WATCH ME READ GREEN EGGS AND HAM. WATCH ME, WATCH ME, SAM I AM.

You may remember that lots of wonderful books by me and Terry Pratchett are being auctioned and are in the lottery for Worldbuilders (and, er,  not so wonderful -- here's the eBay auction for my 1985 Duran Duran biography).

You may not have known that I'd agreed that if Worldbuilders made their stretch goal of  half a million dollars, I would film myself reading Dr Seuss's GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

Well, I did so agree.

And this afternoon, they made their goal.

I got the call, and I recorded the video. (As you can see, I am very beardy, because I am not going out in public, and am just writing.) And I've put it up on YouTube.

It made me miss having small kids around to read to. I hope you enjoy it.

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I should also mention that this beautiful full-colour David Mack print is now available from Neverwear (the previous, flat-colour version sold out a while ago).

Until now, Neverwear money has automatically gone to the CBLDF. This time, the money for this print is going to the Gaiman Foundation, which remains a major donor to the CBLDF.  (This year and last year it was the largest donor to the CBLDF, which I mention here to encourage other people and foundations to knock us into second or even third place.) 

(The Gaiman Foundation is a small family foundation which supports freedom of speech, literacy and education causes, and generally does good. I'm planning to sign and auction off a LOT of rare and unlikely stuff from my attic and basement for the Gaiman Foundation over the next couple of years.)

Kitty tells the story of this poem, and the tattoo that was made from it, at her website: http://neverwear.net/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=4&products_id=191. She's selling them for $25 each until Feb 4th, the official launch date,  when they go up to $38.

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The tickets to the Barbican TRUTH IS A CAVE IN THE BLACK MOUNTAINS events on July 4th and 5th are selling faster than anyone expected. If you don't have a ticket yet, and are planning to come, you might want to buy your ticket sooner than later: http://www.serious.org.uk/events/series/neilgaiman.

(And yes, yesterday's hint was real. FourPlay and Eddie and I will be performing it in San Francisco and New York in the week before the UK event. Details to come as soon as I'm allowed to announce them.)

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Hi!

I'd like to get some parts of your poem "Instructions" tattooed in the near future and I wanted to know if you'd be okay with it? This poem means a lot to me, but I'd totally understand if it was bothering you because of copyright and author rights.

Thank you!

I'm perfectly okay with any tattoos you get done of my words, or of pictures from my books. I'm just glad I've said something that meant enough to you that you want to carry it around with you permanently. 

(A quick Google Image Search turned up many dozens of wonderful literary tattoos... here are quotes from Instructions, Sandman, The Dangerous Alphabet, Stardust and American Gods.)

Labels: Green Eggs and Ham, tattoos, Words of Fire, worldbuilders

Secrets and Books

I am tumbling like a comet through Los Angeles on my way to Seattle on my way back to the Florida Treasure Coast, where I was feeling very comfortably anonymous until I got a message from the director of the local book festival asking me if I'd like to come and do stuff, as she'd noticed me out jogging while she was walking her dog.

In my head, if I have a beard and am wearing jogging clothes I am invisible and nobody will ever notice that I am me. This is apparently not quite as true in the world outside my head.

I've done lots of things in the not-much-time since I've been here.  Meetings about Things I Can't Yet Talk About with People I Can't Yet Tell You About, mostly, although this morning I also recorded a lot of narration for the WAYWARD MANOR game (see photo above [from here]. That is what I am doing in the photo). Things have progressed since the last time I saw Wayward Manor material: The Odd Gentlemen showed me what it's going to look like, and it's looking really good. I signed 200 posters for them, for people who preordered the packages at http://www.whohauntsneil.com/. 

In all this, I've been assisted by the noble and long-suffering Cat Mihos, and if you get a card from me, it's because she cares.

I'll be up before dawn to fly to Seattle, go to a friend's birthday, and then take a red-eye and fly overnight back to Florida, where I will return to being a solitary hermit, writing Sandman and myths.

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I just read my favourite graphic novel in a very, very long time. It was an advance copy of a book called KILL MY MOTHER, it's by Jules Feiffer, and it's his tribute to the work of the great Will Eisner (Feiffer was once Eisner's assistant) and to classic movies of the kind they don't make any more. The dialogue is wonderful, the plot enormously satisfying.  I've been a fan of Feiffer's pretty much as long as I've been able to read, and it makes me strangely happy that, at the age of 84, he's done something remarkable, ambitious and very different. Here's an article about the book from Publishers Weekly. It won't be out until much later in the year, and I will link to it then.

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If you are in the US, or have an American address, The OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE is being discounted this weekend ONLY  - it's at 50% off, $7.99, on Nook, on Kindle, at the Apple iBookstore and on Google Play. 

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I've talked a little in interviews about Henry Kuttner's HOGBEN FAMILY stories, which were, in different ways, inspirational both for THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE and for Alan Moore's BOJEFFRIES SAGA. (Here is a Bojeffries page by the inimitable Steve Parkhouse.)

A new edition of The Bojeffries Saga is coming out from Top Shelf in February. (Click on the link for more information.)

The first and only ever complete collection of the Hogben Stories, THE HOGBEN CHRONICLES, is out from Borderland Press RIGHT NOW, in a fancy signed limited edition. Henry Kuttner is dead, 

alass, so it is signed by me (I wrote the introduction) and F. Paul Wilson and Pierce Watters (who edited it).  Information on how to order it at http://borderlandspress.com/hbc.html.

Let's see. What else was I meaning to blog about, here? Oh. Right. Yes. 

Worldbuilders, Pat Rothfuss's charity to help Heifer International. He's put up a post listing all the things that he has in the auction by Terry Pratchett and by me. I gave him one of the sold out limited edition Dave McKean-designed copies of OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE, and a copy of the Dagmara Matuszak-drawn MELINDA. He has also managed to obtain other things - even the 1984 DURAN DURAN biography I wrote.

Some of these things are up for auction (here's the Auction Listing for DURAN DURAN), some in the lottery and you could win them for a $10 donation. 

They are up to about $375,000 so far. If they make it to $500, 000 I have told them I will record and post a video of me reading GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

And I will.

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PS -- CONGRATULATIONS to all at R. J. Julia Bookstore in Madison CT. I'll be doing a signing there this year. This is why.

PPS -- if you are in the South of England, you might want to pay a visit to Tunbridge Wells Museum before March 30th, and see the Dave McKean exhibition. There's information about it at http://www.anke.tw/anke/2014/01/are-comic-books-art.html. Lots of original Dave McKean art. In a proper museum. And, am very glad to say, he didn't even have to die first. 

Did you know Dave got his first computer in 1995? It tells you all about it on the Apple site. Although it doesn't include the bit about me having to convince him first that it was okay to get a modem and it didn't mean that electronic art thieves would come down the telephone line and take all his art away. (Do you have any idea how proud I am that Dave is their 1995 thingummy? I am so proud...)

Labels: completely abandons the idea of writing lots of labels and goes to bed instead, Dave McKean, Jules Feiffer, The Ocean At The End of the Lane, worldbuilders

Transcendent Jet lag: also an Elephant, Lunatic Heroes, Bad Sneezing & Media

I'm in Nantes, France, at the Utopiales Festival. A bit jet-lagged, but happy. I turned 52 about 40 minutes ago.

This morning I rode on a carousel and saw an elephant. Here is the elephant:

(Both of these things and more at http://www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/)

I just spent some of the last 40 minutes looking at the dailies from my Doctor Who episode. I won't put any spoilers about it up here, not yet -- not even things that probably aren't really spoilers, like the villain, the working title, or any of the stuff that's all over the web right now. (Google and it will all be yours...)

Dave McKean is here in Nantes. He drew me a birthday card...

I was in Vienna on Monday, kicking off a secret project with Lomo. (See some of my Lomo photos here, along with a Very Odd Interview).

One reason I'm a bit jet-lagged is that I flew with Amanda from Vienna on Tuesday morning to Boston, where she voted and we saw her best friend Anthony, who is having some very serious health issues, and then the next day I flew to France. 

(Amanda wrote a beautiful heartrending blog about who Anthony is, his illness, and his part in her life at her website here.)

Anthony's written a book, introduced by Amanda: stories about his life and family, called Lunatic Heroes. He's a terrific writer, and the book's good. He's having a book launch on the 20th on Nov in Lexington Ma., and Amanda and I are going to be reading/performing that night to support him. (I'll be reading some of my new novel, The Ocean at the End of the Lane.) 

The tickets for the reading are $10 each, and the money from the tickets is going to cancer care and research.

Tickets for the event are available at: http://lunaticheroes.bpt.me

If you're anywhere in the Boston area, come to Lexington and say hello.

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Would you like me to demonstrate how bad a sneeze-actor I am? You would? Then watch this...

It's the trailer for Chu's Day. Chu's Day will go on sale on January the 8th. It's for really little kids. (Here's an Amazon link.) Please spread the video around.

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Cool author Patrick Rothfuss is the guiding light and force behind the Worldbuilders movement, which exists mostly on his blog and raises money for Heifer International. As he explains on his blog,

Heifer International is my favorite charity. It helps people raise themselves up out of poverty and starvation. All over the world Heifer promotes education, sustainable agriculture, and local industry. 

They don’t just keep kids from starving, they make it so families can take care of themselves. They give goats, sheep, and chickens to families so their children have milk to drink, warm clothes to wear, and eggs to eat.

He's been giving away amazing books to people who donated, over the years. This year he's doing a calendar, with art by Lee Moyer. They asked if they could put a character from American Gods into it, and I said yes.

Apparently, Media looks and dresses a whole lot like the lovely Amanda Palmer. (It's a painting, not a photo.) She's June...

(I love the Lucy-Amanda creature talking to Shadow in the comic at the start of the month...)

You can order your Worldbuilders Calendar directly from Pat at http://thetinkerspacks.bigcartel.com/product/pre-order-2013-pin-up-calendar.

I hope you order yours. They'll make great gifts. And I trust that next year's Worldbuilders Fantasy Calendar will consist mostly of hunky Men-of-Fantasy wearing not very much at all, to balance things out.

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Sleep. It's time.

Labels: amanda palmer, Anthony Martignetti, Chu's Day, Dave McKean, Doctor Who, Pat Rothfuss, worldbuilders