All Hallows Read News, and stuff.

I'm way behind in blogging. Partly because I started playing with Tumblr (http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/), which is fun because it's novel and shiny, and because it makes a few things that are hard to do in Blogger really easy. Partly because I was off the map for a bit, doing a number of things, including spending time with Amanda at her sister's in Santa Fe, where I got to be an Uncle to her nephew Ronan who started out calling me Uncle Neil and then switched to Neilgaiman, and when last seen was resisting all Amanda's efforts to persuade him to call me Uncle Neilgaiman.

Yesterday I went to see the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls play. (They played Harbor City, in Duluth, and were honorably beaten.) My assistant Lorraine is now skating with them as Quiche Me Deadly, although yesterday she was not skating, instead she organised... well, as far as I could tell, she seemed to be organising everything. Lojo Russo played the intermission, for example. After the game, Lorraine took me over to her teammates and introduced me to them.

Photo by Ctein.

Eventually she persuaded them to give me back.

...

Right.

I'm at home, wrapping things up, and preparing for the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego, and then the Evening With Neil and Amanda tour West Coast Tour that follows it.

On October the 31st, Amanda will be a musical guest (she will be forming a small and magical supergroup for the occasion), and I will be in the guest's chair talking with, Craig Ferguson. I had hopes of getting him a MacSween's vegetarian haggis. Zooey Deschanel will be the other guest. It will be fun.

And then we will careen from the Late Late Show studios over to the Wilshire Ebell for the Soundcheck and then the first of the "Evening With Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer" shows.

(There are still tickets available for the LA show as I type this - perhaps because it's on Hallowe'en, and people often have things to do on Hallowe'en. The two San Francisco shows, Portland and Vancouver sold out immediately. There are a few tickets left for Seattle on November the 9th.)

Which reminds me...

A year ago, on a plane, it occurred to me that there should be a scary book-giving part of Hallow'en, and I wrote this, here on the blog:

I was on a flight home last night, and I thought,

You know, there aren't enough traditions that involve giving books.

There's World Book Day, which grew out of Don Quixote Day/Cervantes Birthday/St George's Day in Spain, where roses and books are given, but really, we need some more instant traditions that involve the giving of books, the kind that spread all over the world.

And then I thought,

Hallowe'en's next weekend...

So:

I propose that, on Hallowe'en or during the week of Hallowe'en, we give each other scary books. Give children scary books they'll like and can handle. Give adults scary books they'll enjoy.

I propose that stories by authors like John Bellairs and Stephen King and Arthur Machen and Ramsey Campbell and M R James and Lisa Tuttle and Peter Straub and Daphne Du Maurier and Clive Barker and a hundred hundred others change hands -- new books or old or second-hand, beloved books or unknown. Give someone a scary book for Hallowe'en. Make their flesh creep...

Give a scary book.

If you don't know what kinds of books there are, or what would be appropriate for the person you're giving a book to, talk to a bookseller. They love to help, most of them. (The ones that don't tend not to be booksellers for long.) Talk to librarians. (Do not plan to give away their books though, unless they are having a library sale.)

That's it. That's my idea.

Scary book. Hallowe'en.

Who's with me?


Neil

(And for those of you who protest that, honestly, you need no excuse to give books as gifts, and you do it all the time, and it comes to you as naturally as breathing -- well, that's wonderful, and I'm glad. Think of this as your chance to spread books to people to whom you might not normally give books, or to receive books you might otherwise never read.)

And, with help from the ever-amenable Web Goblin, Dan Guy, and the former Web Elf, Olga Nunes, we made the All Hallows Read website at http://www.allhallowsread.com/. (The festival was named on Twitter.)

This year, lots of people have taken the severed head and started to run with it.

Tor.com, for example, has a great list of suggested books. Here's a great piece on the Huffington Post website, with an excellent video.

A few months ago I called Elise Howard at Harper Children's, who has been my editor there for the last decade, and spoke to her about it. She loved the idea of getting involved. She offered to print a poster, for the winning entry in an All Hallow's Read poster contest...

Artists: Enter the All Hallow’s Read poster contest, and your winning design might become the official All Hallow’s Read poster in 2012.

Your original submission should spread the word about All Hallow’s Read and encourage participation in the program. The winning poster design will be announced and featured on AllHallowsRead.com and will become a limited-edition poster to be printed and distributed to participating booksellers for All Hallow’s Read in 2012 (printing and distribution sponsored by HarperCollinsPublishers).

I thought that the poster idea was a wonderful one, and was thrilled that they were going to sponsor that when I got another message from Elise. This time with something even more fun that they were going to do for people in New York. On Tuesday...

Hi, Neil.

We’ve got everybody on board here at Harper for All Hallow’s Read and our big book drop on 10/25. In addition to encouraging readers to participate in the AHR book drop and retweeting their efforts and pictures, we’re going to drop sixty Harper titles for readers of various ages at locations around New York City. Lucky readers will find copies of The Graveyard Book and Coraline, Dark Eden by Patrick Carmen, Possess by Rachel McNeil, Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz, and Vampire Boy’s Good Night by Lisa Brown.

We’re going to create a downloadable sticker for All Hallow’s Read book drop participants to print and use, so that book finders can take up the mission, too.

Throughout the day, we’ll call out the AHR book-drop project on our Twitter and Facebook accounts. Look for your favorite Harper staffers in the #AllHallowsRead discussion on 10/25!

Elise

In addition to this book drop project, they've made some fine scary book recommendations (you can read them at http://www.allhallowsread.com/book-recommendations/ - and I did a list myself, with the help of about 1800 suggestions from Facebook, right now as a PDF on that page.

Of course, you do not need to be a publisher to do a book drop, and we now have a page on the All Hallows Read site with a Book Drop Sticker that you can print out and put in a book, which lets people know that the book is there to be taken and read.

And All Hallows Read even has its own forum, where people can exchange ideas, tips and useful ways to give scary books.

...

It feel like the end of a decade, too. Ten years ago I was an adult author who was going to publish a book called Coraline, my first children's book from a major publisher. I had two editors, Sarah Odedina at Bloomsbury in the UK and Elise Howard at Harper Children's in the US. They were two of the smartest editors anyone could have. I felt comfortable with them, and safe with them, and they advised but never ordered, they supported me as an author, they were patient when they had every right to ask where the book I was meant to be writing was. One on each side of the Atlantic.

And in a matter of weeks, both of them have gone - each of them has her own imprint. Sarah is publishing Bonnier's children's imprint, Hot Key Books, in the UK, and Elise will be creating a children's line for Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.

I wanted to wave them goodbye here, and to say thank you for everything they did. Their authors will be very lucky to have them, and I'll miss them.

...

Hi Neil,

This is too long to Tweet, so I was wondering, are you aware of Mark Oshiro's "Mark Reads" project and the fact he's currently doing (almost finished) American Gods?

"Mark Reads" started as "Mark Reads Twilight" and was done as a joke, but when he started blogging Harry Potter in the same vein, he realised he actually liked the series and stopped making fun of it - and he now does books that he actually hopes to enjoy and think seriously about - he does chapter by chapter reviews/reactions and tries to read completely spoiler free. The blog has had literally millions of hits and hundreds of thousands of followers.

I know you can't mention everyone who ever does a reading project of one of your books and that you must have heard everything there is to hear, but the real reason I'm writing to you about him today, though, is because of something in particular he said in today's review (chapter 18)

"that’s half the charm of American Gods. This might technically be a fantasy novel, but it rarely feels fantastic. It feels like the very best history lesson I could ask for, or perhaps a fireside story told with sincerity and heart, or maybe even a tale handed down over the centuries. It’s comforting even if it is disturbing at times, and I found myself feeling like this was all being shared with me out of respect for me as a person. It’s not often that I feel that way about a book; it’s like Gaiman is a close friend who trusts you, so he hands you this as a gesture that he thinks you’re an all right person, that he feels safe in saying that you deserve this."

I just thought that was a nice sentiment about you, and that you should be aware of it.

http://www.markreads.net

best always,

Natalie Fisher

I went over to Mark Reads and I was really impressed. It was fun, as an author, watching a reader paying attention and writing about his reactions, all the way through. There were some really smart people in the comments, too. (You can follow along as Mark reads American Gods at http://markreads.net/reviews/category/american-gods/)

...

And finally, two things: Lemony Snicket writing about money and about cake at Occupy Writers, and Elvis Costello sings one of my favourite songs from his first album, My Aim Is True, but with monsters instead of angels, and a two instead of a shoe.

Labels: All Hallow's Read, An Evening With Neil And Amanda., roller derby, The Angels No Longer Want to Wear My Red Shoes

I bet you think it's easy just to eat a banana and not say anything

You may remember this video. It was filmed by Amanda's assistant, Superkate, on Brighton Beach, at the beginning of September.



Well, this one is the sequel. It's our thank you. Filmed a few days ago in a mall in Cambridge MA by Claudia Gonson. The sound is a bit echoey.



...

Over at http://superpunch.blogspot.com/2011/10/art-inspired-by-neil-gaimans-american.html there's an amazing assortment of art inspired by American Gods. All sorts of styles and kinds of art. Here's one I love, of the Zorya, and Shadow and Czernobog playing checkers.



...

Here's an astonishing video of the Evelyn Evelyn song "Have you Seen my Sister Evelyn?"

I was going to write that it was because I wrote something about this song on this blog that I got a "thank you for saying nice things about our song" email from Amanda Palmer that turned into a correspondence, and then turned into me agreeing to write some stories for the Who Killed Amanda Palmer book, and then, a little over a year afterwards, developed into the start of the relationship that we now have, and then I went back and looked for the link, and discovered that actually it was Evelyn Evelyn's "Elephant Elephant" song that I was nice about. Proving that memory is a fallible sort of a thing.

But it's still an amazingly beautiful video.

...

Would you like to have lunch with me, in LA or when I'm on the road? Or would you rather have lunch with Frank Miller and his editor Bob Schreck? Or have writer and former DC Comics publisher Paul Levitz review your portfolio and tell you how to make it in comics? Or have Frank Quitely sketch a postcard for you? Or have me do a sketch on a postcard for you? (Frank's will be prettier.)

All these things, and a ridiculously long list of other things, are possible. Details and a list of things at http://cbldf.org/homepage/be-counted/ where the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is having an NPR like membership drive, with some amazing things for people who want to pledge for them. The donations are big, but count as charitable donations, and come off your taxes.

And if you don't want (or cannot afford) one of the big ticket items, you can still - and should - become a CBLDF member at http://cbldf.org/contribute/membership/. Annual membership starts at $25, for which you get a Green Lantern membership card. But no power ring.

Labels: American Gods, banana, CBLDF, Evelyn Evelyn, the fallibility of human memory

One Ordinary Day with autumn leaves

I am home, after ten days of working on a Grand Guignol theatre piece with Stephin Merritt and director Steven Bogart, and some wonderful and enthusiastic young actors.

This is how enthusiastic they were: when we had a ten minute break, and they had been working all day, and I asked if anyone would mind being zombies and or murdering each other while I talked about All Hallow's Read, none of them did, and they murdered each other with enthusiasm.



Right. I am at home with a Maddy who has lost her voice. It is very sweet. She whispers everything, and I make her cups of lemon and honey. As I am typing this, I am listening to her play the violin. It's a perfect Indian Summer - a sunny, warm autumn, and the leaves are beautiful, and October is most definitely in the chair.

Lots of things going on. Cat Mihos is ebaying a lot of rarities for Trevor Valle -- friend, fan and the reason why I have the Neilgaiman.com website. Trevor's going through some horrible medical stuff right now. Kitty and Trevor explain what's going on at http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/2011/09/trevor-treasure-chestopening-soon.html, tells you about some of the rarities and cool things at http://kittysneverwear.blogspot.com/2011/10/trevor-chest-up-in-full-effect-yall.html and the actual auction is on eBay at http://www.ebay.com/sch/kitty9thlife/m.html?_trksid=p4340.l2562

Lots of cool, rare stuff - including three pages of Marc Hempel art from Sandman: The Kindly Ones.

Kitty also learned that, back in 2000, Trevor had bought from the CBLDF a box of the original Craig Thompson screenprint/posters for the Last Angel Tour. These have long since sold out on the CBLDF website, and aren't simply available anywhere anymore. She bought them from Trevor outright, and is going to be putting them up on Neverwear soon. (There's a picture of Trevor holding one on the front page of the website, although they aren't for sale yet.)

I found an image on the web of one of them. They look like this, were silkscreened onto heavy card stock, and have to be signed with a paint-pen.

...

In the UK, the Society of Authors wants to draw attention to the BBC's cutbacks to short stories.

This is what I wrote in The Guardian Blog about it;

I love short stories. I grew up on them, and the stories that had an effect on me are now encoded into my DNA. Shirley Jackson's "One Ordinary Day With Peanuts" and "The Lottery". Saki's "Sredni Vashtar". WW Jacobs's "The Monkey's Paw". Kipling's "The Gardener". There are heaps of them, and it's love all the way.

For a working writer, this is a silly sort of love. You should write novels. Short stories sell for the price of a good dinner, if you're lucky (and the magazines and anthologies that used to buy them are themselves fading away or gone completely). When they get reprinted they won't cover the taxi fare to get to the dinner. I'm lucky, and have collected my short stories into books that sell well for short-story ­collections, but still only a fraction of the number that my novels sell.

But short stories are the best place for young writers to learn their craft: to try out different voices and techniques, to experiment, to learn. And they're a wonderful place for old writers, when you have an idea that wouldn't make it to novel length, one simple, elegant thing that needs to be said. People like reading short stories. And they like ­listening to short stories.

For years, Radio 4 has supported the short story. Ten-minute stories, professionally read, give writers young and old a chance to make a ­professional sale. Full disclosure: I wrote a short story, "Jerusalem", for them a few years ago, and grew up listening to short stories on Radio 4 and dreaming that one day I'd have a story on there.

Now the station's support for the short story is waning. The Tweetathon we're doing to bring attention to this (each Wednesday for the next five weeks, in association with the Society of Authors, a writer will tweet the first line of a story and tweeters will add the next four sentences to create a short story in 670 characters) may or may not produce great stories: hive minds are excellent news-gatherers and commentators but tend not to produce great art.

All I'm hoping is that it reminds people how much pleasure readers, and listeners, get from short stories, and how much we learn from writing them. If we produce another "The Monkey's Paw" that'll be a bonus.

In Wednesday, at 11 in the morning UK time, and at 6 in the evening UK time, the Society of Authors will put up the first line of a short story by me on their twitter account, @Soc_of_Authors, and they want you to continue it. There will be two different stories. (I don't even know which ones they will use -- I gave them a choice of several.)

http://www.societyofauthors.org/soa-news/society-authors-launch-short-story-tweet-thon-soatale

...

You can hear my This American Life talk on Adventures at http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/448/adventure from tomorrow, or all over the US on various Public Radio stations from Friday Night. Er, the night before last.

...



When last seen, I was proofreading A LITTLE GOLD BOOK OF GHASTLY STUFF. It was proofread, and has gone off to press. Because too many people had ordered copies, more than expected, while I had only signed enough limitation sheets for the limited edition, publishers Tom and Elizabeth Monteleone asked me if they could print more books to satisfy the people who had ordered...

So I said yes.

Which means right now you can STILL order an unsigned edition of A LITTLE GOLD BOOK OF GHASTLY STUFF. It's an assemblage of stories, essays, poems, reviews, speeches and introductions by me, about 25,000 words in all, with a Gahan Wilson cover showing me being attacked by uglies.

Ordering details are at: http://www.borderlandspress.com/littlegold.html. Yes, the shipping abroad fees are either twice or four times the cost of the book. Scary. Sorry.

If you think you may want one, order fast. The books are now being printed, and they won't go back to press when they've sold out.

...

Lastly, it seems that Barnes and Nobles across the US are removing 100 DC Comics Graphic Novels from their shelves (literally removing them and sending them back to the warehouses for the next four months) in response to DC's deal with Amazon.com to make these 100 Graphic Novels available as digital exclusives to the Kindle Fire.

I mentioned this on Twitter, and wound up getting a strange deluge of hate mail. Here's a polite one:

I never thought I would have to tell you that myself, my children and several of my friends are extremely disappointed with you. I can't believe that you would let your Sandman fans down by letting DC/Warner Bros release your books on the Kindle and not all e-readers.

I was very excited when I heard that Sandman was coming out as an e-book but was heartbroken when it was announced that *I* and my kids won't have it on our readers.

Thanks.

And I wonder why on earth people assume that I, or Alan Moore, or Frank Miller, have any say at all in DC Comics's marketing decisions. Do they think that someone at DC calls us up and gets our permission before they do such deals, or that we have any ability to stop it? The first I heard about the exclusive, was hearing that Barnes and Noble staff were having to take their graphic novels off the shelves.

I think that Barnes and Noble's reasons for doing this are pretty obvious. It's to intimidate other publishers and make it clear that exclusives with Amazon will not be tolerated. But, following the death of Borders, Barnes and Noble's position as the US's sole huge bricks and mortar shop chain is something that it's very easy to abuse. I hope that this is a negotiating tactic, because otherwise it does bad things for customer choice all around, digitally and otherwise. (It's also publicised the upcoming Fire, publicised that DC's basic graphic novels are available there, and publicised that they are no longer in Barnes and Nobles, in a way that must make Amazon the happiest company on the block this morning.)

There's a beautiful leatherbound edition of American Gods and Anansi Boys that's only available from Barnes and Noble. I'd hate to see this considered justification by Amazon for removing those books from the Kindle.

On the good side, I hope that it means that local comic shops (http://comicshoplocator.com/ for your nearest) will stock and sell more copies of that basic 100 Graphic novel list.

If there's any more news on this, I'll post it. Otherwise, I'm just waiting, and remembering how long and how much effort it took to get the books into bookstores, and being sad that they aren't there, and knowing that it's not the fault of the people who work there and had to take them off the shelves (or explain to customers that they don't sell them any longer, but you can still order them from Barnes and Noble's website).

..

Right. Off to work.

I've been experimenting with a Tumblr recently. It's fun. http://neil-gaiman.tumblr.com/

Labels: autumn, Craig Thompson, short stories, The Last Angel Tour poster

WARNING: NOT SAFE FOR WORK UNLESS YOU WORK IN A MUSEUM AND HAVE THE SECURITY CAMERAS OFF

Hullo world.

I'm in Boston, right now, actually in Cambridge, working with director Steven Bogart, a wonderful crew of young actors, and Stephin Merritt, evolving a theatrical thing about the Grand Guignol, the Parisian theatre of horror, in the early years of the 20th century. We're in a church sub-basement, and I worry a little about the cries of pain, screams of fear, and sounds of human beings completely breaking down as they are tortured and destroyed making it up to the street, but if they do it doesn't seem to bother anyone.

Jessica Fox, a filmmaker, is recording our process, and a couple of days ago we headed into a nearby graveyard and recorded a promotional video for All Hallow's Read. (What is it? learn all at http://www.allhallowsread.com/) I love actors. They are people who will happily sacrifice their 10 minute breaktime to murder each other in a graveyard in the background of someone else's video.

Yesterday morning Amanda and I were invited to the Museum of Fine Arts' DEGAS AND THE NUDE exhibition. Amanda had done the audio guide to the exhibition, the one you get from an iPhone as you walk around the exhibition. This is because a) she has a beautiful talking voice and b) she can talk with authority about being nude. We were given a private showing. Amanda had brought chalks and some paper along, because she had had an idea.

"I thought I could take off my clothes in front of the Degas nudes, and then Neil could draw me," she said to the Museum people, as they began our tour.

They conferred, decided this would be just fine as long as the security cameras were turned off. Then they discovered that they couldn't turn off the security cameras, so they had a man in a forklift come in and hang coffee cups over the security camera lenses in that room. And I sketched nude Amanda in chalks for ten minutes. Then I got in a cab and went over to WBUR Boston to record a bit I'm doing for THIS AMERICAN LIFE about Adventures and how I don't have them.

Ira Glass was on the other end of the line. He introduced himself. "How was your day?" he asked. So I told him. There was a pause. "Are you lying?" he asked, sensibly, and I said no, I wasn't.

The THIS AMERICAN LIFE piece goes out this weekend. The theme is ADVENTURES.

More next post...

Labels: Degas, nudity, What adventures are

Not just procrastinating on proofreading...

Good morning.

Happy Banned Books Week!

It's a grey, quiet Saturday here. Everyone's off doing stuff: it's just me and the dogs.

On Thursday, Sharon and Bill Stiteler came over and we checked the hives and started to feed them. We have six hives right now - two Italians (doing brilliantly in comparison with everyone else after a late start and a lousy year - we even had a super full of honey), two Carniolans (doing okay) and two Russian hives (one may or may not survive even a mild winter, one has a solid chance). We came back to the house.

Sharon Stiteler started making noises. Normally when Sharon makes noises, it means that something exciting has been spotted, and it's generally to do with birds.

It was.

A merlin had taken a red-bellied woodpecker from one of my birdfeeders, and was eating it in front of the house.

Here's a photo I took of the merlin. Sharon tells the whole story, with many photos and explanation of, among other things, how she knew it was a lady merlin over at her blog: http://www.birdchick.com/wp/2011/09/merlin-vs-red-bellied-woodpecker/

Yesterday I decided to get some beeswax from the buckets of slumgullion in the garage. It took three tries to figure out how to do it correctly, but I now have a pie-dish filled with clean, perfect, butter-yellow beeswax, smelling faintly of honey, and know how to get it right for next time.

No idea what to do with the wax, mind. But at least it won't get thrown out.

Today I'm proofreading. The Little Gold Book Of Ghastly Stuff for Borderlands Press comes out very soon, and they emailed me over the pdfs last night. It's a really sweet little collection, almost entirely from the last decade: two poems, four stories (including, for the first time anywhere, the complete version of my first ever published short story, "Featherquest", published in 1984, cut by half on its first appearance and never reprinted. Do not get overly excited: it isn't very good), two oddments, four articles, a couple of speeches, a few book reviews and suchlike. I signed the 500 limitation pages last week. Then Borderlands discovered that too many people had ordered the signed edition and asked me if I would give my permission for them to overrun the print-run and sell some unsigned, un-numbered copies, to make the people who ordered copies they didn't have happy, and I said yes.


The unsigned copies have not yet sold out, although they will probably go very soon after I put this up. There's only ever going to be one printing of this, so, if you want a copy, head over to http://www.borderlandspress.com/littlegold.html and order one now. Bizarrely, it costs more to mail it internationally than the book costs (four times as much if you want to internationally Fedex it).

I do not enjoy proofreading.

And I need to go back to it.

Before I do, here is a Bill Stiteler film of me shaking bees off a frame of honey or three on Thursday:

The Vanishing Bee Trick from Bill Stiteler on Vimeo.

And I need to close some tabs, so...

A link to the the Society of Authors website to explain a bit more about the short story tweet thingummy they are doing, and in which I am participating: http://www.societyofauthors.org/soa-news/society-authors-launch-short-story-tweet-thon-soatale. I wrote something that should have been a blog entry here for the Guardian and felt guilty about it, but suspected I might be reaching more Radio 4 listeners. Here is the link to me talking about why I love short stories and why:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/sep/16/neil-gaiman-tweetathon-society-of-authors-radio-four


The CBLDF has started this year's membership drive with some amazing donation incentives. You should still get your $25 membership, which will get you in to CBLDF events and help fund Free Speech in comics, but this year they are offering things like lunch with famous and important comics people, portfolio reviews and suchlike. (Lunch with me in New York has already gone. Two lunches to go...) Details at http://cbldf.org/homepage/be-counted/


P Craig Russell has written a blog about the creation of Sandman 50 at http://www.artofpcraigrussell.com/?p=588

My favourite photos are these from the Atlantic showing New York in the 1940s. They are in colour, which somehow changes everything. http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/in-the-throes-of-creation-color-photos-of-new-york-in-the-1940s/244498/#slide1

Amanda Palmer talks to USA Today about her Evelyn Evelyn graphic novel, while Cynthia Von Buhler explains and demonstrates her art methods.

I saw Tori last week in LA for a wonderful happy-sad evening of red wine and catching up, and she gave me a copy of Night of Hunters, her new CD. It's become my favourite thing of hers in the last decade - I am playing it much too much. It's haunting, and her daughter, my fairy goddaughter Tash sings on several tracks, something that could have gone so very wrong and didn't. Here's a link to a Tori Interview, with a video for one of the songs (in which you will see the house in which I wrote much of Anansi Boys and in which I finished American Gods, and in which you will see Tash).

...

And finally, as anyone who has been on Google has noticed (have you puppetted the Google Doodle? No? Quick. Go and doodle with it) today would have been Jim Henson's Birthday.

(I've been given a lot of honours in my life, but I am not sure that there is anything I am prouder of than this one.

Honest.)

And here's a video about the Doodle in question...



Okay. Proofreading time. Wish me luck.

Labels: bees, bird eat bird, birdchick, CBLDF, Jim Henson, Merlin, save the short story, short stories, Tori Amos

A Picture of the Cat of Doom

It got cold. The air smells amazing, the mosquitoes have gone, the sky is a perfect blue and summer is over.

My friend Kyle Cassidy is out here for a few days to shoot photographs of Miss Maddy, and also shoot Lorraine's first ever Roller Derby Bout on Saturday with the Chippewa Valley Roller Girls. He and I went for a walk in the night and wore warm coats, and played Children of the Corn in the meadow, and you could smell the distant winter on the air.

Actually, I should clarify. The above things are what Kyle is officially here to shoot. Unofficially, he's here for the cats. This is his iphone picture of Princess looking like the Cat of Doom from a horror movie.

...

Tickets go on sale today, Friday the 16th, for the EVENING WITH NEIL AND AMANDA shows we're doing in November, for all the stops except San Francisco, which goes on sale on Sunday. Given the speed with which the tickets released for presale for Vancouver and San Francisco sold out today, you may want to get your orders in early - as near to ticket release time as you can. (10 am for everywhere except Portland, where it is 11 am because they like their mornings in Portland.)

October 31st
LOS ANGELES, CA
Wilshire Ebell Theatre
Tickets go on sale Friday, 9/16 at 10AM PDT.
http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/09004728855F4205

(Costumes! It's Hallowe'en in Los Angeles. We'll suggest that people wear costumes.)

November 4th

SAN FRANCISCO, CA
Palace of Fine Arts
Tickets go on sale Sunday 9/18 at 10AM PDT.

http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1C00472C7527579B

November 6th

VANCOUVER, BC
Vogue Theatre
Tickets go on sale 9/16 at 10:00am.
https://tickets.voguetheatre.com/Online/

November 8th

PORTLAND, OR
Aladdin Theatre
Tickets go on sale 9/16 at 11am PDT.
http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/0F004728D41C4F13

SEATTLE, WA

Moore Theatre

Tickets go on sale at 9/16 at 10 AM PDT

http://purchase.tickets.com/buy/TicketPurchase?pid=7109675

...

Let's see. My old friend and collaborator Dave McKean was made an honorary Doctor of Design in Wolverhampton. I do not think I have ever seen him look so uncomfortable as in these photos. Wish he'd kept the hat on, though.

Which is to say, congratulations Dave.

If you're in the UK, get to Foyles to see Dave's "Magic of Reality" exhibition http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Events/Detail.aspx?eventId=1338- the original art he made for the book he's just done with Richard Dawkins is on display.

...

I meant to link to the One Book One Chicago site. They had people make books, literally: reinvent and rebind the books that were One Book One Chicago choices over the years. Audrey Niffenegger was one of the judges. A Neverwhere won. Read all about it, and see many of the books at http://onebookonechicago.tumblr.com/post/9588689435/one-book-many-interpretations

...

Here's the World Book Night list of the Hundred Best Loved Books in the UK: http://www.worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-top-100-books

Books of mine got into the top hundred several times. Well, four and half times. (Good Omens being the half, shared with Terry Pratchett.) Which is really thrilling. The books, with links to each book, and the votes they got are at http://www.worldbooknight.org/your-books/the-wbn-interactive-top-100-books

..

Right. Sleep now. How on earth did it get this late?

Labels: an evening with neil and amanda, I do not have an honorary doctorate but am now holding out for a dukedom, kyle cassidy, Princess, world book night

The Moon over the Corn Field

The moon is full.

There's a storm coming, with a cool breeze blowing across the warm evening, and the cornfield is alive with rustles and whispers. The white dogs in the moonlight slip in and out of the corn like ghosts, and I cannot stop my head building nightmarish scenarios no matter how hard I try.

I went for a longish bike ride with Maddy today and we watched Doctor Who (we're almost caught up). She put up with me feeding her interesting salads for dinner. ("How is it?" "Well... it's.. interesting, dad.")

Life is quiet right now. I'm home in the midwest, Amanda's in Boston, we won't see each other again for two weeks. I miss her, but I'm enjoying being on my own and getting work done without regard to anyone else's schedule or needs, and I would be willing to bet an enormous pie that she's having a wonderful time catching up on work without having any attention on me. I dunno. It works for us.

We had a long phone conversation today about the tour we're doing in Oct/November, during which we decided 1) How long the show would be and thus 2) how long we'd each take for solo bits. I've decided to read different stories at every venue. We also decided that the LA Hallowe'en Neil and Amanda show would have a costume competition of some kind. (Here's a video of me walking the line to get into the costume competiton last Hallowe'en at the House on the Rock. It will be a shorter, less formal affair than that was.)

Astonishingly, over $100,000 has now been pledged to the Kickstarter project, and we talked about what that lets us do for the CD package, for the "surprise" thank you gifts (we decided what they are going to be today - something special that Amanda had wanted to do for Who Killed Amanda Palmer, but which she couldn't afford), how we're going to keep people informed of what's happening and what we're doing and making with that.

I really like pre-selling things as a way of bringing them into the world - it means we're making enough for the people who want them, we can afford to make them as well as we want, and it means that people are getting something real. We aren't worrying about marketing costs. We don't have to get a record label, and then try and persuade them to make the thing we want. We just do it.

If you are thinking of doing a Kickstarter (or an Indiegogo or similar, for those outside the US), can I point you at former Web Elf Olga Nunes' excellent essay at http://olganunes.com/2011/01/on-lamp-kickstarter-and.php? Everything that Olga suggested, we put into practice. Garrett Gibbons's blog at http://garrettgibbons.com/blog/successful-kickstarter-campaigns is also really useful and wise.

And make your video interesting, watchable, and clear. A goofy song about baby hamsters and time machines may get your Kickstarter funded. I just watched a Kickstarter video from a good friend which was very beautiful and artistic, but didn't actually tell anyone what the project was or why it should be supported, and I do not think it will get its funding, which will be a shame.

...

I'm a huge fan of Public Radio International's "Selected Shorts". I subscribe to their podcast. I loved their Sherman Alexie show a couple of weeks ago, am looking forward to listening to this week's Stephen King story that my phone just downloaded.

So it is with pride that I cut and paste from an email from Jennifer Brennan at Symphony Space letting me know (and now letting you know) when the two shows that they made from the evening we did earlier this year will be broadcast:

Show 3. Love in Real Life

October 13 2011

“A Life in Fictions,” by Kat Howard, performed by Marin Ireland

“The Thing About Cassandra,” by Neil Gaiman, performed by Josh Hamilton

Show 12. The Magical Imagination of Neil Gaiman

December 15 2011

“Troll Bridge,” by Neil Gaiman, performed by Neil Gaiman

“The Circular Ruins,” by Jorge Luis Borges, performed by Boyd Gaines

(I was particularly happy about all this because Kat Howard's story was picked by the producers from the STORIES anthology I edited with Al Sarrantonio, and I had nothing to do with its selection - although I'd been smart enough to notice it was good when Kat (whom I had taught at Clarion) emailed it to me to read when she'd finished it, and I read it, loved it, and sent it to Al with the suggestion that that we bought it.)

...

I called Dave McKean a pornographer on Twitter. He asked me not to do it again, because, he said, he suddenly found himself followed on Twitter by some very shady bots. But I am proud to say that he has now added pornographer (or eroticist, perhaps) to his CV.

When I stayed at his place, two weeks ago, he gave me a book called Celluloid. It's his newest graphic novel, a wordless Dave Mckeany book-length sexual fantasia. It's being published all over the world - in the US it's out from Fantagraphics, in France by Delcourt. It's really human and beautiful and fantastic (in the literal sense of the word). A woman gets frustrated waiting for her man to come home, finds a projector and enters a world of sexual fantasies. (I think my favourite is when she has an encounter with someone who I assume was Diana of the Ephesians.) Lots of different art styles, all of them very much Dave Mckean.

You should buy it from your local comic shop. Or, if they're out (or if you're too embarrassed to ask them for it) get it online. Lots of places sell it. Here's an Amazon link if you want to check it out.

...

And finally, a mysterious mystery of great mysteriosity from Edinburgh. Paper book-sculptures that support libraries have been appearing. Ian Rankin has been drawn into their web. (Can book-sculptures make webs?)

http://community.thisiscentralstation.com/_Mysterious-paper-sculptures/blog/4991767/126249.html

It's been suggested that this artist might have had something to do with them. I have no idea whether she did or not, but her book sculptures are wonderful either way.

You should follow both links. They will do your heart good.

Labels: an enormous pie, Celluloid, dogs in the moonlight, Kickstarter, married life, moon, Selected Shorts, whether or not Dave McKean is a pornographer

Memory

How to tell my dogs apart in the water. Cabal looks like this:

While Lola looks like this.

Or this.

Or this.

...

These were the blog posts I wrote here exactly ten years ago:

Tuesday, September 11, 2001

The phone lines to New York aren't doing anything, and the cell phone numbers I've been dialling are dead. I'm scared for my friends. Watching CNN, worrying.

posted by Neil Gaiman 9:12 AM

---

Now got BBC America on. Many e-mails from friends to say they are alive... Many more I'm waiting to hear from.

Was meant to be going to the UK in a couple of days for Douglas Adams' memorial service, and then to Trieste in Italy for a festival. Right now we'll see whether or not planes are going to be flying...

posted by Neil Gaiman 10:24 AM

This is what I did today.

I picked up lots of fallen sunflowers and propped them against the side of the house for no real reason other than they looked nice like that. I did some baking. I wrote some of a movie. I phoned friends I hadn't talked to in a while, just to say hello. I failed completely to get hold of anyone in New York by phone. I answered the phone a lot, because there were people calling in from New York. I decided not to fly to London on Saturday. I watched the documentary on The Wicker Man on the DVD (puzzled that the version I taped from the TV years ago is longer than the theatrical version, and shorter than the 99 minute 'extended' one). I read a book about the Lazzi (or comedy routines and business) of the commedia dell'arte, with a weird sort of theory that they might make a metaphor. Cleaned the catboxes. Worried about the last couple of friends of mine in New York I've not heard from yet. Read Maddy tonight's chapter of Howl's Moving Castle. Made a Red Cross donation at Amazon.com. Taught Maddy several card tricks.

Trying to assert normality.

There are worse ways to spend a day.

posted by Neil Gaiman 1:16 AM

A few days later the servers for AmericanGods.com, where the blog was located, were in New York, and got some kind of virus, so the entry that was up at the top of the blog was the entry for June the 18th 2001, which finished,

See you at Borders World Trade Centre tomorrow, if you`re in the NY area. The Libretto is working fine but if the bloody thing has a real apostrophe I can`t find it. So I`m using these.

The American Gods tour began in the World Trade Centre, and then I got home from the tour and nobody would ever sign in that bookshop ever again.

It's weird reading some of the old posts, and remembering:

From Sept 14th 2001, two posts:

An e-mail arrived in the FAQ thing explaining, very reasonably, that AMERICAN GODS made the World Trade Centre Disaster happen. It began by quoting Jerry Falwell's recent comments, The abortionists have got to bear some burden for this because God will not be mocked. And when we destroy 40 million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way -- all of them who have tried to secularize America -- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.' And then explained that the reader had read much of American Gods before realising that even reading it was an act of idolatrous demon-worship, and had burned his copy. (Or her copy, I suppose.) It wanted to know if I was happy now?

The implication, I guess, was that God was just about tolerating the pagans, Lesbians, ACLU etc., but then American Gods was published, and it tipped Him over the edge.

Insert picture of author here, sighing, shaking his head, getting back to work.

...

Lots of nice letters from religious people of all stripes and sects who like reading books, disavowing both Mr Falwell and the previous correspondent. S'okay. While I didn't take it any more seriously than the American Family Association "boycott" of Sandman (like Donald Wildmon and his people were buying Sandman to begin with) I did take it as a cautionary tale,and a reminder: as long as you know who God wants you to hate and to hurt then anything you do to them is justified.

Abbot Arnold's line in the Albigensian Crusades (around 1210 from memory) still turns up on Tee shirts. The Albigensian Crusade was an internal French Crusade to root out heresy. When Arnold was asked how the troops would know how to tell the heretics from the believers in the city of Beziers, he replied simply, "Kill them all. God will know his own."

and a few days later...

And an e-mail comes in on FAQ with a heartfelt request:

Will you try to use your status as a celebrity to protect against the violence done to Muslim Americans? I'm sure and other famous people speaking out against these acts would be great...

Well, sure, for whatever good it will do. The people who would do violence to Muslims, or to Americans of Arab descent, are probably not reading this blogger. (And considering the first death in 'retaliation' of an American was some people in Arizona shooting a Sikh (from the Punjab, and, as a Sikh, obviously not a follower of Islam), I don't even think that, for example, explaining that the Taliban no more represents Islam than Torquemada and his thugs represented Christianity or the Nazi Party represented neo-paganism would do much good. The Arizonans who killed the Sikh spotted the guy with the beard in the turban and figured that the gentleman had committed the crime of being brown-skinned and foreign, and that was enough for them.)

(And me, I wish people would reread Sandman # 50, RAMADAN, and the ifrit chapter in American Gods.)
posted by Neil Gaiman 12:33 AM

and finally, from Trieste, on September the 23rd 2001..

It rained all day today -- grey, and misty. Yesterday, also in the rain, we walked across the Square of Unity, and found ourselves watching jugglers and suchlike, in unconvincing costumes, and a parade of re-enactors from nearby towns, wearing things people didn't wear, carrying weapons they didn't have. It's all going renfest, I think. The whole bloody world. Not that I minded; there's nothing to cheer you up like other people wearing wet chainmail.

En route today to the home of Maximilian, the rain forced us into a dry space which happened to be holding an exhibition of Robert Capa photographs: astonishing stuff, of the Spanish Civil War, of the Second World War, of the Japanese-Chinese War of 1938, and I found myself looking at the photos of combat, of wounded civilians, of people whose worlds had crumbled and fallen, without any sense of irony. These people were us. Whatever side they were on. They were us, and the images had a truth and an immediacy I couldn't have imagined until recently.

...

I'm typing up Fortunately, The Milk, a very silly children's book that Dave McKean will draw (and he made me promise that after this, the next thing we do will be very dark and very adult). I finished writing it yesterday, and called Dave and read it to him. It was meant to be about the length of The Day I Swapped My Dad For Two Goldfish, but it's actually about four or five times as long.

Labels: dogs, Fortunately the Milk, Memory, September the Eleventh

Actually Quite Glad to be Gaiman.

I'm home. Got off the plane last night.
Today was a dead day. The most exciting things I did were 1) have a long soaky bath - my first in many weeks, it's been showers all the way for over a month - and 2) not put shoes on.

Looking for a card reader for my camera (I took lots of walking-the-dogs pictures, but can't get them off the camera tonight) I discovered my ancient Atari Portfolio notebook. I put new batteries in and was amazed to discover that it worked - I can't have turned it on for about 14 years. And I thought about Moore's law. It has a handmade memory card I bought specially, filled with tiny text files.




It's a 2 megabyte memory card, covered in warnings, which replaced the 256K card that came with the computer. I don't have anything that can read Portfolio cards any longer, although (I just checked) I pulled everything off it back in 1997, when I did have something that could read it.



And the Portfolio made me think about this essay/speech by Ben Hammersley which I read last night, and am still pondering.

I wrote short stories on the Portfolio in chunks - "Murder Mysteries" was about five files, as I'd start a new file on it when the old ones would fill. Clicking around on it I found forgotten poems and story ideas (some very good ideas and less good poems, mostly). And it was cutting edge for portability in -when did I get it? 1988, I suspect. Perhaps 1989. (Also, it ran on 3 AA batteries that I'd change a couple of times a year.)

So the Portfolio works perfectly, and I suppose that when/if I actually get around to giving my papers and stuff to a library, I'll put it in too.

...

Still digesting the last six weeks. There was some really good stuff, and some hard real-life stuff too. I'll fill in a few of the gaps over the next few days - I'm waiting for some photos to come in.

The last couple of days were exhausting - I travelled with Amanda and her band to Vienna and from there on to Amsterdam, mostly because I wanted to see Jonathan Carroll in Vienna. Amanda had warned it would be rough, and it was. I'm so glad I'm not a touring musician. But I'm happy I spent time with Jonathan Carroll. That was worth any amount of time in airports and sleeping sitting up on planes.

Actually I got one of the most fun evenings in recent memory out of almost being a touring musician. This is a photo of me singing "The Problem With Saints" at Amanda's gig at Heaven in London. I love it because of Amanda, laughing behind me, and because the whole evening was remarkable.

Guests onstage included Tom Robinson (singing "Glad to be Gay" with a whole bunch of us onstage joining in on the chorus, while the 16 year old Neil Gaiman who bought the original "Glad to be Gay" EP in a Croydon record shop 35 years ago was being all thrilled inside me) and the amazing Tim Minchin.

(Also, a huge thank you to Tom's partner Sue, who took pity of the most practical kind on an author on the road who had just run out of clean laundry.)

...

So. Things I've done recently...

I don't know if you're familiar with The Guild. (If you're not, you could do worse than wander over to http://www.watchtheguild.com/ and start at Season 1). It's a story told in ten minute long webisodes. They're up to Season 5, Episode 7. And the face on the video screen you click on is a bit of a giveaway as to who gets to play himself in it.



Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the version of me I play in The Guild and the version of me I play in The Simpsons and the version of me I played in Arthur teamed up to fight crime and encourage people to read by hiding in their fast food.

...

I also get to play myself in this, a video of an advertising nature for Dark Horse's Evelyn Evelyn graphic novel, written by Jason Webley and Amanda Palmer and drawn by Cynthia Von Buhler. (This video, like the banana-on-the-beach one for the Kickstarter, was shot by Amanda's assistant Superkate on her iPhone.)



...

I actually am myself (and not playing anybody) in this, a mad, freewheeling conversation and interview from the Edinburgh Festival, where I get to answer all of Audrey Niffenegger's questions about fairytales and such.

http://www.edbookfest.co.uk/media-gallery/item/neil-gaiman-with-audrey-niffenegger

...



My old friend Tom Monteleone asked if I would provide his Borderlands Press with the insides of their 14th "Little" book -- in this case a little Gold Book. I've found lots of rare, unpublished and uncollected stuff. The book will be limited to 500 signed copies, and they are going fast. Gahan Wilson draws me surrounded by ghastly wondrous things on the cover.

I've almost finished the introduction to it. (I was meant to finish it yesterday on the plane, but I fell asleep instead.)

And I think I'll stop blogging here for tonight. There's a huge blogging backlog, of links and such, of photos and accounts of adventures that I want to put up, and a lot of questions and comments to reply to.

Before I go, a thank you to everyone who supported the Evening With Neil and Amanda Kickstarter. We met our goal in the first couple of hours - we'll have a sound guy on the road, all the gigs will be professionally recorded and we can now afford to have them properly edited and mixed and put out, and to press CDs and suchlike. I'm ridiculously grateful. I'm also now seriously hoping we can film at least one of the concerts for posterity.)

(Every attempt in the past to do something like this on the cheap has failed. We tried recording the CBLDF "Guardian Angel" tours I did in the 90s and either failed or lost the recordings, except for one PBS-funded video. The attempt to film and record the Coraline complete reading in San Francisco in 2002 was even more disastrous, leaving us, in the end, with an unusable one-camera silent film of me reading all of Coraline. And I've seen Amanda pay people to record gigs that were done to be recorded, only to find a dead hard disk or empty file at the end. So this will be done properly.)

I also have to say, as a business model, having people buy things ahead of time with Kickstarter is terrific. I like that almost half of the people who've supported it so far simply pre-bought the $1 download, and so far another 800 people of the 2,000 supporters want the CD.


Right. Jet-lagged author stumbling to bed now. Good night.

Labels: Evelyn Evelyn, Kickstarter, Moore's Law, playing myself, The Guild

The tour and the kickstarter

An Evening With Neil Gaiman & Amanda Palmer by Amanda Palmer — Kickstarter

Click on the link. It's our campaign to raise the money to record all the tour and make a record.

There are limited VIP packages, tickets onsale early, all that. Lots of lovely wonderful goofy stuff.

And a video of me eating a banana on the beach.

UPDATE: Thank you! It was fully funded a couple of hours after the Kickstarter went up. We can afford to bring a sound engineer to come with and record the tour, to make the CDs and Posters. You lot are wonderful.

Labels: an evening with neil and amanda, banana