Some months ago I sat and signed a lot of letters from the CBLDF to various people, mostly people in comics, asking for help -- donations of money or time or artwork. The first person to respond suggested we auction off the panties of hot female cartoonists. The second person was Jim Lee, who came up with a number of great suggestions for ways that he and Wildstorm could help the Fund. Check out NEWSARAMA: CBLDF AUCTIONS OFF JIM LEE for details.
At the DreamHaven mass-signing last night I saw (and signed) my first copy of the new CONJUNCTIONS. Gahan Wilson cover and illustrations and a stunning line-up of writers. There's an article about it here at USATODAY.com - Straub finds 'Fabulists' group of ghost writers. (My story is "October in the Chair", which was a sort of a test run for some of the themes in The Graveyard Book, the next childrens' novel.)
In the same edition of USA Today is an article on Tori Amos, and her new CD "Scarlet's Walk", which is just out and is very wonderful.
In the same edition of USA Today is an article on Tori Amos, and her new CD "Scarlet's Walk", which is just out and is very wonderful.
Lots of strange noises and images over at the Biting Dog Press Website. They still have some copies of the "Snow, Glass, Apples" book for sale on the website at the original price. This is the radio play, with the George Walker illustrations and the black and red printing. There are 250 of them, signed by me, George and Jack Zipes (who wrote the introduction) and they are $100 each (which is $50 less than the price at which they're showing up in bookseller catalogues, according to bookfinder.com). (Posted as a public service by someone who doesn't actually see any money from this -- it all went into making the books as art objects.)
A couple of weeks ago the Christian Science Monitor published an odd article about "grown-up" authors writing for kids. Patronising in every way it could be. Still, they've now reviewed Coraline, and made a point of saying it wasn't meant to be in that weird wrong-end-of-the-stick article.
...
World Fantasy Con is now underway, but I think my convention may start tomorrow morning (Friday), which will allow me to take Maddy trick or treating tonight. I've got a full schedule tomorrow -- two readings on Friday, and three panels (two back to back) on Saturday. Sunday morning's the Punch and Judy show (something that originated in this blogger), followed in the afternoon by the banquet and the Awards.
...
World Fantasy Con is now underway, but I think my convention may start tomorrow morning (Friday), which will allow me to take Maddy trick or treating tonight. I've got a full schedule tomorrow -- two readings on Friday, and three panels (two back to back) on Saturday. Sunday morning's the Punch and Judy show (something that originated in this blogger), followed in the afternoon by the banquet and the Awards.
The journal problem was, it turns out, mostly at our end, after changing the server, Julia the webmistress tells me. We're fixing the archives problem, which is blogger's not ours. And this just in....
So, meant to let you know about this when we spoke earlier...
It seems the ghouls are wreaking havoc on us a day early for Halloween, and there are some problems with the message board right now. Basically, it isn't working as we speak. Would you mind terribly letting people know this in the journal, so they don't worry too much?
We've been assured that the problem is being addressed round the clock, and should be resolved soon. The message board people at InfoPop are being busy little bees to allow all our users to interact again!
Cheers,
Julia
So, meant to let you know about this when we spoke earlier...
It seems the ghouls are wreaking havoc on us a day early for Halloween, and there are some problems with the message board right now. Basically, it isn't working as we speak. Would you mind terribly letting people know this in the journal, so they don't worry too much?
We've been assured that the problem is being addressed round the clock, and should be resolved soon. The message board people at InfoPop are being busy little bees to allow all our users to interact again!
Cheers,
Julia
Book Magazine did and article about The Scariest Characters and Books for Halloween Reading and a lot of people wrote to let me know that Coraline is their scariest book for Young Adults. Hurray. Also Hurrah.
So blogger's back up after a few days down and I've only lost two posts, as far as I can see, which is a start (one a reply to queries about Dave McKean's films, from Dave, who's here, and one a heads up on the DreamHaven signing tonight, which is now a bit late).
A man just came and fixed my Dell. New memory, which fixed some of the problem, and a new motherboard, which fixed the rest of it. Gradually, one by one, the things in life go back to normal.
Tonight, I take part in the mass signing at DreamHaven Books, along with Dave McKean, Jonathan Carroll and about a hundred other people. Then it's World Fantasy to Sunday...
"Where's Neil" is posting again -- it turns out nothing that I've put up since Spetember has posted -- although right now it looks a little odd.
A man just came and fixed my Dell. New memory, which fixed some of the problem, and a new motherboard, which fixed the rest of it. Gradually, one by one, the things in life go back to normal.
Tonight, I take part in the mass signing at DreamHaven Books, along with Dave McKean, Jonathan Carroll and about a hundred other people. Then it's World Fantasy to Sunday...
"Where's Neil" is posting again -- it turns out nothing that I've put up since Spetember has posted -- although right now it looks a little odd.
http://www.datlow.com/gallery/friends/wc02/wc2kpics/
neil_gaiman_and_china_mieville.jpg is from the pre-Hugo party and is from Ellen Datlow's site, and makes me glad that this journal doesn't have a caption competition. No, it really doesn't.
Which reminds me: my favourite recent quote was from http://www.sfgate.com news site A former porn star who admitted profiting from insider information she received from a Wall Street executive was sentenced Wednesday to three months in prison.
"I did a lot of wrong things, but I'm an adventurous Aries and a Canadian," Kathryn Gannon, who appeared as Marylin Star in several adult films, said outside federal court. "I'm going to go to jail with my head up high, and I'm going to be the captain of my cell block."
neil_gaiman_and_china_mieville.jpg is from the pre-Hugo party and is from Ellen Datlow's site, and makes me glad that this journal doesn't have a caption competition. No, it really doesn't.
Which reminds me: my favourite recent quote was from http://www.sfgate.com news site A former porn star who admitted profiting from insider information she received from a Wall Street executive was sentenced Wednesday to three months in prison.
"I did a lot of wrong things, but I'm an adventurous Aries and a Canadian," Kathryn Gannon, who appeared as Marylin Star in several adult films, said outside federal court. "I'm going to go to jail with my head up high, and I'm going to be the captain of my cell block."
So, I replied to the automatically generated Keyboard problem letter, explaining, in detail, what was going on.
I got a reply back from someone at Dell helpfully telling me to "use a paperclip or similar device to press and hold the reset button for 5 seconds". This was a very odd email to get as there is no reset button of any kind on a Latitude C400, with or without a paperclip.
At this point I decided that I would brave the Dell phone lines -- something that I've in the past sacrificed whole working days to. However, fairly fast I got a human who, when I told him my service tag number, suddenly realised that I had signed up for their "Gold" care, and put me through to someone who could "actually help me". I told the new guy what was going on, he got me to describe exactly what happened when I turned on the power button, told me that the memory had gone on the blink, and that he'd send someone to come and repair it on Wednesday. I shall report back.
I got a reply back from someone at Dell helpfully telling me to "use a paperclip or similar device to press and hold the reset button for 5 seconds". This was a very odd email to get as there is no reset button of any kind on a Latitude C400, with or without a paperclip.
At this point I decided that I would brave the Dell phone lines -- something that I've in the past sacrificed whole working days to. However, fairly fast I got a human who, when I told him my service tag number, suddenly realised that I had signed up for their "Gold" care, and put me through to someone who could "actually help me". I told the new guy what was going on, he got me to describe exactly what happened when I turned on the power button, told me that the memory had gone on the blink, and that he'd send someone to come and repair it on Wednesday. I shall report back.
Hello Neil,
I was under the impression that Dreamhaven was going to do one more
run of Angels and Visitations this fall, but I have not heard anything
about it, even on your Neil Gaiman Store. I was looking forward to
getting a copy at a reasonable price, don't need one of the $120.00 1st
printings. Do you know if this last printing is really going to happen?
Thanks! Dave G
It will happen, honest. DreamHaven were hoping to bring it out for World Fantasy Con, but they were stretched to their limit (being a bookstore and not a publisher) bringing out the Fantasycon program Book and a book called Shelf Life to celebrate their 20th anniversary. So the 10th anniversary Angels and Visitations will come out in 2003 (which is better than 2002 from a 10th anniversary point of view, the original having been published in 1993, although admittedly worse from a trying to buy a copy in 2002 point of view).
...
Note for those in Minneapolis who aren't going to the World Fantasy Convention:
on the DreamHaven site, over at http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com you'll see lists of the signings they'll be hosting over the next eight days. An amazing assortment of authors and events. (I'll probably be at the one on Wednesday night.)
...
The computer saga. So far, today has brought a computer-generated e-mail from Dell letting me know that their artificial intelligence unit has scanned my problem report (the computer is completely dead) and it suspects that I may be having keyboard problems. It offers several solutions to a sticky or problematic keyboard and hopes that I am now happy. If that doesn't solve my problems I should reply again. I've replied again.
Several of you have suggested I switch to a Mac. Although, on reflection, many of the Macs I have known in my life have demonstrated a capacity to go wrong in strange and interesting ways that PCs are still struggling for.
Personally I am much more inclined to switch to a pen and paper. I would no longer be emailable, people would have to write me actual letters. I wouldn't even post this journal for you to read any longer. Instead, people would come round to your house in the morning and recite it to you, with appropriate and meaningful gestures, and to the delight of your neighbours.
I was under the impression that Dreamhaven was going to do one more
run of Angels and Visitations this fall, but I have not heard anything
about it, even on your Neil Gaiman Store. I was looking forward to
getting a copy at a reasonable price, don't need one of the $120.00 1st
printings. Do you know if this last printing is really going to happen?
Thanks! Dave G
It will happen, honest. DreamHaven were hoping to bring it out for World Fantasy Con, but they were stretched to their limit (being a bookstore and not a publisher) bringing out the Fantasycon program Book and a book called Shelf Life to celebrate their 20th anniversary. So the 10th anniversary Angels and Visitations will come out in 2003 (which is better than 2002 from a 10th anniversary point of view, the original having been published in 1993, although admittedly worse from a trying to buy a copy in 2002 point of view).
...
Note for those in Minneapolis who aren't going to the World Fantasy Convention:
on the DreamHaven site, over at http://www.dreamhavenbooks.com you'll see lists of the signings they'll be hosting over the next eight days. An amazing assortment of authors and events. (I'll probably be at the one on Wednesday night.)
...
The computer saga. So far, today has brought a computer-generated e-mail from Dell letting me know that their artificial intelligence unit has scanned my problem report (the computer is completely dead) and it suspects that I may be having keyboard problems. It offers several solutions to a sticky or problematic keyboard and hopes that I am now happy. If that doesn't solve my problems I should reply again. I've replied again.
Several of you have suggested I switch to a Mac. Although, on reflection, many of the Macs I have known in my life have demonstrated a capacity to go wrong in strange and interesting ways that PCs are still struggling for.
Personally I am much more inclined to switch to a pen and paper. I would no longer be emailable, people would have to write me actual letters. I wouldn't even post this journal for you to read any longer. Instead, people would come round to your house in the morning and recite it to you, with appropriate and meaningful gestures, and to the delight of your neighbours.