange for the Australians sending the UK Guardian Pamela Stephenson.

Labels: Borribles, chris Riddell, dagmara matuszak, Hayley Campbell, I have alluded to something secret, Michael de Larrabeiti

One Ordinary Day With Chris Riddell Doodles

I'm in a departure lounge, right now. First an automated message called from Delta to tell me my plane would take off on time and arrive an hour and a half late. Then it called back to tell me we were leaving an hour and a half late too, which made a little more sense.

 People have written and asked why I'm not posting about walking with my dog in the woods, and it's mostly because I haven't walked with my dog in the woods since the start of tour season, except for a couple of days in early August. I wish I had.

I borrowed Glen, next-door's working sheepdog, to go for walks with when I was in Scotland, though. He wasn't very good at going for walks. He was very aware that he ought to be working, and would shoot off home to move sheep around the moment I took I my attention off him.

I was meant to be writing when I was in Scotland. Mostly, I was recovering from the tour -- from the whole thing, from early June on. Recharging my batteries by walking and cooking things on the Aga and juicing and not really writing at all. And then I recharged and started writing once again.

2011, Seattle, "Makin' Whoopie".

So, it's been a wonderful, crazed few weeks. FORTUNATELY THE MILK came out in the US and the UK, and got some wonderful reviews (including this one, from Boing Boing), and went onto the Bestseller Lists on both sides of the Atlantic. I finished, yesterday morning, writing a Sekrit Thing that took me a month longer than I'd expected it to. I'll tell you all about it in another month, by which time it will be less sekrit.

Chris Riddell, illustrator of FORTUNATELY THE MILK in the UK has asked me to tell the world that he will be doing a signing for his wonderful Goth Girl book (but he will also sign your Fortunately The Milk!) in Brighton on the 12th of October (at 4 pm at the North St Branch of Waterstones, to be precise). Chris also sends me amazing doodles of his touring life. (Can I put some of them on my blog? I asked him. Of course, he said, they are my therapy.)

...

Important things you should know:

1) BOSTON AREA: There are still tickets for the Becca Tribute night in Boston on Monday. The Dresden Dolls reunion! Me reading New Stuff I've Not Ever Read To Paying Audiences Before! Jason Webley nips out of retirement! Emilyn Brodsky is herself! A Cast of Thousands well hundreds well lots of amazing people... It's going to be wonderful. Get your tickets now at https://www.vendini.com/ticket-software.html?t=tix&e=a4e51df651ed159d57c8ee040f26e44d

2) NEW YORK AREA: The Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer at the Town Hall in New York on Saturday the 23rd of November sold out very quickly, with a lot of disappointed people, so we added another night: Friday the 22nd of November. Now you can see us AND catch the 50th Anniversary Episode of Doctor Who too. (It's an all ages event but there is likely to be swearing or songs and stories not meant for children.)  You can get tickets at this ticketmaster link.)

3) EVERYWHERE IN THE WHOLE WORLD AREA: The Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer triple CD, recorded from the tour of 2011 due to the loveliness of Kickstarter supporters, will finally be released to the general public on November the 19th.   It's a different edition to the one that 3500 Kickstarter backers got. You can also order it as a double LP.

It's up for preorders now. 

And there is also stuff! you can get with the pre-order, with Cynthia Von Buhler's amazing paper cut-out of Amanda and me on it, said stuff including a teapot, a tea towel, a notebook and mugs (There is a theme here.) All of it should be delivered well in time for the holidays.

To preorder it, just go to http://amandapalmer.net

...

And lastly, go and look at the TerraMar Project's website, if you haven't:  http://theterramarproject.org

The seas are our heritage, and we need to preserve and conserve them, for our children, for our planet, and for ourselves.

Labels: An Evening With Neil And Amanda., chris Riddell, dogless, stuff, teapots

Fortunately, the book... (Explained)

So I'm not certain right now if I have one book coming out or two, this September. So I will let you ponder the question for me.

I have a book called Fortunately, the Milk coming out from Harper Children's on September the 17th. It's published in the US, Canada, and many such places.

It's illustrated by the brilliant Skottie Young.

This is what the cover looks like:

I have a book called Fortunately, The Milk... (note the ellipses) coming out from Bloomsbury on September the 17th. It's published in the UK, Australia and various other places.

It's illustrated by the amazing Chris Riddell.

This is what the cover looks like:

(You cannot actually tell from this how astoundingly SHINY the cover is. Trust me. It is the shiniest cover you have ever seen.)

And I'm not really sure why there are two books. I know that different places and different publishers like different styles of illustration. And I am not grumbling, because I love Skottie's art, and I love Chris's art, and they are completely different -- in approach, in style, in storytelling.

You can get the feeling for Skottie's art, and the way the US version looks here:

http://issuu.com/harpercollinschildrens/docs/fortunatelymilk_usexcerptreveal

You get a feel for the UK edition with the same pages told in a British Way at:

http://issuu.com/bloomsburypublishing/docs/fortunately_the_milk_extract

You are, of course, allowed to order the edition you like best from the country of your choice. But in UK bookshops you'll find the Bloomsbury, in US ones you'll find the Harper Childrens...

Why is the milk in a bottle in the US, where milk almost never comes in bottles? Why is the milk in a carton in the UK, where milk actually does still turn up in bottles? Why does the dad in Chris Riddell's artwork look mysteriously sort of like me?

There are no answers to be found in this video of Chris Riddell drawing...

there ARE however, some answers, to all of your Fortunately, The Milk (...) questions here, in this video.

Watch it. All will be explained. Well, something will be explained, at any rate...

Labels: Americans and English people, chris Riddell, Fortunately the Milk, mysterious ellipses, Skottie Young

YOUR LONG, PAINFUL WAIT IS OVER! A Cover is Revealed!

This is the cover of the UK edition of Fortunately, The Milk, illustrated by the amazing Chris Riddell.

And when I say illustrated, I mean there is a glorious Chris Riddell drawing on pretty much every page.

This is quite possibly the most exciting adventure ever to be written about milk since Tolstoy's epic novel War and Milk. It has aliens, pirates, dinosaurs and wumpires in it (but not the handsome, misunderstood kind), also a never-adequately-explained-bowl-of-piranhas, not to mention a Volcano God.

It will now be released on the same day as the US edition, September the 17th.

If you are wondering what Fortunately, The Milk is about, here is a video of me describing it:

REMINDER:

I'LL BE ON THE ROAD A LOT THIS SUMMER AND AUTUMN.

The information on where I will be will be continually updated over at  Where's Neil, which is http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/. (It looks like the thing I've cut and pasted in below.)

The Portland signing has already sold out. The London Royal Society of Literature event has sort of sold out -- they're not selling any more tickets but are keeping a large handful to go out on the day.

 Canadian dates and Summer UK dates and events haven't been announced yet. And then there's the Autumnal Amazing FORTUNATELY THE MILK special event I am not even allowed to mention here...

05 May 2013	Los Angeles, CA	EW CapeTown Festival: Coraline screening with Q&A
14 Jun 2013	Bath, UK	Neil Gaiman in the Bath
17 Jun 2013	London, UK	Memory, Magic and Survival: Neil Gaiman in conversation with Claire Armistead
18 Jun 2013	Brooklyn, NY	The Last US Signing Tour: A Night at the Opera
19 Jun 2013	New York, NY	The Last US Signing Tour: Broadway Neil
20 Jun 2013	Saratoga Springs, NY	The Last US Signing Tour: The Shire
21 Jun 2013	Washington, DC	The Last US Signing Tour: Mr. Gaiman Goes to Washington
22 Jun 2013	Decatur, GA	The Last US Signing Tour: Gaiman on My Mind
23 Jun 2013	Coral Gables, FL	The Last US Signing Tour: Coral (signing) Line
24 Jun 2013	Dallas, TX	The Last US Signing Tour: Fright-Hair on Elm Street
25 Jun 2013	Denver, CO	The Last US Signing Tour: Under Cover Gaiman
26 Jun 2013	Phoenix, AZ	The Last US Signing Tour: Phoenix
27 Jun 2013	Los Angeles, CA	The Last US Signing Tour: Visitations and Angels
28 Jun 2013	San Francisco, CA	The Last US Signing Tour: Mr. Gaiman, with the book, in the Conservatory
29 Jun 2013	Portland, OR	The Last US Signing Tour: City of Books
02 Jul 2013	Seattle, WA	The Last US Signing Tour: Call of Clarion
06 Jul 2013	Santa Rosa, CA	The Last US Signing Tour: When We Walk in Fields of Copper
07 Jul 2013	Ann Arbor, MI	The Last US Signing Tour: A Man, A Book, A Theater, Ann Arbor
08 Jul 2013	Bloomington, MN	The Last US Signing Tour: Rock 'n' Roll High School
09 Jul 2013	Chicago, IL	The Last US Signing Tour: Gaiman Unabridged
10 Jul 2013	Nashville, TN	The Last US Signing Tour: Of Course You Know This Means War Memorial
11 Jul 2013	Lexington, KY	The Last US Signing Tour: Manchester Reservation
13 Jul 2013	Cambridge, MA	The Last US Signing Tour: The Parish at the End of the Tour

http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/

Labels: chris Riddell, Fortunately the Milk

The Simpsons and the Other Mother

Here's the SIMPSONS episode that I'm in. It's called THE BOOK JOB. I'm not sure how long it'll be up for.

If you're not in the US and you want to watch it, I recommend Tunnelbear (downloadable from http://www.tunnelbear.com/). It's what I use to tell the internet I'm either in the US or the UK, depending on where it would like me to be. They have a free service, but I eventually signed up for the paid one.

And, because it is good that you heard it here first, in the UK Bloomsbury are doing a special Tenth Anniversary edition of Coraline next year, illustrated by Chris Riddell. They just sent me his illustrations...



...

Also http://cbldf.org/homepage/cbldf-cyber-monday-25-amazing-graphic-novelists-personalize-your-gifts-in-the-spirit-of-giving/

Fight censorship this Cyber Monday by getting your holiday gifts from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund! 25 of today’s most popular graphic novelists will personalize their books to the fans on your list in exchange for donations to the Fund! Best of all, every item supports the Fund’s First Amendment legal work, and a portion of each contribution is tax-deductible.



As part of the CBLDF’s Spirit of Giving holiday gift drive, donations you make on Cyber Monday will be acknowledged by The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation who will make a contribution of $1 for every donation and gift order placed on the CBLDF’s website. In addition, they will contribute $5 for each new, renewing or gift membership made from now until December 31!
25 legendary graphic novelists are personalizing books for the CBLDF, including some of the season’s best new gift books.

Make your holiday comics giving a cinch by choosing from books by bestselling masters including Neil Gaiman, art spiegelman, Frank Miller, Dave Gibbons, and Scott McCloud; Lit comics lions Chester Brown, Dan Clowes, Los Bros. Hernandez, Seth, and Adrian Tomine; Indy comics icons Jeff Smith, Evan Dorkin, Larry Marder, Carla Speed McNeil and Terry Moore; Superhero visionaries Ed Brubaker, Jonathan Hickman, and Paul Levitz; or Hard boiled thrill makers Robert Kirkman, Jason Aaron, Brian Azzarello, Garth Ennis, Brian K. Vaughan, and Brian Wood!

Labels: CBLDF, chris Riddell, Coraline, The Simpsons episode with me in it

Why is the man on the right holding a microphone?

I did the Washington Post Book World online chat this morning -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2008/09/09/DI2008090902030.html and then did more telephone interviews (while also signing the sheets for the Subterranean Press edition of The Graveyard Book) after which Euan Kerr from National Public Radio in Minneapolis arrived.

I've known Euan for over a decade, but in the past I've always gone to the studios of KNOW in St Paul while he interviewed me. This time (because time is ticking before the start of the tour, and there isn't any to spare on things like driving out to the Twin Cities) he came out to my house. On arrival he donned a bee suit, and headed out with the bee team (me, Stitelers, Lorraine, Cat Mihos who is in town visiting Lorraine and who, fresh from Duran Duran and the Jonas Brothers, will be tour-managing some of the upcoming tour) to harvest honey. Euan sort-of-interviewed me while we did bee stuff, occasionally sticking his microphone down among the bees to capture authentic beeish noises, then afterwards we went together to the gazebo and did a proper interview, with actual questions and answers and things, and not just barked cries of "Can somebody please hold this?" and "Ow, I just got stung through my sock."

The first interviews when a book comes out are the fun ones, because you're finding out what you think: all the questions are new to you, and you're having to figure out what the answers are, and you aren't yet repeating yourself. The hard ones will be in a month, where I'll find myself thinking Did I ever really live in a very tall house? And did my infant son really ride a tricycle around the churchyard across the lane? Are these real things, or just things I've repeated so many times they've evaporated, so now all I remember is the memory of me saying them...?

Hello! I received the e-mail about your appearance at the National Book Fest, which I'm very excited about. In this e-mail, it said that you'd be doing signings, and that I should buy a copy of the Graveyard Book for you to sign. Buuuut, if it won't be available for me to purchase until September 30th, how can I have it for you to sign on the 27th? I'm confused, which I'll admit isn't an uncommon state for me. Will there be copies available in the Book Sales tent? Don't get me wrong, I'd be immensely happy for you to sign something else that I already own, but I'd love to know how this whole Graveyard thing can work, unless you have some sort of nifty time travel device that you've been working on in your spare time.

We have a special dispensation from Harper Collins to sell copies of The Graveyard Book at the National Book Festival (because it's, well, the National Book festival). The only downside on that is I don't think that copies sold on the Saturday will count on any of the bestseller lists, which start ticking on Tuesday night. But it would be silly to be there without books, and it's only three days, and I'm glad that Harpers thought it was a good idea.


I love some of your Books including Coraline...I can't wait to see the movie. I want to ask if its not much of a trouble is How can I contact Dave McKean? I also love his Artworks and I have to say your stories and His artwork are a very good combination. I have a lot questions I would like to ask Him as well. Thank you for your time to check this out...I hope that you continue your great works and am waiting for the Graveyard Book to come out ^_^

http://www.davemckean.com/ is now almost there. It has a front page up anyway. I'm sure that as soon as it goes live it will also have contact information. So that will be how people will contact Dave in the future. (And he's signing in Paris on the 4th of October).
...

When Kitty arrived she was wearing a new tee shirt which made me smile, as on it was a drawing which I'd done earlier this year when asked by Bloomsbury for a sketch of the kind of thing I was thinking of for a Graveyard Book cover, something they could show to Chris Riddell*, which I then sent Kitty when she asked about making a Graveyard Book tee shirt for Neverwear.net, to show her the kind of thing that was in my head when I was writing it, and the kind of direction that might be nice to go.


I didn't expect it to be a t-shirt, and I didn't expect to like the t-shirt that it became, but it's lovely.

...

I was checking something out today, and ran across what I think may be my favourite paragraph in ages. It's from a Chinese website about a county filled with conjurors and acrobats, and I shall reformat it as a poem, because I can:

People in Wuqiao County
are so knee on acrobatics
that they perform strings of somersault,
stack themselves up with amazing agility,
fight with fists or juggle magic
no matter in the streets or in the wheat fields,
even at the table or on the kang (bed).

Even some children hold the bottle
fully filled with oil or vinegar
when going to the store or grain supply center
buying oil or vinegar,
without one drop spilt. On rainy days,

groups of pupils walk in the rain with umbrellas
held on the nose. What’s more amazing,
on the wedding night,
eating cakes or drinking wine is effortless,
and the bride casts the candies
flying out with an empty hand
while the bridegroom send cigarettes
by clapping hands in the sky.


.....................................................................................................................................

*And because Chris Riddell can draw beautifully, and compose pictures just as well, he took my scratchy doodle idea and turned it into this:

Labels: chris Riddell, clapping hands in the sky, how to find Dave mckean, interviews, national book festival, the unbearable whiteness of beeing