Exclusively Neil

Publication Day! Links! Tired Neil!

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 01:05:00 +0000

I've been stumbling across the UK, although mostly in and out of the BBC. I spent a day at the Guardian offices, editing their book website. (Here's a video: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/video/2013/jun/17/neil-gaiman-guardian-books-video).

My favourite thing was talking about Richard Dadd's painting, The Fairy Feller's Master Stroke, with Mark Lawson for Radio 4's Cultural Exchange. Check it all out at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p016p5mb/profiles/neil-gaiman
(The BBC have put up some wonderful stuff to go with it, ranging from Angela Carter to Freddie Mercury.)

You can also just click here:

One reason I picked the Dadd was that I'd just been spending time at the Tate in company with the painting, for Intelligent Life magazine.

You can read what I wrote at http://moreintelligentlife.com/content/arts/anonymous/gaiman?page=full

There's a great feature by Lev Grossman in this week's TIME Magazine. It's only for subscribers: Here's the opening: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2145490,00.html

Today THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE comes out officially. I will get up in a few hours and fly to New York for the Brooklyn signing.

(You can come and see me, listen to me talk and do a reading, possibly with some special guests, and you can say hello and get a book signed at 7 p.m., Howard Gilman Opera House, Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, at Ashland Place, Fort Greene, Brooklyn, (718) 636-4100, bam.org;greenlightbookstore.com; $45 and $55, which includes a copy of the book.)

We have so many articles out there, and so many reviews:

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/books/211547701.html by William Alexander is my favourite, because it tells you nothing about the plot and everything about what it feels like reading the book. But there are lots of other good ones. (I'm sure I will miss a lot.)

Here's the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/neil-gaimans-beautifully-crafted-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-marks-a-happy-return/2013/06/16/23db3890-d2ae-11e2-9f1a-1a7cdee20287_story.html

Laura Miller at Salon.com
http://www.salon.com/2013/06/16/the_ocean_at_the_end_of_the_lane_neil_gaiman_returns/

Carole Barrowman at the Journal Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/entertainment/books/gaimans-new-book-a-beautiful-collision-of-memory-mortality-b9928190z1-211575211.html

James Lovegrove at the Financial Times http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/fa4ffac4-d28a-11e2-88ed-00144feab7de.html#axzz2WL41tJul

The Atlantic Monthly
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2013/06/why-you-should-finally-read-neil-gaiman/66244/

and a really lovely but slightly spoilery NPR review: http://www.npr.org/2013/06/17/191346480/a-deceptively-simple-tale-of-magic-and-peril-in-ocean

Here's the LA Times

with a longer story at http://www.latimes.com/features/books/jacketcopy/la-ca-jc-neil-gaiman-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-20130616,0,518593.story

CANADA DATES, FINALLY...

August 6, 2013

Location: Toronto, ON

Tuesday, August 6, 6:30 PM

Presented by Indigo Books & Music

WHERE:

Danforth Music Hall

147 Danforth Avenue

Toronto, ON M4K 1N2

TICKETS:

http://www.ticketmaster.ca/ event/10004ACBC0AAAA0E

$20 plus tax and service fees

Twitter: @indigogreenroom

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ events/560263064025483/

Website: http://www.chapters.indigo.ca

***

August 7, 2013

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

Location: Montreal, QC

Wednesday, August 7, 7 PM

Presented by Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore

WHERE:

Ukrainian Federation Hall

5213 Hutchison Street

Montreal, QC H2X 2H3

TICKETS:

Available in store – Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore, 211 Bernard Ouest

$10 with $5 off THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE with ticket purchase.

Twitter: @librairiedandq

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ LibrairieDandQ

Website: http://211blog. drawnandquarterly.com/

***

August 8, 2013

An Evening with Neil Gaiman

Location: Vancouver, BC

Thursday, August 8, 6:30 PM

Presented by Vancouver Writers Fest

Book sales by Kidsbooks

WHERE:

The Vogue Theatre

918 Granville Street

Vancouver, BC V6Z 1L2

TICKETS:

Online: http://northerntickets.com/ events/neil-gaiman/

Phone: 604.569.1144

In Person: 918 Granville Street

$21 adults $19 students (with ID) and seniors plus service charges. General admission.

Twitter: @vanwritersfest

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ VanWritersFest

Website: www.writersfest.bc.ca

You have to be this tall to go on this ride

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 19:56:00 +0000

So much is happening. The tour machine has started to grind and whirr, and I have packed as much as I can of my life into a wheelie suitcase and a backpack, climbed onto a train, and I will not be home for a month and two days, and the tour proper, which starts tomorrow, does not end now until the very end of August. I will be on planes and I will be on a tourbus and I will sleep in hotels. I will see Amanda again at the end of July for about 8 days between getting back from San Diego Comic Con and going off to sign in Canada, and then again for a few days at the end of September as she returns from Australia before we both go in different directions again.

I'm going to try and use this blog more, as a journal and as a place you can find out what's going on.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane comes out in a week. I am more nervous about this than I have been about any book I have ever published.

The Guardian has just posted the Prologue online: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/jun/10/extract-ocean-end-lane-neil-gaiman

So many articles, so many interviews, so many reviews. You are not expected to read them all. Even I am not expected to read them all.

The reviews I'm liking best are ones like this one from PopMatters that tells you nothing about what happens in the book and everything about what it felt like to read the book: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/172252-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-by-neil-gaiman/

Put simply, The Ocean at the End of the Lane is the best-written book of Gaiman’s career. It features a level of craftsmanship, focus, and control that we normally associate more with literary fiction than genre. The book is focused, lyrical, and profoundly perceptive in its exploration of childhood and memory, and it’s also quite frightening—like one of Truman Capote’s holiday stories by way of Stephen King.

The same goes for this Den of Geek review: http://www.denofgeek.com/books-comics/neil-gaiman/25898/neil-gaimans-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane-review

Is it, like Coraline or The Graveyard Book, suitable for children? It’s not being marketed as such. Reading some of the more nightmarish scenes, and the act of domestic abuse that lodges horribly in the novel’s throat like a silver shilling might (coins are a Gaiman staple and make a reappearance here), it’s easy to see why.

If it’s not just for adults, and not quite for children, there is one age-flexible group it is written for. An obtuse thing to say about a book it may be, but The Ocean at the End of the Lane was written for readers. It’s for people to whom books were and are anaesthesia, companion, and tutor. If you’re one of them, you’ll want to wade into it, past your ankles, knees and shoulders, until it laps over the crown of your head. You’ll want to dive in.

This is an interview with me, about the book, by Joe Hill. If you wish to be completely unspoilered, bookmark it and then come back to it when you have read the book. It ends with a pancake recipe, which is a first for me and interviews. http://www.omnivoracious.com/2013/06/uncharted-waters-joe-hill-explores-neil-gaimans-the-ocean-at-the-end-of-the-lane.html

So now here is The Ocean at the End of the Lane--an overpowering work of the imagination, a quietly devastating masterpiece, and Gaiman's most personal novel to date. I had a chance to talk to him about it. Here are some things we said:

Interviews: a lovely interview with Tim Martin in the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10091579/Neil-Gaiman-I-wanted-to-write-my-wife-a-story.html

The result is the most affecting book Gaiman has written, a novel whose intensity of real-world observation and feeling make its other-worldly episodes doubly startling and persuasive. “There are a few things I do in Ocean which technically are the hardest things I’ve ever done,” he acknowledges, “and I don’t think I could have pulled them off 10 years ago.” But even for a novelist with such a Midas touch, approaching his publishers with it was, he says, a heart-in-mouth affair. “It went in with an apologetic note saying ‘It’s small and personal, it’ll be OK if you guys don’t want to do it,” he laughs. “I definitely wasn’t going ‘I’ve written my best book!’”

And here's an interview, more about the year than the book, in the Independent by David Barnett: http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/neil-gaiman-interview-the-year-of-living-crazily-8650672.html

There are very adult themes in Ocean, which are obvious to the reader but which go over the head of the main character. Given his reputation as a children's author, is he at all concerned that younger readers might want to give Ocean a go?
"It isn't a children's book but some younger readers might think they're ready for it. That's why I started the book off with a couple of really dry chapters. It's like, if you've made it this far, then you might be ready for the rest of it." He smiles and holds a hand up high, palm downwards. "You have to be this tall to go on this ride."

...

The tour starts in the UK with two pre-publication signings: Bath on June 14th: http://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/bath/neil-gaiman/ for tickets and info (it just moved to a bigger Venue, The Forum).

Cambridge on Saturday June 15th at 8 pm: Tickets via Heffers http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/details.php?id=155

The Royal Society of Literature event on the night of the 17th in London is Sold Out.

Then on the morning of the 18th, I fly back to the US, and the tour kicks off with BROOKLYN! It's 7pm at the Howard Gilman Opera House. There may be special guests too. I will sign for EVERYBODY THERE. Ticket info at http://www.bam.org/literary/2013/neil-gaiman

More information on the rest of the tour (except for Canada and some of the August UK things that haven't yet been announced) over at http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/. It's not up-to-date on sold-out events though: New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, Phoenix, SF, Portland, Seattle, Chicago and Lexington are all sold out.

Right. Back to work. Back to reality.

(Also, we picked a hashtag for Twitter: it's #OceanLane.)

Iain Banks. With or without the M.

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 18:22:00 +0000

I should be blogging about The Ocean at the End of the Lane, because it comes out in 9 days and the reviews and articles are starting, and right this minute I should be doing the writing I have to finish before I hit the road.

But I just learned that Iain Banks is dead, and I'm alone in this house, and I cope with things by writing about them.

I met Iain in late 1983 or early 1984. It was a Macmillan/Futura Books presentation to their sales force, and to a handful of journalists. I was one of the journalists. Editor Richard Evans told me that he was proud that they had found The Wasp Factory on the slush pile -- it was an unsolicited manuscript. Iain was almost 30, and he got up and told stories about writing books, and sending them in to publishers, and how they came back, and how this one didn't come back. "You ask me what's The Wasp Factory about?" he said. "It's about 180 pages." He was brilliant and funny and smart.

He fitted right in. He was one of us, whatever that meant. He wrote really good books: The Wasp Factory, Walking on Glass and The Bridge all existed on the uneasy intersection of SF, Fantasy and mainstream literature (after those three he started drawing clearer distinctions between his SF and his mainstream work, not least by becoming Iain M. Banks in his SF). His work was mordant, surreal, and fiercely intelligent. In person, he was funny and cheerful and always easy to talk to. He became a convention bar friend, because we saw each other at conventions, and we would settle down in the bar and catch up. (A true story: In 1987 I was at a small party at the Brighton WorldCon in the wee hours, at which it was discovered that some jewellery belonging to the sleeping owner of the suite had been stolen. The police were called. A few minutes after the police arrived, so did Iain, on the balcony of the Metropole hotel: he'd been climbing the building from the outside. The police had to be persuaded that this was a respectable author who liked climbing things from the outside and not an inept cat burglar returning to the scene of his crime.)

We were never good friends, mostly because we were never in the right places long enough. We were pleased to see each other. We ate together. We talked. We liked each other's work. We always figured we'd have more time.

The last time I saw Iain was in Edinburgh, in August 2011. Amanda and I had taken a big house for the duration of the festival, and on the night that she did a gig in Glasgow, I invited over a bunch of writers and a bunch of actors and comedians who really liked writers. Because Iain was coming over and he had written Raw Spirit, a book about going around Scotland to find the perfect dram of whisky, I bought the most special and fancy bottle of whisky I could for the night, especially for him.

He arrived with a large bottle of red wine. "I don't really drink whisky any more," he admitted. "Not since the book." The ridiculously fancy bottle of whisky was tasted by everyone except Iain.

It was a fine and glorious night. There were fireworks, which didn't go off as expected, and the best conversation, and I was looking forward to repeating it this year.

In April I heard Iain had terminal cancer.

I didn't write to him. I froze. And then, a week later, with no warning, my friend Bob Morales died, and I was upset that I hadn't replied to Bob's last email, from a week or so before. So I replied to Bob's last email, although I knew he'd never read it. And then I wrote to Iain. I told him how much I'd loved knowing him, how much I'd enjoyed being his friend, even if we only saw each other in the flesh every few years.

I finished,

I think you're a brilliant and an honest writer, and much more importantly, because I've known lots of brilliant writers who were absolute arses, I think you're a really good bloke, and I've loved knowing you.

And he wrote back and said good, comforting, sensible things. Goodbyes are few enough, and we take them where we can.

I hoped that he'd get better. Or that he'd have time. He didn't. Hearing of his death hit me hard.

If you've never read any of his books, read one of his books. Then read another. Even the bad ones were good, and the good ones were astonishing.

On Casting The Doctor

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 21:14:00 +0000

torchyvalentine asked: What would you say to Sir Ian Mckellen taking the reigns as the 12th Doctor? For that matter, who do you think would be a good actor for the character?

I think that if you’d asked me who should be the 11th Doctor 5 years ago I wouldn’t have listed Matt Smith, because I didn’t know who he was or what he was capable of, and if you’d asked me who should play Sherlock Holmes in a modern day revival around the same time I wouldn’t have said Benedict Cumberbatch, because I didn’t know who he was either.

I actually like it when The Doctor is a relatively unknown actor, or one without one huge role that made them famous. A star, like Sir Ian, brings all the other roles they’ve ever played to the table when they act. Seeing John Hurt as the (Spoiler) at the end of the Name of the Doctor, meant that this was a certain type of part with a certain amount of gravitas, and you understood that John Hurt was bringing everything with it (including being John Hurt), just as Derek Jacobi did as the Master.

But I like to see The Doctor as The Doctor, and an actor who doesn’t bring baggage is a grand sort of thing. A star waiting to happen. So I don’t want to see Helen Mirren or Sir Ian McKellen or Chiwetel Ejiofor, or any of the famous names people are suggesting.

I want to see The Doctor. I want to be taken by surprise. I want to squint at a photo of the person online and go “but how can that be The Doctor?”. Then I want to be amazingly, delightedly, completely proven wrong, and, six episodes in, I want to wonder how I could have been so blind. Because this is the Doctor. Of course it is.

(From Tumblr. But I thought I should put it up here, too.)

A giant TOUR catch up. Also, we wear the same boots.

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Tue, 14 May 2013 01:27:00 +0000

I need to get back to blogging. Too many things are stacking up, and I'm paying attention over on Twitter and Tumblr and such, but not here, and really, this is still the most important place to check.

Today I was interviewed by Lev Grossman (author of The Magicians) for Time Magazine about Ocean at the End of the Lane. Lev and I have been having a conversation about fantasy since he interviewed me about Stardust in 1998. (Although one time the conversation was a threesome with Joss Whedon.) Lev does not appear to have perceptibly aged in 15 years. I find this suspicious. Also, we were wearing the same boots.

So, let's see.

This comes out tomorrow, designed and made beautiful by Chip Kidd:

Make Good Art (Amazon link. Indiebound link.) It's the anniversary of the original speech:

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 from The University of the Arts (Phl) on Vimeo.

I finished signing about 9000 sheets of paper, which will be sent to the printers and bound into 9000 copies of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. They look like this. (When I got bored I drew ghosts.)

If you are in the US you can pre-order them from PORTER SQUARE BOOKS: http://www.portersquarebooks.com/pre-order-signed-copy-ocean-end-lane. If you preorder by May 20th you can get your book by publication day, June 18th. (If you preorder afterwards, they will still have signed copies, but you will probably not get yours by publication date.)

When I was in Austin in March I recorded the Audiobook of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It's just been reviewed at Audiophile magazine: http://www.audiofilemagazine.com/dbsearch/showreview.cfm?Num=77510

"How long have you been 11 for?" That's just one of the mysteries in THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE, where otherworldly things might be strange but aren't in the least impossible. As the 7-year-old protagonist, Neil Gaiman projects all the wonders and terrors of childhood, both ordinary and extraordinary. His neighbors, 11-year-old Lettie, Mrs. Hempstock, and Old Mrs. Hempstock, have rural Sussex accents that get stronger when the things that they love and protect are threatened. Gaiman evokes the comforts of their farm lovingly--good food, a full moon that always shines on the back of the house just so--and they contrast with the coldly emotionless voice of the story's villain. Spooky, beautiful, and magical, OCEAN will stay with listeners for a long time. J.M.D. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award

...which makes me very happy indeed. I'm more nervous about the audiobooks than I am about anything else.

....TOUR NEWS....

Right. We have a lot of sold-out tour dates. We have some that aren't yet sold out, and if you want to come and hear me talk and ask questions and get a book signed you might want to get your tickets very soon.

NOT SOLD OUT YET: The Publication Day event is June 18th. It's in Brooklyn, at the Howard Gilman Music Hall. This should be really fun and special. Surprise guests, publication day madness, and the special jet lag of an author who did his last event the night before in the UK and got off the plane earlier that afternoon.

http://www.bam.org/literary/2013/neil-gaiman

Wednesday June 19th NYC - SOLD OUT. I THINK.

Thursday June 20th - Saratoga Springs: NOT SOLD OUT YET (it's a big venue). The pre-signing interview will also be broadcast on NPR. http://www.northshire.com/event/shelf-authors-conversation-neil-gaiman-presenting-ocean-end-lane

Friday June 21st, Washington DC. ALMOST SOLD OUT - a hundred or so seats left. http://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/neil-gaiman-ocean-end-of-lane

Saturday June 22nd Decatur GA. SOLD OUT.

Sunday June 23rd Coral Gables (near Miami). It's an afternoon signing - starts at 2 pm. I think it may be my first ever signing in a shul. NOT SOLD OUT YET. http://www.booksandbooks.com/event/neil-gaiman-ocean-end-lane-temple-judea

Monday June 24th Dallas TX. ONLY BALCONY SEATS LEFT. It's at the Dallas Museum of Art. I like the idea of bringing OCEAN home: I finished it and typed the first draft in a Dallas coffee shop. http://dallasmuseumofart.org/Events/ArtsLettersLive/Special/index.htm

Tuesday June 25th Denver, Tattered Cover. This is one of three stores whose tickets do not go onsale until publication day.

Wednesday June 26th Phoenix Az. ALMOST SOLD OUT. http://www.changinghands.com/neilgaiman

Thursday June 27th. LOS ANGELES. I'll be talking with EW's Geoff Boucher. NOT YET SOLD OUT but selling fast and you may want to get in there, http://livetalksla.org/blog/2013/04/02/june-27-an-evening-with-neil-gaiman/

FRIDAY JUNE 28th SAN FRANCISCO is SOLD OUT

SAT JUNE 29 PORTLAND is SOLD OUT

(Then I teach Clarion West for a week in Seattle, interrupted only by...)

TUESDAY JULY 2 SEATTLE which is SOLD OUT

SATURDAY JULY 6 SANTA ROSA isn't yet sold out. If you're in the Bay Area and you are not happy about how fast San Francisco sold out, you should come to Santa Rosa. http://www.copperfieldsbooks.com/event/neil-gaiman

Also at my request, the event start time has moved earlier in the evening, to 6:30pm as I was worried about how late it would go if it started at 8. (Sorry.)

and then I fly across the country like a speeding teatray and the next time I touch solid ground it's

Sunday July 7th and I'm in Ann Arbor, Mi. It starts at 6pm. it is NOT SOLD OUT -- info at http://www.nicolasbooks.com/event/one-time-only-event-nicolas-books-brings-neil-gaiman-michigan-theater-ocean-end-lane-tour. (And if you are in the Chicago area and sad about the selling out of Chicago, you could hit the road and come and see me there.)

Monday, July 8th, Edina MN. This is the Twin Cities stop, and I am hoping to see lots of the home crowd. Tickets/wristbands etc do not go on sale until publication date, June 18th. http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/event/79661 is the B&N website, but it doesn't have much information -- there's more on everything at http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/details.php?id=149

Tuesday July 9th Chicago - this is SOLD OUT I'm afraid.

Wednesday July 10th Nashville TN -- this one is selling well, but it isn't sold out yet. http://www.wmarocks.com/events/detail/neil-gaiman-war-memorial?perf-no=4009

Thursday July 11th Lexington KY -- It's at Joseph Beth (a wonderful bookshop). Not sure how close to sold out they are -- Tickets are "Purchase at Joseph-Beth Lexington or via 859-273-2911"

And then I get my first day off! I fly back to Cambridge, I sleep in my own bed for the first time in over a month, and then...

Saturday 13th July I do the last signing of the tour. It's sponsored by Porter Square Books (who are selling the pre-signed books as well) and tickets are going on sale on publication day, June 18th, and can only be picked up locally. Information at http://www.neilgaiman.com/where/details.php?id=153

Then there will be three Canadian signings, which have not yet been announced.

And of the UK events coming up in August, the only one that's been announced is:

Tuesday 20th of August, when I'll be in Ely Cathedral. And I think that one is going to be fun.... http://www.toppingbooks.co.uk/events/ely/neil-gaiman-2/

(Not actually Science Fiction) Double Feature...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 18:23:00 +0000

As tickets go on sale in half an hour, I thought I had better put something up here about....

“You Show You Mine, I’ll You Show me Yours: The Neil & Amanda Double Features”

When you start a relationship with someone -- long before you get married -- you occasionally get baffled by the films they haven't seen that you think everyone must have seen.

In the case of Amanda and me, we made lists of our favourite films about four years ago and swore that one day we would have a long romantic weekend where we would do nothing but watch each other's films. It's not actually happened. A couple of times, late at night, we've downloaded and watched a film in bed, but the whole planned "I'll show you mine, you show me yours" hasn't happened.

And then we were seeing Nick Flynn talk at the Brattle Theatre, hanging around backstage, and I was reminiscing about doing the CBLDF "Last Angel" Tour stop there over a decade ago, and Amanda was reminiscing about all the times she'd seen things there, and they were doing a Kickstarter to get a digital projector, and we thought it would be good to get involved, and the upshot of it all was...

May 18th and 19th, there will be a double bill each night at the Brattle. I'll show a film I love to Amanda and she'll show one she loves to me. In each case, a film the other one hasn't seen. (I do not know why I haven't seen Santa Sangre. I'd never heard of King of Hearts.) The tickets benefit the Brattle (and the Kickstarter -- which was fully funded -- means we'll be going out to eat first of all with people who backed it at that rate.) We'll introduce the films, probably talk afterwards about what we thought of the films we saw that night...

And the films are:

Saturday, May 18

DROWNING BY NUMBERS
Introduction by Neil Gaiman
at 6:30pm | Tickets (on sale today at 3PM)

(1988) dir Peter Greenaway w/Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Joely Richardson, Bernard Hill, Jason Edwards [118 min]
Three women in the same family (all named Cissie Colpitts) each drown their troublesome husbands – and convince the local coroner to help cover up the crimes. It sounds simple but in the hands of masterful visual artist Peter Greenaway, the film becomes a baroque meditation on the nature of life and games – and the game of life.

SANTA SANGRE
Introduction by Amanda Palmer
at 9:15pm | Tickets (on sale today at 3PM)

(1989) dir Alejandro Jodorowsky w/Axel Jodorowsky, Blanca Guerra [123 min]
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s wildly unrestrained flights of cinematic psychedelia are legendary midnight movies and SANTA SANGRE is no exception. Fenix, the scion of a circus family has entered an asylum after witnessing his mother commit a heinous crime and get both her arms cut off. Eventually she secures his release and forces him to become her arms.

“This is a movie like none I have seen before, a wild kaleidoscope of images and outrages, a collision between Freud and Fellini. It contains blood and glory, saints and circuses, and unspeakable secrets of the night. And it is all wrapped up in a flamboyant parade of bold, odd, striking imagery, with Alejandro Jodorowsky as the ringmaster.” – Roger Ebert

…………………

Sunday, May 19

IF…
Introduction by Neil Gaiman
at 6:30pm | Tickets (on sale today at 3PM)

(1968) dir Lindsay Anderson w/Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick, Christine Noonan, Rupert Webster [111 min]
Lindsay Anderson’s searing excoriation of British boys school traditions features the screen debut of Malcolm McDowell.
Digital Presentation

KING OF HEARTS
Introduction by Amanda Palmer
at 9:15pm | Tickets (on sale today at 3PM)

(1966) dir Philippe de Broca w/Alan Bates, Genevieve Bujold, Adolfo Celi, Jean-Claude Brialy [102 min]
This counter-culture cult classic screened for over five years straight in Cambridge during the late ‘60s and one can see why. Alan Bates plays a Scottish WWI soldier dispatched to disarm a bomb left by the retreating Germans in a French town. When he arrives he discovers that the supposedly abandoned hamlet is actually still inhabited – what he doesn’t realize is that it’s been taken over by the cheerful lunatics from the local asylum.

……….

Tickets for individual films are $10 general admission; $8 students, seniors, Brattle members
Double feature tickets are $15 general admission; $12 students, seniors, Brattle members
A limited number of full weekend passes are available for $30
Brattle member passes will be accepted for individual screenings at the door only.
We strongly advise that you buy tickets in advance.

tickets will be on sale starting at 3 pm EST today (friday april 26th)

ticket link: bit.ly/YouShowMe

If it's fun we may do it again.

It's a Books! Books! Books! Books! Books! World.

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 23:15:00 +0000

It's World Book Night.

Last night I was in Cambridge Ma. and I was on a World Book Night panel (as co-author of Good Omens) at the lovely Cambridge Public Library, along with Vanessa Diffenbaugh (who wrote The Language of Flowers) and Lisa Genova (who wrote Still Alice). Here's the full list of books that are being given out in the US today -- I don't think there's a book on the list I wouldn't like to receive.

Here's what I think about books. It's very short and is one of the BlackBerry Keep Moving films.

And here's also what I think about books. It's the Keynote speech I gave to the London Book Fair's Digital Minds conference.

It's long, I'm afraid -- about half an hour. I'm tired and jet-lagged, but it's a speech I'm proud of, and I'm pleased to put the whole thing up here.

(Particularly pleased because I've been seeing it misquoted, and sentences taken out of context, ever since I gave it, which means that people immediately start arguing with things I didn't say and set me up as a straw man. The speaker after me immediately got up and said he had to disagree with me, because the music industry was actually in real trouble, and I thought, How odd: I never said anything about the music industry not being in trouble. What I said was, "Home taping didn’t really kill music. Music’s out there doing just fine. More of it’s actually being made than ever, but the trick is becoming to find the good stuff. And for people who make the music to figure out how to monetize what they’re doing." Something very different.)

Watch it when you can. As I said, I'm really proud of it.

Neil is thrilled he can claim he’s mammalian. “But the bad news,” he said, “Girl, you’re a dandelion..." Tori Amos.

PS: I'm signing my way through 10,000 sheets of paper that will be bound into the pre-signed copies of The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

If ever you have to do this (it feels like the sort of penance you had to do at school if you were caught eating chocolate in class), here is advice on what you do if your pen decides to make an enormous inkblot that soaks through several sheets...

.

PPS: In late May, the Brattle Theatre here in Cambridge MA is due to host a weekend screening of four films -- I was going to show two of my favorites, Amanda was going to show two of hers. I wanted to show DROWNING BY NUMBERS, a Peter Greenaway film I love that I think you have to see on the big screen to properly enjoy. The Brattle cannot find a 35mm print, and they tell me "The problem with the DVD versions is that they were transferred from a TV source – not original 35mm print – so all of them are of poor quality and in the wrong aspect ratio. There appears to have been a Japanese edition that was correct but it is out-of-print." I do not want to pick another film.

Anyone have any ideas where a 35mm print of Drowning By Numbers might be found?

(If you do, please drop a line to the webgoblin, at http://www.neilgaiman.com/feedback/)

UPDATE: We are following a lead.

Unnatural Creatures, and other things you don't see every day

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 21:31:00 +0000

Last year I edited an anthology, as a benefit for 826DC. This year -- in two weeks time -- it will be published.

826DC is also known as the Museum of Unnatural History, so a book of unnatural creatures seemed obvious. I gathered together my favourite stories of werewolves and griffins and unicorns and the like. I tried to include authors I'd loved as a child (E. Nesbit, Frank R Stockton) authors I'd loved as a young man (Samuel R. Delany, Gahan Wilson, Diana Wynne Jones) and authors I had only started loving comparatively recently (Nnedi Okorafor, Nalo Hopkinson). And there's an introduction and a story by me in there, too.

When the process started getting a bit beyond me I called for help and was assisted in this mad endeavour by Maria Dahvana Headley, who is not only a terrific writer but is a great deal more organised than I am. She gave the book a story (did I mention that all the everything on this was done for free, so that the advance money could go to 826DC?) and she found an illustrator and suggested some more stories and she contacted everyone and got them contracts and got the contracts signed and was overall pretty amazing.

We now have US and UK covers... AND a handful of early reviews coming in.

That's the US cover.

The UK cover is:

Here's the starred review from Publisher's Weekly:

Unnatural Creatures

Edited by Neil Gaiman with Maria Dahvana Headley. Harper, $17.99 (480p) ISBN 978-0-06-223630-2

In this striking anthology of 16 stories of strange and incredible creatures (most previously published), Gaiman and Headley have included several classic tales, such as Frank R. Stockton’s delightful “The Griffin and the Minor Canon” (1885), which concerns the unlikely friendship between a monster and a minister; Saki’s mordant werewolf tale “Gabriel-Ernest” (1909); and Anthony Boucher’s astonishingly silly “The Compleat Werewolf” (1942). There are also fine stories from such major contemporary fantasy writers as Peter S. Beagle, Samuel Delany, Diana Wynne Jones, and Gaiman himself. Particularly pleasurable are the stories by newer writers, such as Nalo Hopkinson’s “The Smile on the Face,” which demonstrates the benefits of channeling one’s inner hamadryad; E. Lily Yu’s “The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees,” an animal fable with a sting in its tale; and Nnedi Okorafor’s original story “Ozioma the Wicked,” which concerns “a nasty little girl whose pure heart had turned black,” but who nonetheless saves her village from a monstrous snake. Teens with a yen for the fantastic would be hard pressed to find a better place to start. The collection benefits literacy nonprofit 826DC. Ages 13–up. (May)

Booklist made it their Review of the Day and they said:

From darkly menacing to bizarrely surreal, these 16 fantasy stories featuring mythical and imaginary creatures combine work from such luminaries as Saki, E. Nesbit, and Anthony Boucher, as well as more contemporary writers. Larry Niven’s “The Flight of the Horse” is on the sillier side of the spectrum: a time traveler is sent to the past to retrieve a horse, which he has never seen except in picture books, and he mistakenly returns with a unicorn instead. In Nalo Hopkinson’s “A Smile on the Face,” a self-conscious girl is bullied for her size and pressured into an unwanted sexual encounter, but she finds inner strength—and an inner fire-breathing monster—thanks to an accidentally swallowed cherry pit from the hamadryad in her front yard. Gaiman’s contribution, “Sunbird,” recounts the adventures of the Epicurean Club members, who, grown bored after tasting every available thing on the planet, enjoy the best (and last) meal of their lives. In true Gaiman fashion, these stories are macabre, subversive, and just a little bit sinister. His fans will eat this up—ravenously. The book will benefit nonprofit 826DC, which fosters student writing skills.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:57:00 +0000

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/

OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE US TOUR DATES

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 20:08:00 +0000

Starred reviews, in the journals that publish reviews before books come out, are good.

Publishers Weekly just gave THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE a starred review. It's a bit Spoilery, so I'm going to put a few sections of it white-on-white. Block to read.

★ The Ocean at the End of the
Lane
Neil Gaiman.William Morrow,$25.99 (192p)
ISBN 978-0-06-225565-5
“Childhood memories are sometimes
covered and obscured beneath the things
that come later... but they are never lost
for good”—and the most grim of those
memories, no matter how faint, can haunt
one forever, as they do the anonymous
narrator of Gaiman’s subtle and splendid
modern myth. The protagonist, an artist,
returns to his childhood home in the
English countryside to recover his memory of
events that nearly destroyed him and
his family when he was seven. The suicide
of a stranger opened the way for a deadly
spirit... who disguised herself as a housekeeper,
won over the boy’s sister and
mother, seduced his father, and threatened
the boy if he told anyone the truth. He
had allies—a warm and welcoming family
of witches at the old farm up the road...

but defeating this evil demanded a sacrifice
he was not prepared for. Gaiman
(Anansi Boys) has crafted a fresh story of
magic, humanity, loyalty, and memories
“waiting at the edges of things,” where
lost innocence can still be restored as long
as someone is willing to bear the cost.

The Kirkus review, also starred, said (spoilery bit also whited out):

THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE [STARRED REVIEW!]
Author: Neil Gaiman

Publisher:Morrow/HarperCollins
Pages: 192
Price ( Hardcover ): $25.99
Publication Date: June 18, 2013
ISBN ( Hardcover ): 978-0-06-225565-5
Category: Fiction

From one of the great masters of modern speculative fiction: Gaiman’s first novel for adults since Anansi Boys (2005).

An unnamed protagonist and narrator returns to his Sussex roots to attend a funeral. Although his boyhood dwelling no longer stands, at the end of the road lies the Hempstock farm, to which he’s drawn without knowing why. Memories begin to flow. The Hempstocks were an odd family, with 11-year-old Lettie’s claim that their duckpond was an ocean, her mother’s miraculous cooking and her grandmother’s reminiscences of the Big Bang; all three seemed much older than their apparent ages. Forty years ago, the family lodger, a South African opal miner, gambled his fortune away, then committed suicide in the Hempstock farmyard. Something dark, deadly and far distant heard his dying lament and swooped closer. As the past becomes the present, Lettie takes the boy’s hand and confidently sets off through unearthly landscapes to deal with the menace; but he’s only 7 years old, and he makes a mistake... Instead of banishing the predator, he brings it back into the familiar world, where it reappears as his family’s new housekeeper, the demonic Ursula Monkton. Terrified, he tries to flee back to the Hempstocks, but Ursula easily keeps him confined as she cruelly manipulates and torments his parents and sister. Despite his determination and well-developed sense of right and wrong, he’s also a scared little boy drawn into adventures beyond his understanding, forced into terrible mistakes through innocence. Yet, guided by a female wisdom beyond his ability to comprehend, he may one day find redemption.

Poignant and heartbreaking, eloquent and frightening, impeccably rendered, it’s a fable that reminds us how our lives are shaped by childhood experiences, what we gain from them and the price we pay.

And finally, Booklist gave us a starred review. And there aren't any spoilers to remove...

The Ocean at the End of the Lane.

In Gaiman’s first novel for adults since Anansi Boys(2005), the never-named fiftyish narrator is back in his childhood homeland, rural Sussex, England, where he’s just delivered the eulogy at a funeral. With “an hour or so to kill” afterward, he drives about—aimlessly, he thinks—until he’s at the crucible of his consciousness: a farmhouse with a duck pond. There, when he was seven, lived the Hempstocks, a crone, a housewife, and an 11-year-old girl, who said they were grandmother, mother, and daughter. Now, he finds the crone and, eventually, the housewife—the same ones, unchanged—while the girl is still gone, just as she was at the end of the childhood adventure he recalls in a reverie that lasts all afternoon. He remembers how he became the vector for a malign force attempting to invade and waste our world. The three Hempstocks are guardians, from time almost immemorial, situated to block such forces and, should that fail, fight them. Gaiman mines mythological typology—the three-fold goddess, the water of life (the pond, actually an ocean)—and his own childhood milieu to build the cosmology and the theater of a story he tells more gracefully than any he’s told since Stardust(1999). And don’t worry about that “for adults” designation: it’s a matter of tone. This lovely yarn is good for anyone who can read it.

HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: That this is the popular author’s first book for adults in eight years pretty much sums up why this will be in demand.

Those are the reviews we've got so far. I think it's probably my best book, which is why I am very nervous about it, which is why I really want to do whatever I can to make sure that as many people as possible read it.

The William Morrow press office just sent me the dates and locations of the OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE tour.

This may be modified slightly as we go -- I'll add any additional information (there's nothing on ticket prices here, for example -- most stores will count your ticket cost toward the cost of the book.)

The current plan is that I'll sign any copies of The Ocean at the End of the Lane for you, and one or two other things, depending on lines and numbers. This may change.

I'll also plan to sign as much as possible of what the bookstore has of mine when I get to each new shop, including many copies of OCEAN. So you can watch me read and do a Q&A and then take off if you do not want to wait.

Many shops will have leftover signed books after the signing, or will take preorders for a book to be signed and sent out. I'll sign all the books that each store needs signed, but there's no guarantee that I'll be able to personalise phone/internet orders.

And yes, this will be my last US book-signing tour. And I'm going to try and do as much as possible of it in a bus, mostly so I can get more sleep than I did on the Anansi Boys tour.

Feel very free to spread the information around. (UK & Canada & the rest of the world signing information is not in this post.)

Neil Gaiman/OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE/Full Ticket Info Events

Tuesday, June 18/BROOKLYN, NY

Greenlight Bookstore w/ Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) @ Howard Gilman Opera House

7:00 PM

30 Lafayette Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11217

Twitter:

@greenlightbklyn

@BAM_Brooklyn

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Greenlight-Bookstore/70922460961

https://www.facebook.com/BAMstage?ref=ts&fref=ts

Website:

www.greenlightbookstore.com

www.bam.org

Wednesday, June 19/NEW YORK, NY

Symphony Space “Thalia Book Club Series”

7:00 PM

2537 Broadway (@ 95^th Street)

New York, NY 10025

Box Office: 212-864-5400

Twitter:

@SymphonySpace

@SelectedShorts

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/symphonyspace?ref=ts&fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Selected-Shorts/292001113864

Website:

http://www.symphonyspace.org/genre/literature

http://www.symphonyspace.org/series/72

Thursday, June 20/SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY

Northshire Bookstore Saratoga @ Saratoga City Center

6:00 PM

522 Broadway

Saratoga Springs, NY 12866

Box Office: Tickets will be sold on the store’s website, or in the VT store (4869 Main Street Manchester Center, VT 05255)

Twitter: @NorthshireBooks

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Northshire-Bookstore/224327384223

Website: www.northshire.com

Friday, June 21/WASHINGTON, DC

Politics & Prose Bookstore @ George Washington University Lisner Auditorium

6:00 PM

730 21^st Street, NW

Washington, DC 20052

Twitter: @Politics_Prose

Facebook: www.facebook.com/politicsandprose

Website: www.politics-prose.com

Saturday, June 22/DECATUR, GA

Eagle Eye Book Shop @ Agnes Scott College Presser Hall

7:00 PM

141 East College Avenue

Decatur, GA 30030

Twitter: @eagleeyebooks

Facebook: www.facebook.com/eagleeyebooks

Website: www.eagleeyebooks.com

Sunday, June 23/CORAL GABLES, FL

Books & Books @ Temple Judea

2:00 PM

5500 Granada Boulevard

Coral Gables, FL 33146

Twitter: @booksandbooks

Facebook: www.Facebook.com/booksandbooks

Instagram: Booksandbooks

Monday, June 24/DALLAS, TX

Dallas Museum of Art @ Majestic Theatre

7:00 PM

1925 Elm Street

Dallas, TX 75201

Box Office: 214-922-1818 or visit tickets.dma.org

Twitter: @DallasMuseumArt

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/DallasMuseumofArt?fref=ts

Tuesday, June 25/DENVER, CO

Tattered Cover Book Store (LoDo)

6:00 PM

1628 16^th Street

Denver, CO 80202

Twitter: @tatteredcover

Facebook: www.facebook.com/tattered.cover

Website: www.tatteredcover.com

Wednesday, June 26/PHOENIX, AZ

Changing Hands Bookstore @ South Mountain High School Auditorium

6:00 PM

5401 South 7^th Street

Phoenix, AZ 85040

Twitter: @changinghands

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/changinghands

Website: http://www.changinghands.com/

Thursday, June 27/LOS ANGELES, CA

Live Talks Los Angeles w/ Barnes & Noble @ Alex Theatre

8:00 PM

216 North Brand Boulevard

Glendale, CA 91203

Tickets: www.livetalksla.org/events/upcoming-events

Twitter: @livetalksla

Facebook: www.facebook.com/livetalks

Friday, June 28/SAN FRANCISCO, CA

The Booksmith @ American Conservatory Theater (ACT) Geary Theater

7:00 PM

415 Geary Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/producer/14616

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Booksmith

Facebook: www.facebook.com/booksmith

Website: www.booksmith.com

Saturday, June 29/PORTLAND, OR

Powell’s Books @ Crystal Ballroom

3:00 PM

1332 West Burnside Street

Portland, OR 97209

Twitter: @Powells

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/powellsbooks

Website: http://www.powells.com/events

Tumblr: http://powells.tumblr.com/

Tuesday, July 2/SEATTLE, WA

University Book Store w/ Clarion West Writers Workshop @ Town Hall Seattle

7:00 PM

1119 8^th Avenue

Seattle, WA 98101

Twitter:

@ubs_events

@ClarionWest

Facebook:

www.facebook.com/pages/University-Book-Store/44262813758

Website:

www.ubookstore.com

www.clarionwest.org

Saturday, July 6/SANTA ROSA, CA

Copperfield’s Books @ Santa Rosa Theater

8:00 PM

1235 Mendocino Avenue

Santa Rosa, CA 95401

Tickets: www.copperfieldsbooks.com/boxoffice

Twitter: @Copperfields

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/copperfieldsbooks?ref=hl

Website: www.copperfieldsbooks.com

Sunday, July 7/ANN ARBOR, MI

Nicola’s Books @ Michigan Theater

6:00 PM

603 East Liberty Street

Ann Arbor, MI 48104

Box Office: http://www.michtheater.org/

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nicolas-Books-Ann-Arbors-Premier-Independent- Book-Store/322456060697

Website: www.nicolasbooks.com

Monday, July 8/BLOOMINGTON, MN

Barnes & Noble of Edina @ Jefferson High School Auditorium

6:00 PM

4001 West 102^nd Street

Bloomington, MN 55437

Website: http://store-locator.barnesandnoble.com/store/2514

Tuesday, July 9/CHICAGO, IL

Unabridged Bookstore @ Music Box Theater

7:00 PM

3733 North Southport Avenue

Chicago, IL 60613

Twitter: @unabridgedbooks

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/unabridgedbookstore

Website: www.unabridgedbookstore.com

Tumblr: http://unabridgedbookstore.tumblr.com/

Wednesday, July 10/NASHVILLE, TN

Parnassus Books @ Tennessee Performing Arts Council’s War Memorial Auditorium

6:00 PM

301 6^th Avenue North

Nashville, TN 37243

Box Office: http://www.wmarocks.com/events

Twitter: @parnassusbooks1

Facebook: www.facebook.com/parnassusbooks1

Website: www.parnassusbooks.net

Thursday, July 11/LEXINGTON, KY

Joseph-Beth Booksellers @ Grand Reserve Events Center

7:00 PM

903 Manchester Street

Lexington, KY 40508

Tickets: purchase at Joseph-Beth Lexington 800 248 6849 or 859 273 2911.

Twitter: @josephbethlex

Facebook: www.facebook.com/josephbethlex

Website: www.josephbeth.com

Saturday, July 13/CAMBRIDGE, MA

Porter Square Books @ First Parish Church

6:30 PM

1446 Massachusetts Avenue

Cambridge, MA 02138

Twitter: @PorterSqBooks

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Porter-Square-Books/112608362085830

Princess, and some thoughts on writing

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 14:34:00 +0000

Princess, my old, old old cat, is coming to the end of her life. She's somewhere over 20, but we do not know how much over 20 she is, as she was living wild in the woods for at least a year before she decided to live in our house instead. Right now she's in the bathroom in the attic, beside the space heater, sleeping most of the time.

This is her on my lap last night. (From WhoSay.)

Because she is in the attic I went into the attic last night, and while I was there I looked in some tubs of papers. I found one marked Poems, and found myself flicking through sheafs of discolouring papers with poems or drawings or prose on them, including the first ever description of Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar by Neil Gaiman aged 17 (only I spelled it Kroop then), with a drawing of each of them.

And what amazed me was that there was almost nothing there that was written by me. I'd sound like e.e.cummings one moment and an awkward mash-up of Moorcock and Zelazny the next. You can tell exactly when I've been reading the complete poems of Rudyard Kipling... I could point to every poem, every unfinished fragment of prose in that folder, and tell you who I'd been reading, what I was thinking at the time. Everything read like a bad imitation of somebody else. There wasn't anything in there that indicated that I was going to be a writer, a real writer, with something to say, except for one thing, and it was this:

I was writing. There was lots of writing going on.

And that made up for so much. I never knew how to finish anything longer than a couple of pages, but I was writing.

When SHARED WORLDS asked me (and other writers) to write some writing advice on our hands (it's at http://www.wofford.edu/sharedworlds/handinhand.aspx - go and look), I wrote this:

You want to be a writer?

Keep writing.

A big post with a ridiculous amount of cool or important stuff in it

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 00:50:00 +0000

I should have blogged this week. I kept meaning too. But it was always that or sleep, and sleep always won.

So there are lots of backed up things to tell you and show you. I will put them up here in the order that they are backed up....

...

The first thing is, John Hodgman's recording of the audiobook of Robert Sheckley's DIMENSION OF MIRACLES is coming out from Audible on the 26th. It was recorded a while ago, and it's been my favourite audiobook since I first heard it, 14 months ago, but it's been delayed because once Audible heard it they got all excited too, and have been waiting for the right time and the right way to release it in order to make a fuss about it.

It's been one of my favourite books for years, and I remember Douglas Adams telling me how shaken he was to read Dimension of Miracles and watch someone doing something a lot like the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy a decade before he did. Hodgman's narration is very dry and very funny, and the content is brilliant.

The Audible.com reviews editor says,

With audiobook narration, there are certain voices that fit perfectly with a genre. John Hodgman may now be the go-to guy for the droll-everyman-navigating-his-way-through-the-universe story.... Hand-picked by Neil Gaiman (whose charming audio introduction perfectly sets the stage for what’s to come) Hodgman lends the right amount of nerd-cred to this adventure, which was originally published in 1968 and is a clear forerunner to Douglas Adams’ classic The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I’ve had a chance to hear an advance excerpt of the audio, and I just have to know how Carmody, the unsuspecting winner of a Galactic Lottery, makes his way back to Earth in one piece.

To promote it, Audible are doing a sweepstake, to send someone and their person to the New York Comic Con: www.audible.com/ComicCon_ NYCTrip is the link. www.audible.com/ComicCon_ NYCTrip_FAQ is the link to the FAQs about the sweepstake.

Mostly they want to draw attention to the book, to what John Hodgman is doing and to get the world to listen. I am delighted. It's amazing.

Here's a link to a tumblr post I did where you can listen to a recording of me talking to John Hodgman about the book. (I do not know why you can't put up an audio recording directly on Blogger any more.)

...

NEXT: Please watch, and share, this very short video. It's the most beautiful of all the BlackBerry Keep Moving videos: it was filmed last week, in Cambridge and London. I look a lot like I'd flown from LA to the UK and had not got enough sleep at any point on my travels, but I also look like I am having an amazing time. And I was.

There will be more on the BlackBerry project later in this blog...

...

I flew in to South By SouthWest in Austin, Texas. I was in conversation with Chuck Lorre, and it was ridiculously fun. (Here's a write-up.) I liked him a lot: in an alternate world in which I'd decided to make American sitcoms instead of making everything-but-sitcoms, I suspect I would have wound up a lot like Chuck.

The royalties to his book go to help fund a free clinic in Venice, Ca. Here's an Amazon link. His observations, grumbles, screams and howls about LA, entertainment and television should be compulsory reading for people interested in how television is made. This is the book cover (the book is HUGE - an art object, the kind of coffee table book that just needs four legs):

The next day I went into the recording studio, Tequila Mockingbird, where recording engineer Shayna Brown and I huddled down in our little studio and I recorded THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE and then recorded SMOKE AND MIRRORS.

I had memories of the Sussex accent that I used to hear as a boy, especially from the old local farmers, and had written some of the characters in the book with that accent, and then had a panic attack before we started. Had I imagined the accent? And why are the Sussex R's in my memory so much like West Country R's? What if I started going West Country?

I appealed to Twitter, and people sent me links to http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/text-only/england/milland/, where I listened and also learned that the R in all these words would at one time have been a feature of speech across the UK and it remains very much a part of the English spoken in Scotland and Ireland. In present-day England, however, it is increasingly restricted to the West Country, the far South West and an area of Lancashire to the north of Manchester.

Recording Ocean was hard and beautiful. Recording Smoke and Mirrors was alternately a joy and a nightmare -- there were so many accents and voices of so many kinds, and I did them all as best I could and cursed the long-ago-me who had thought it was a good idea to have characters in my short stories who did not speak exactly like me.

Shayna was an absolute dream - just someone who makes it easy for you to do your best work - and I am so grateful to her and to Page, who made my life work.

...

At night I would go and have adventures with Amanda. The most fun we had was probably the People of Letters event, where we wrote letters to the thing we wished we had written, and we read the letters out. There were seven of us, and the letters were funny, sad, brilliant, strange, heartfelt, and always different. (Here's a review. And yes, Amanda killed it.)

At one point Amanda decided it would be fun to put on a Ninja event for Austin people who did not have South by Southwest badges. She went onto Twitter, and that evening she had a full theatre, four bands and a documentary crew: she performed for them, and interviewed the bands and documentarians. It was remarkable. I loved it.

Actually, it is quite possible that my favourite moment of SXSW was Amanda and Billy Bragg. That was glorious -- they performed the folk song The World Turned Upside Down together, and then Amanda did the best of all Ukulele Anthems.

...

Shayna and Page also had to cope with the arrival of Cat Mihos, who flew in from LA to work on the BlackBerry Keep Moving art with me. If you've been to the http://keepmoving.blackberry.com/desktop/en/us/ambassador/neil-gaiman.html site and looked at the art, you'll have seen, well, a lot of art. A lot of really good art. Over 5,200 pieces of really good art.

I had to pick a shortlist, from which we will pick 20 pieces for each month to go on the upcoming CALENDAR OF TALES website. And because of various website-building schedules, I had to do it NOW. Cat had thought to make my life easier by drawing up her long list, but I had to explain to her that I couldn't do it like that: I wanted to see all of them. Everything that had come in.

So in any downtime, Cat would produce her computer and I would look at images and drag any that I thought did something special or interesting or unique over to another folder. This was done instead of sleeping. This was done instead of eating....

And you know what?

I'd do it again. So many amazing images. So many people creating as a group. It made me so happy.

(This one is my very favourite one that didn't somehow get uploaded successfully, so I am determined to share it with the world. It's by Tim Baker, who has it up at http://timbakerfx.deviantart.com/art/Neil-Gaiman-Story-Illustration-358995452 and is for the July tale.)

...

The morning I left Austin, Neverwhere suddenly became a trending topic on Twitter. The first part of the BBC Radio 4/ Radio 4 Extra series, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, James MaCavoy, Natalie Dormer and Bernard Cribbins and David Harewood and Anthony Stuart Head and lots of other people had been broadcast on Radio 4 in the UK.

The reviews are amazing.

And not just because Benedict Cumberbatch sings in it.

Episode 1 went out on BBC Radio 4, and was an hour long. Episodes 2-6

You can listen to Neverwhere from ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD using the BBC's iPlayer. (It's region-blocked for TV, not for radio.)

You can't use iPlayer on mobile platforms, but you can use apps like TuneIn Radio to listen, replay or record it.

From March 22nd, you'll be able to download the first part as the BBC Weekly Drama podcast.

The whole thing -- all 6 episodes -- will be available to be listened to until the 29th.

OR you can go here (and you should anyway) to the Neverwhere page, and listen to it there. And look at the amazing amount of stuff they've put up -- interviews, images, the works...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01r522y

...

There's more. But it can wait until perhaps tomorrow....

Lives on Planes, Dances on Tables

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:38:00 +0000

Someone on Twitter just asked if I live on planes, and right now it feels like it.

I slept in my own bed in Cambridge MA last night, but I leave in a couple of hours (if the roads are cleared of snow) for Austin TX, for the South by Southwest festival, where I will be In Conversation with Chuck Lorre about What Doesn't Kill Us Makes Us Bitter, and will be one of Marieke Hardy's People of Letters, and I will mostly spend long days recording the audiobook of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE and the unrecorded stories of SMOKE AND MIRRORS.

Let's see: This is a beautiful thing. It's the third of the BlackBerry Keep Moving videos -- it begins with me reading the end of the February tale. It has a special guest star in artist Amadea Bailey (we were in her beautiful studio) and lots of beautiful shots of Santa Monica beach at sunset, and a recording session.

The film I'm excited about is the next one, filmed in London and Cambridge (the UK one) last week. Well, earlier this week. Argh. They just sent it to me, and it's gorgeous.

Go and look at the amazing artwork that's coming in for the Calendar of Tales (and read/listen to them too) at http://blck.by/XXjEYE.

I was a guest at the Cambridge Watersprite International Student Film Festival last weekend -- here's a great write up of what it was like...

Other things I did in London included:

A press conference for Neverwhere. I slept through my alarm and had to race through Soho to get there not-too-late. The concerned lady at the bottom of the stairs who calmed me down and got me a much-needed cup of tea turned out to be the Controller of Radio Four. I met BERNARD CRIBBINS ( he plays Old Bailey).

Here is a photograph of Benedict Cumberbatch. He plays the angel Islington. Many of my friends strongly believe that photographs of Mr Cumberbatch and amusing photographs of kittens were what the internet was created for.

Here is a link to the absolutely wonderful BBC NEVERWHERE website.

I bumped into Stephen Fry in a Soho basement last week -- we were both there to see the Lady Rizo being amazing -- and when he found out I was doing stuff with BlackBerry & had a Z10 he sent me this essay from his blog.

I worked on a secret project with Nick Harkaway and Tom Abba.

I planned lots of things with Headline (for THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE) and with Bloomsbury (for FORTUNATELY, THE MILK). I signed some advanced reading copies of OCEAN for Headline...

I was interviewed about FORTUNATELY, THE MILK and the forthcoming UNNATURAL CREATURES anthology by Bloomsbury - a benefit book I edited, with the assistance of the remarkable Maria Dahvana Headley, for 826 DC.

Here is the AMERICAN cover of UNNATURAL CREATURES (the UK cover is not up yet):

I met several people who want me to Use whatever influence I have to Do Good, including the fabulous Other Neil and Josie Long from emerging benevolent entity Arts Emergency.

I met Alison, a representative of the UN High Commission on Refugees: the day I met her the millionth refugee from Syria had crossed the border, fleeing the conflict. Alison told me what was happening, about the refugees, mostly mothers and children leaving their lives with only what they could carry, and what the UNHCR is doing; and I agreed, without hesitation, to come on board and help however I can. For now, that consists of telling people what's going on on the Syrian borders, and of pointing people at this website: http://goo.gl/KlLZW.

I saw Lenny Henry and Tanya (Hunter from the TV Neverwhere) Moodie starring in August Wilson's FENCES. It was huge and moving, and Lenny's performance is epic (better, in my opinion, than his award-winning Othello). I assume it's heading for London's West End, because it's the kind of thing that you know is going to wind up there. That level of quality and power. I got to hug Tanya for the first time since 1997.

I had a bunch of other meetings about things that are wonderful, or will be, and that I am not allowed to talk about yet. And then I flew home.

Somewhere in there I failed to get enough sleep.

I do not actually live on planes. I did not dance on any tables either.

The Art of Asking

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 10:59:00 +0000

In a day and a half over half a million people have watched this talk, at the TED website and on YouTube.

I am so proud of her. Really: I've never been happier than when I watched her get a standing ovation, and watching this video go viral is an absolute joy.

It was hard, sometimes, over the last six weeks, while she worked on her speech. Genuinely rough, sometimes: it was like having a third person in the marriage. There was me, Amanda, and there was Amanda's TED speech, and she was spending a lot more time with her TED speech than she was with me.

Initially I was grumpy and jealous and I felt left out, and then, once I heard her give an early version of the speech, I got caught up in the fun of watching her craft it (and watching her figure out how to get it down to 12 minutes), and toward the end I was loving the process of watching her give her speech to college kids and to our friends and just to me and Anthony, and when I got a cold I even banished her from the house for a few days, because I didn't want her speech being derailed by sickness...

Then we went to TED, and it was all worth it. She went on between Sergei Brin and Larry Lessig and she gave her speech. The people who came up and congratulated her over the next few days were people you've heard of, the ones who make the world different.

And when someone came up to me that afternoon and said "You must be Mr Palmer", I said, Yes, I supposed I must be, and I beamed like a madman.

Watch the speech.

It's called The Art of Asking.

When she was working on it, I thought it was about her Kickstarter, and probably applicable to musicians, but hearing people talk to her about it, and watching it go viral, I realised that it's about so much more than that.

...

(I'm in the UK right now for a couple of days. I've just been the Keynote Speaker at the Cambridge WATERSPRITE Student Film Festival. Today I'm going to be in London with the BlackBerry film crew looking at paper stock and such things for the Calendar of Tales. Tomorrow morning is the NEVERWHERE Radio 4/Radio 4 Extra Press Conference and I get to meet BERNARD CRIBBINS. Proper Blog entry SOON.)

Now up! Read a Calendar of Tales. And make ART.

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 19:32:00 +0000

ROUND TWO BEGINS...

Here's a video that the people at BlackBerry (who are the patrons of this project) made of me ten days ago, on the two days between the tweeting out the questions and the writing of the stories.

If you go to http://keepmoving.blackberry.com/desktop/en/us/ambassador/neil-gaiman.html you will be able to read or download a free PDF of all twelve of the stories I wrote in three days of madness last week: over 9000 words of tales, each one very different, each one inspired by a reply to a question I'd twittered to the world.

The next stage is art. I made stories inspired by replies, now I want the stories to inspire art. Something we can make a calendar out of -- an online one, perhaps a paper one as well... Go to the website to find out how.

I tried to write stories that would make pictures in people's heads. I hope I succeeded.

Yours nervously,

Neil

A Calendar of Tales Update, and Two Covers.

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Sun, 17 Feb 2013 22:11:00 +0000

I got up early this morning and went into a recording studio, and recorded audio versions of each of the twelve stories in the Calendar of Tales I'm doing, under the patronage of BlackBerry (you can read about it here).

Which means, the hard bit is now done.

I chose the twelve tweets (actually -- with one exception, March, which I fell in love with, and never had any competition -- I chose three tweets for each month, as the people whose tweets were chosen had to be okay with me having chosen them, and they had to tell BlackBerry it was okay for me to use them, and some people never got back to them, so it was good to have fallbacks).

And then I spent a couple of days when I thought I was going to be writing, being filmed and interviewed for the project. There was an entire film crew based in my garage. (It is a big garage, but it took me by surprise to see it transformed into an ops room.)

And then the film crew left, and I grabbed a pen and a blue book of blank pages, and I started scribbling: March first, (that was the one I fell in love with, as I said, and is piratical) then April (which is funny) and November (which is sad), then January (sort of exciting and things go bang), October (funnyish) July (heartbreaking and hopeful, my favourite of all of them, but different people have different favourites), September (magic), June (funny), May (WEIRD), February (strange), August (short and very hot), December (sad, but I ended it on a less sad note than I had planned when I remembered that it would be the last one in the sequence).

Logan Airport in Boston had closed because of a Blizzard. I flew home in the few hours between it opening and Minneapolis St Paul airport closing in an ice storm.

Then I typed the stories out, and sent them off to BlackBerry, and waited nervously to find out if they liked them (they did, which was nice, as there was no fallback plan for what we'd do if they didn't). I dashed into a recording studio, recorded them, even did some of the voices I shouldn't have had to have done.

...

And that was as far as I got blogging two days ago, and then life grabbed me and I haven't looked up until now. I'm not really even looking up now -- I have my head down and should be working. There are not one, not two, but four drop dead argh now now now deadlines in my life this week, so whenever I write anything I feel guilty for not writing something else.

("Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh Mr Gaiman?" whispers an imaginary Duke of Gloucester in the back of my head.)

My excuse for getting back to this incomplete blog entry is, Headline books has released the UK cover to THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. It looks like this:

Like the US edition, it will be released on June the 18th.

(Here's the US edition for those of you who need your memories jogged)

and yes, a boy on the cover of the UK edition, a girl on the cover of the US one, and both of them are accurate.

June 18th. In the US you can preorder a signed first edition books from Porter Square Books in Cambridge or now through Barnes and Noble. It's a While Supplies Last sort of thing -- the window to order will close in a few weeks, then I will be sent a lot of sheets of paper to sign, which will got to the printers and be bound in to the relevant copies of the first edition. (Oops. I got that wrong. It looks like you can pre-order signed copies up to publication date.)

(Also, there are people who have read advance copies now talking about it on GoodReads. No spoilers, so I do not mind linking to the page in question.)

AN AMAZING THING CAN NOW BE REVEALED

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 18:16:00 +0000

I am VERY BUSY writing the last of the Keep Moving stories. They embiggened. It's been amazing.

More tomorrow.

Here, let me give you something fun for today.

This is the cover of the American Edition of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK, which is being illustrated as we speak by Mr Skottie Young, and will be published in September.

It is the silliest book I have ever written, and is quite funny also.

And I love that I have the cover up before they even have it shown on the Amazon entry for the book.

A VERY late Blog, about trying to make art with a lot of people, including you...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 05:16:00 +0000

I had planned to write this blog early this morning. And then I planned to write it while the day went on. And now the day is half over and the blog is not even begun.

So...

First of all, watch this:

...and not just for the beautiful footage of Cabal in it.

(The film was made in mid-December, and it makes me so happy-sad-happy-again to see it, and see my old dog lolloping through the snow with me.)

Over on Twitter today I've been initiating a strange and beautiful art project. It's about half way through the very first stage, which consists of throwing out questions to Twitter, and seeing what I get back.

Questions like "Why is January so Dangerous?"

or "Where would you spend a perfect June?" with the appropriate Hashtag - #JunTale in this case.

The answers have been amazing. Personal, honest, imaginative, glorious, surprising, strange, unexpected, familiar, magical, wise, funny... all of those things. They can be read over on the BlackBerry Hub for the project, and also on Twitter (just click on the relevant hashtag -- here's April's. Here's June's.)

I've been retweeting them like mad, because I loved them and wanted to spread them.

I'm also using the BlackBerry10 #KeepMoving hashtag, and because BlackBerry are the ones who are helping me do all this I'm also trying to remember to use both the #BlackBerry10 hashtag and to put the capital B in the middle of BlackBerry.

Seeing you are probably wondering: they showed me the phone in question, the Z10, for the first time in Autumn in the UK, I got to play with it, and I really liked it: the swiping the screen with your thumb "flow" things felt really natural, and it's the easiest onscreen keyboard to type with I've ever used. (I always hate onscreen keyboards and I do not hate this one. It is intelligent. I've used the first four of the five features NBC talk about here, and like them as much as they do.) (And no, nobody's asked me to say that last paragraph. If I hadn't have liked the phone I would have said no.)

So they said yes to my idea of using online communities to try and make something cool and special that brought a lot of people together, and I said yes to working with their patronage on the project.

The idea is: I'm going to make a Calendar of Tales. (Yes, I remain as obsessed with the months of the year as I have always been.) I would go to Twitter for story prompts. Then, over a handful of days, I'll write a story, one for each month. Once there are 12 stories we'll go back out to the world to get other people make art of various kinds using the stories as inspiration. One giant artistic ball of wax. Or ping pong game. Or cuddlepuddle. Or pick your own metaphor.

No, you do not have to use a BlackBerry for anything in this, although you might want to follow the @Blackberry twitter account as it would be useful for when they need to DM anyone whose tweets I do happen to use as a story prompt. (But if you don't follow them, I'll wave at you to remind you.)

In the end, we're hoping for a paper Calendar that will benefit charity, and an amazing app (or possibly a website) with all the stories, and all the art of various kinds up for everyone.

I'm enjoying this no end: it's wonderful just to throw questions out, and feel recharged and joyous. (Actually, December did not leave me joyous. It left me wanting to hug people, and to remember how much we lose when we lose people, and animals, and ourselves from the past as we always do.)

I think I understand a lot more of how Amanda relates to Twitter, when suddenly she'll start retweeting people and use that to create a community, to link people, to make people feel less alone.

I didn't expect this bit of the project to feel like art, but watching the amount of connection it has made between people, I think perhaps it was. I felt like my heart was being broken and healed, all at the same time.

(I also do not know how recharged or joyous I will feel in a few days from now when I have finished writing 12 shortshort stories, mind you. I may be grumpy and glaring and muttering.)

If you go to http://keepmoving.blackberry.com/desktop/en/us/ambassador/neil-gaiman.html they have all the info you could need up, along with more stuff. (Scroll down the page.)

As I said, you can still suggest things: use the month and the #KeepMoving hashtags.

Tomorrow, I have to choose 12 prompts which now seems to me to be a pretty impossible sort of a task given everything that's come in, but I set the rules so cannot grumble. And then on Wednesday I start to write.

There will be a film crew watching me write. This will be VERY interesting, and it is possible I may ask them to go away, or at least to film me from a great distance.

I always envied Harlan Ellison getting to write stories in bookshop windows. Maybe it will be like that.

The Best Advice

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Sun, 03 Feb 2013 03:05:00 +0000

I was asked recently, on a stage in Sydney, what the best advice I'd ever received from another author was, and I told the Harlan Ellison shaving story I've told here. It is invaluable knowledge.

This morning I thought, I wonder what the best non-shaving advice I've actually got from another author was...? And then I knew.

It was in 1988, at the World Fantasy Convention in London, in the bar. I was with a bunch of people around a table, and had been interviewing Clive Barker about comics for a book on Clive that would be coming out. After the interview a conversational free-for-all developed -- I remember getting frustrated with Clive's view that comics were lacking something that prose had, because a novel could make him cry while a comic never had. (This was 26 years ago, remember. I have no idea at all if Clive still thinks that way, or if a comic has made him cry in the years between. I hope it has.)

And after the conversation was over, Clive took me aside. He said, "When we were talking, you were getting louder and louder."

I had been. It was a noisy bar. And I'd had important things to say and huge opinions and dammit, I was determined to be heard.

He said, "Neil, don't do that. If you get loud, everyone else gets louder to top you. And then everyone's shouting and nobody's listening. If you want everyone to listen to you, get quieter. People will listen."

It seemed like the strangest advice I'd ever received. But I loved and respected Clive, so the next time I was in a bar argument/conversation, I lowered my voice. And the more I wanted to be heard the quieter I forced myself to get. I lowered my voice...

And people lowered theirs. They leaned in. They listened. I didn't have to raise my voice.

I felt like I'd been given one of the keys to the universe.

And so I pass it on to you.

Clive's been having some health issues recently, and I hope they are soon over and he's back to full strength. He was an inspiration in every way when I was in my early twenties, and I've learned so much from him over the years. Here's a photo of us from 1989 on the Nightbreed set stolen from his Facebook page.

...

Monday at midday Eastern Time, the first part of the mad make good art project I'm doing with the assistance of Blackberry will begin. It'll be happening (to begin with) on Twitter. I'm @Neilhimself there (some people might not know this). I'll keep you updated with links and such on here, too.

...

Right. I'm at home. The home in the midwest. Lots of cool things waiting for me here, including a bunch of books, one of which is the new edition of American Gods -- for the first time, the US edition of the Author's Preferred Text is out in paperback. (It's also the first of the New Uniform US Paperback covers to come out and will be released in a few days.) It's in the bottom second from the right...

(Also shown, two foreign editions of Sandman, three books that include short stories by me, a book I love with an afterword by me, and my copy of a great guide to where you start reading an author -- I got it because I backed the Kickstarter, not because there is a chapter on where to start reading me written by the outrageously talented Erin Morgenstern.)

It's cold here. But I'm wearing long underwear and will dress warmly and am about to take Lola for a walk down to the lamppost in the woods. Will post a photo if I get a good one.

Yes, the house feels empty and strange. But Lola is a sweet and loving dog. And I am writing things.

(The little flashlight around her neck is not really so that she can see better in the dark. It's so I can see her in the night.)

Pre-signed copies of OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE available now (USA only)

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Sat, 02 Feb 2013 19:16:00 +0000

Just a quick post (for the USA only right now I'm afraid) to say...

When I am in Cambridge MA, my local bookshop tends to be Porter Square Books. It's definitely Amanda's favourite local bookshop, because when she is done with Yoga she goes in there and orders their fresh rolls* and is made happy. Sometimes she buys books too. Sometimes I wander in and out unspotted, and sometimes they notice me and I sign whatever they have of mine on the shelves that day.

So when Harper Collins asked how I felt about pre-signing some copies of The Ocean at the End of the Lane for a local store to sell, I said sure. I like keeping a good local bookshop in business and guaranteeing that there will always be fresh rolls for Amanda when she gets out of yoga.

I'll pre-sign the books at the end of March or beginning of April. I'll actually pre-sign stacks of sheets of paper to be bound in when the books are printed, as the books won't yet actually be printed when I have to sign them.

Right now, they are available from:

http://www.portersquarebooks.com/pre-order-signed-copy-ocean-end-lane

(There will undoubtedly be more places offering pre-signed copies. I'll list more of them as they turn up. Some of them will undoubtedly offer international shipping, which Porter Square Books does not. And the bookshops I sign at on tour will have spare signed copies left over. And I have no doubt that Hachette-Headline are plotting their own ways to make signed books happen.)

The picture of the book above is from this Harper Collins post, which also contains many links to desktop wallpaper you can download. It looks like this.

The Ocean at the End of the Lane desktop wallpaper in six versions:

iPad (Download)
2560x1440 (Download)
1920x1080 (Download)
1024x768 (Download)
800x600 (Download)
640x480 (Download)

And…

A 3-D image of The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Download)
A 3-D image of Make Good Art (Download)

*Fresh rolls, also known as summer rolls, salad rolls, fresh spring rolls, soft rolls, crystal rolls. These.

Frankly, much too much stuff for one poor blog post to hold...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:40:00 +0000

I meant to blog in Australia. I really did.

I also meant to get more sleep, jog, write and be a bit of a tourist. Almost none of these things happened.

Lots of other things happened, though.

I flew to Hobart, Tasmania. I have been saying for years that Hobart is one of the planet's secretly cool places, and people used to mock me for saying this. (Australian people would mock me. Other people would just stare at me blankly.) Over the last few years, however, the world has caught up a little with my opinions, and the MONA museum and the MONAFOMA (aka MOFO) Festival has a lot to do with it.

I rehearsed. I read a fairy story in the Theatre Royal Hobart. (I did other things there too: I sang "Psycho", and I did a reading of one of Amanda's songs, "The Bed Song", because she wasn't there.) Here's a video. Jherek Bischoff, Amanda's bass player and string arranger, made all the music happen. The Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra provided the lovely string quartet.

Somewhere shortly after arrival in Hobart, I joined forces with Polly Adams.

I'm a patron of Tasmania's Bookend Trust, and Polly has inherited her father's conservation mantle, if not his Rhino suit, and is a patron of Save the Rhino. We got up early the next morning, and were taken off on a journey by Niall Doran of the Bookend Trust. We saw the devastation of the bushfires on the Tasman peninsula, learned the natural history behind the bushfires (basically, Eucalypts like fires - they clear the brush and help the seeds to germinate), saw an echidna by the side of the road, went on a wonderful boat ride (thanks to http://www.tasmancruises.com.au/) and saw awe-inspiring cliffs, seals and penguins (and a dead weedy seadragon), not to mention a place where the sea tips on its side...

...or it feels like it has. (Photo by Polly Adams.)

And then we were shows some of the fire devastation in Dunalley, and presented books to the primary school.

The primary school at Dunalley is not there any more. It burned down in the bushfires. They are putting up temporary buildings to house a temporary school while they build a new one. (We were joined by lots of nice people, including Robert Pennicott and Andrew Hughes, Tasmanians of the Year in 2012 and 2013.)

My publishers, Bloomsbury and Hachette, gave the school lots of my books, and lots of other books that they could use to auction or sell or include in the library. Here I am with Chair of the School Association Elizabeth Knox, Principal Matt Kenny, and various students and community members.

Frankly, I think Polly has a future in showing books to people.

(Photos taken from https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=oa.10151236486214607&type=1 )

The school wrote about it at their blog entry at http://newdunalleyschool.wordpress.com/2013/01/21/a-visit-from-neil-gaiman/. It's a really inspiring blog, as they chart their recovery from the fires and chart the plans for the new school...

Time was tight, so we flew by seaplane to Hobart so I could do an interview with ABC's Helen Shield (you can read about it and listen to it here: http://blogs.abc.net.au/tasmania/2013/01/neil-gaiman.html). (And Helen's interview with Polly is at http://blogs.abc.net.au/tasmania/2013/01/douglas-adams-little-rocket.html).

A mad dash to a quick rehearsal/soundcheck with Jherek and a string quartet, along with our special guests David Byrne and St Vincent, and an even madder dash back to the ABC studios to do another interview, this time with Triple J's The Doctor (You can read about it/listen to it at http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/thedoctor/blog/s3673304.htm). Then back to the Mona Festival. I got there at 7 minutes to 6. We were due on at 6, so I found a dressing room, changed clothes and went on stage to read "Click-Clack the Rattlebag", sing Psycho, and, my favourite moment of all, read my "Australia Day" poem with Brian Ritchie playing didgeridoo, and David Byrne making animal sounds on the guitar.

I listened to Kate Miller-Heidke singing wonderfully immediately after us (her cover of David Byrne's Psycho Killer was unbelievable. It was a bit like this:)

And then came the best bit of the whole night as Jherek and I had a close encounter with a guide dog puppy named Quinnell.

I nearly forgot to mention, a couple of days earlier Amanda had asked me on Twitter to recreate her famous Map of Tasmania photo from the last time she was there. So, with the aid of a Map of Tasmania apron and photographer Dianna Graf, I did. And then Polly did too.

and here is Quinnell the guide dog puppy in training with his coat on (he's not allowed to play and lick you when he has his coat on) along with Dianna Graf, who took many of the the above photos and, with Mark, her partner, is training Quinnell. We're in Hobart harbour and it is very windy.

And then Polly and I were getting up at 6 am again and we headed to Melbourne, where we stayed with my friends Peter and Clare. They have the best house in the world.

I spent a day or so mostly being interviewed -- the photo is from the interview at http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/books/melbourne-in-authors-good-books-as-he-plans-next-fun-escapade-20130123-2d7e6.html.

I'd a talk at the Atheneum Theatre, under the auspices of the Wheeler Centre. I signed lots of books for people, and then stumbled off for a late drink and dinner with lots of Melbournian friends, including Sxip Shirey, Meow Meow, and someone named Knibbs who can, like me, raise both eyebrows individually or set them scurrying across her forehead like startled caterpillars. ("Did you teach yourself in front of a mirror when you were a kid too?" "Yup.")

Four hours of sleep and I said goodbye to Peter and to Clare, and to Polly too (I'd pretty much adopted her by the time I left, so it was a sad goodbye made happier in the knowledge that I'd introduced her to lots of people who would be fun for her to know in Australia) and flew to Sydney, to the offices of Hachette, where I was interviewed, looked after by publicist Anna Hayward, had my photo taken by Tamara Dean (look at her beautiful photo art here and here) and then I had lunch with my Bloomsbury publishers and answered questions for them on video, and I ran to the Sydney Recital Hall where I met FourPlay String Quartet for a rehearsal.

I really love the guys from FourPlay -- it's such a delight doing stuff with them. We ran through the Fireball XL5 theme. We took the first fifteen minutes of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK and they created music and sound effects on the fly. They made glorious bush sounds for the Australia Day poem. Working with them now is so comfortable and easy.

Photo stolen from http://capriciousnerd.tumblr.com/post/41897844603/agaimanevening because she posted on Twitter that she had photos from the night at the exact moment I thought I ought to look for some.

During the evening I read the first 2 chapters of THE OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE. I did a Q&A and explained why secrets do not leak out of the Doctor Who office in Cardiff. I sang the Fireball XL5 theme because I had FourPlay with me and I wanted to hear what they did to it...

I read the first fifteen minutes of FORTUNATELY, THE MILK... (it is so silly. I love it so much).

And then I gave an acknowledgment of country, and read the Australia Day poem, and we were done. No signing -- it was a long event, there were about 1100 people there, and I was knackered, but I scribbled on things for the people at the stage door on the way out.

Production entity Jordan Verzar and Festival boss Ben Strout, Jemma Birrell (artistic director of the festival) and festival PR Ainslee Lenehan and I, along with my old Whitgift school friend James Croll, stumbled off for an exhausted drink and conversation after the show, winding up in the bar of the hotel I was staying in, the somewhat O.T.T. but beautiful "QT", where the people were so nice and helpful. And then I was sleepily packing and it was daylight again, and I went to see the people at Animal Logic, who had given up some of their Australia Day to show me the beautiful film work they had done...

I proofread the UK edition of OCEAN AT THE END OF THE LANE on the plane back to the US, and read Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor. I breakfasted with my son and daughter in law and daughter in San Francisco airport. I got home to Amanda...

I slept. I slept for three whole hours, and then the furnace in the basement belched out soot and smoke, the smoke alarms went off, the fire brigade arrived, and my hopes of catching up on my sleep were dashed. (Nothing was damaged. Nothing burned. And the Cambridge MA fire department are fast.)

The first of my episodes of SELECTED SHORTS went up on the radio. I got to select and introduce stories I loved -- in this case Ray Bradbury's chilling "The Veldt" read by Stephen Colbert, and James Thurber's "The Catbird Seat" hilariously read by Leonard Nimoy.

You can listen to it HERE.

(I'll be hosting for the next few weeks. Why don't you subscribe to the podcast? Information and links at http://www.selectedshorts.org/podcast/. There are some great stories on the way.)

Then an interview with me went out on Morning Edition. You read about it and listen to it here: http://www.npr.org/2013/01/28/170085113/watch-this-neil-gaimans-imaginative-favorites It's about things I love, or things that influenced me.

No, I won't tell you what they are. Go and listen to it. It's fun.

(There were things on my list that we didn't have time to talk about: Doctor Who's Curse of the Fatal Death and the Magnetic Fields' Andrew In Drag video, for example...)

And I should stop writing this blog and go and write about weird stuff happening underneath London instead.

But if you've made it this far, the next week should be interesting. I'll be doing a really exciting (and quite goofy) Art Project, and you'll learn a bit about it in this film. (Along with seeing Cabal, alive and well and happy, three weeks ago.)

Life Goes On, with additional Awesome, the aftereffects of a hurricane & a firestorm

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 04:13:00 +0000

I am typing this on a plane on my way to Australia. I had planned to go to Australia to keep Amanda company. Amanda is, however, now not going to Australia until Autumn. Life is odd, sometimes. She will be in Cambridge, dreaming of the warmth and missing Australia, and I'll be in Australia, performing on stages -- even doing something unlikely with David Byrne -- while being a bit wistful for home.

I was on the stage of the Carnegie Hall last night. It wasn't my show -- it was more fun that that. It was John and Hank Green's show, An Evening of Awesome, and I felt like I was going to their party (and boy, can they throw a party). I had quite possibly the best time that any author except John Green has ever had standing on the stage of the Carnegie Hall, and I hugged Kimya Dawson and hugged Hannah Hart, and the Mountain Goats played and...

...ah, just watch the video if you want to know what it was all about. It starts 35 minutes in. (And my first bit starts about 1:43).

I gave copies of Chu's Day to some of the people on the stage who had very small children.

Chu's Day went straight onto the New York Times list at #2 today, which is good.

But... there was a problem. I had noticed on the Amazon page that people were reporting that they were getting copies with water-rippled interior pages. And some of them were sending them back and getting more water-warped copies to replace them with. This was odd. I asked on Twitter and discovered that, yes, this had happened to people who got their copies of Chu's Day in places other than Amazon. I let Harper Children's know, and they did some SherlockHolmesing around. My editor Rosemary told me what they discovered. She explained,

...we believe that when the copies left the bindery in China, they were fine, but they arrived in the U.S. during Hurricane Sandy. The cartons of books were stuck on the ship, as the ship was unable to come into port, and so the tremendous humidity in the air caused a ripple effect on the pages of some of the books. The ship was unable to dock until November 9. There is no actual water damage on the books, or water-to-paper contact, but we have seen some ripples in a few copies that would be caused by humid air. The copies that shipped to us by air from the bindery were all fine, so the problem must have occurred on the ship.

HarperChildren have already gone back to press on the book twice, with the first reprinting due in to the US this week, and they are shipping out pristine copies of Chu's Day to their accounts to replace any Sandy-damaged copies. As Rosemary continued,

[the new printing] will ship directly from the bindery to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and others. We are not wasting time by shipping to our warehouse and then to our accounts...

So if you got a hurricane-marked copy, you should be able to replace it very easily very soon. And we are very sorry.

...

Two Australian things: There are still tickets left for Sydney on the 25th. The first half of the evening will be all about Ocean at the End of the Lane. The second half will be stories and Q&A, and FourPlay and possibly even some songs. Tickets at this link.

More importantly, on the 21st, it's the Mona Bushfire Fundraiser Concert. The Tasmanian fires have been terrible things, and I've already been working with my publishers to get books to students at this school:

Probably you want to see me and Jherek Bischoff with special guest David Byrne doing some weird and wonderful stuff on stage. (We have over an hour to fill. We have plans. They will be weird. They will be wonderful.) But we are only a very small part of the entertainment:

MONA is pleased to announce a Mona Bushfire Fundraiser Concert to raise funds for the Australian Red Cross Tasmanian Bushfires 2013 Appeal. http://www.mona.net.au/
Buy tickets: https://www.mona.net.au/shop/bushfirefundraiser.aspx

THE ARTISTS:
The Hoodoo Gurus
The Break
Kate Miller-Heidke
Evan Dando & Spencer P Jones
Neil Gaiman and Jherek Bischoff (special guest David Byrne)
Taiko Drum

WHEN & WHERE:
Monday January 21, 2013
Princes Wharf 1 (PW1), Hobart
Doors open 5.30pm for 6pm, until late
TICKETS:
$33
On sale now: https://www.mona.net.au/shop/bushfirefundraiser.aspx

All profits from the concert go to the Australian Red Cross Tasmanian Bushfires 2013 Appeal. Production costs kept low by the generous donation of time and services by dozens of companies and individuals.

Mona and MONA FOMA staff are hosting the event. Suppliers will provide equipment and services, including artist accommodation; volunteers will staff the concert, and artists are performing for free. Mona has waived ticket booking fees and is giving all food and bar profits from the evening to the Red Cross.

The Power of the Dog. Cabal (2003-2013)

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 19:52:00 +0000

Sometimes, these things are hard to write. And sometimes writing them saves my life. This is one of those times I'm glad I have my blog here, and it's still so hard to write...

So. 30th of April 2007 I stopped and rescued a dog by the side of the road.

At the time I wrote...

On the way home from the recording, driving through the rain, just as I pulled off the freeway to head home, I saw a large, pale dog on the side of the sliproad. I went in a couple of seconds from a first glance thought of "Oh, he's just wandering around and knows exactly what he's doing," to, on a second glance, "He's absolutely terrified and if he isn't actually lost he's really scared of all the cars and in danger of bolting onto the freeway," .
I pulled over, crossed the road and hurried across to where he was. He backed away, skittish and nervous, then came over to me, shaking. No collar or information, just a choke chain. And big. And very wet and very muddy. With cars going past, I decided the wisest thing to do was to put him into my car while I figured out what to do. The car was the Mini. I opened the door and he clambered in. The dog took up most of the Mini that I wasn't in and a fair amount of the Mini that I was in. Big dog, small car.
I phoned my assistant Lorraine, and asked her to let the local Humane Society (really nice people with a no kill policy) know we'd be coming in soon with a dog, then I drove home, narrowly avoiding death on the way (it's amazing how much you can't see when a huge dog fills the car and your field of vision). I ran around the garden with Dog until he'd tired me out. (I really hope he'd just got lost, and his family are looking for him; it would be hard to imagine someone abandoning a dog that cool.) Then I put him into the back of a car much bigger than the Mini and took him to the Humane Society, where they fawned all over him. ("I think he's a husky-wolf cross," said the Humane lady who took him, and she could be right.)
I think he's probably a survivor too.

And that was what he looked like when he climbed into the Mini.

The Humane Society called a few days later. I wrote on the blog:

I seem to have acquired a dog.
I got a call today to say that the owner of the dog I found on Monday had called the Humane Society and collected him. I was happy Dog was back with his family, but found myself rather sadder than I would have expected -- I realised I'd half hoped that maybe no-one would claim him.
The call went on to say that the dog's owner, a local farmer, who kept him chained up in the yard, and couldn't walk well so couldn't walk him, thought the dog was a nuisance, always getting out and heading onto the freeway and sooner or later he'd cause an accident, and, when the Humane Society lady mentioned that the person who found him rather liked him, he told her that if I came over and picked him up I could have him.
So I did.

It took a long time before he was actually white around the neck and chest. The grey of the metal chain had stained his fur grey.

He'd been named Buck, in the farmyard, on the chain, but he didn't respond to it, and hadn't actually been called Buck by anyone, as far as I could tell. I called him Cabal, after King Arthur's white dog who could see the wind, and he seemed to like having a name he could respond to.

I'd never had a dog. I don't think he'd ever had a person. And we bonded. Over the next six years, we both changed and we both grew.

My house in the midwest is on about 17 acres of woodland. I rediscovered all of those acres, and local meadows as well. I had a friend at a time when I needed one badly: I was really lonely at the time. I'd separated from my children's mother, Mary, four years earlier, and she'd moved out, and the house was feeling very empty. I didn't really have anyone in my life, anyone who felt like mine.

I got unquestioning love from Cabal. Not in a subservient sort of way. When we went walking, he seemed fairly certain that he was in charge -- after all, he was faster, could smell things, and had a much better idea of how things worked in the woods.

He wasn't afraid of anything, except thunderstorms. And elevators.

I took so many photos of him in the woods that someone made him his own Tumblr feed.

He was less happy in the house. Sometimes his back legs would splay out from under him. He was wary of shiny surfaces, as if he'd had troubles over the years walking on ice in his farmyard.

We were a sort of an Odd Couple, both of us fascinated and delighted by the other one. Both of us protective. He'd stand between me and strangers; he'd move just out of my eyeline, and plant himself there; he was determined to keep me safe from cats, even though I had several cats, and had to divide the house into Cat and Dog territory (and I am not certain he ever realised that that was mostly for his safety, and not theirs).

People said we looked like each other. Some people even tried to prove this.

Amanda says he taught me how to love. She's probably right.

He had trouble with his back legs -- he'd run too fast, too far, too hard, and break the leg and keep going, or rip the tendon. There were operations, one on each, a year apart.

He always slept in my bedroom at night. And then he had increasing trouble getting up and downstairs, and I moved my bedroom downstairs, so he didn't have to worry about stairs. We put a ramp in outside the house so he could get in and out without worrying about stairs.

He was having more trouble walking outside: his front legs went where he wanted them to go, his back legs wandered and lurched. He was three when I got him. Now he was nine, and had a degenerative condition (degenerative canine myelopathy -- like MS for dogs). But he was always cheerful, friendly, and still capable of out-running a human in the woods if something interesting went past.

It made him sad and lonely when I travelled, so I got Lola to keep him company. It worked. Now, when I'd return, he'd be much more cheerful. Lola adored him, and put up with me because Cabal seemed convinced I was pack leader.

He was nine years old. An old, big dog. But still mine, with a determined, unquestioning love and loyalty I'd never known.

When I rented the place in Cambridge I'd planned to bring him out immediately, then I actually saw the house, saw the shiny slippery wooden floors and all the stairs and realised that wouldn't work. The dogs were going to come out here to be with me in about 8 weeks, when it would be warm enough for me to move my workspace out into the conservatory, and in the meantime I was going home whenever I could to spend time with him and Lola (and, over Christmas, my daughters). I was with him there a week ago. I go back in two weeks for a couple of weeks, and was already planning stuff to do with the dogs while I was there.

I got the phone call last night from Hans, who looks after the grounds and the house, from the vet's. Cabal had had a normal, fun day, and then suddenly got really ill. He was vomiting and having trouble breathing. I'd missed the last plane and was going to fly home this morning to be with him while he was ill. Another phone call: he and Mary my housekeeper were with Cabal, and they were both in tears. They put me onto the vet, who was going to try to get Cabal to the animal hospital. He couldn't breathe. The vet thought there was a blood-clot in his lung. Another call: he wasn't going to make it to the hospital. His heart had stopped. The vet had just brought him back to life, but he was barely able to breathe and she was worried about him going into seizures and dying in pain...

And I wasn't there. If I'd been there, he would have been okay with whatever was happening. If I'd been there it would have been safe for him to go. I talked to him on the phone, intending to say something calming so he could hear my voice, and instead just cried and told him I was sorry that I wasn't there.

I spoke to the vet one last time, and told her to let him go,

Photo of us by Kimberley Butler. She called it Unconditional Love.

I cried. Amanda came and held me, and I cried some more. Holly called and I told her what had happened, and she cried too. It was so sudden and unexpected and I wasn't there with him when he went. And I'd lost my friend.

I thought I was all cried out, and then I heard that Lola had taken his collar from the counter top and slept with it all night, and I cried again.

So many kind emails, messages of all kinds. I'm grateful to all of them. To all of you.

I'm so glad I knew him. I'm so glad we found each other. I don't imagine I'll ever have another bond like that in my life. I wish dogs lived longer.

Kipling said it best:

THERE is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

We can beware all we like. But the poem is called the Power of a Dog, and it is a very real power, and it is, as Kipling knew, a good thing.

He was the best dog in the universe and I'm going to miss him so much.

Chu's Day: a history and a signing...

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 18:45:00 +0000

So Chu's Day came out two days ago. It's my first book for really really small kids. I hope it gets read to kids too young to read it for themselves, and that they enjoy it and demand it be read to them again. Adam Rex's illustrations are beyond cute, for they are witty and wonderful.

Chu's Day sprang into my head pretty much fully formed one day in Beijing in 2009. I grabbed a notebook and wrote the story.

When I got home, I picked up a notebook and a pen, and simply drew and wrote the story as it was in my head, because it seemed easier than writing long descriptions of what was going on on each page. That was what I sent to my editor at Harper Children's.

I can't find the original handwritten one - here's a few pages taken from a version that Harper Children made to show how the layouts would work with type:

They really liked it. Now I had to choose an illustrator.

I really liked Adam Rex's work. I'd seen some of his actual prose books, which I'd enjoyed. (I had completely forgotten that he had given me a Sandman painting back in the late 90s, which was one of the pieces of artwork that were auctioned off for the CBLDF at the Fiddler's Green Convention in 2004.) I browsed illustrator websites, but there was something about the way he drew animals, funny, honest, accessible, realistic and cartoony at the same time...

We asked Adam. He said yes. I was happy.

He took my doodles as a framework, and then added his own layers, jokes, bits and such...

So pretty soon my scratchy doodles, like the one above of the elephant blowing dust off the book, or the one of Chu and his father in the diner, became things of beauty and wonder like this:

Most important of all, obviously, Adam gave Chu aviator goggles.

It's been out for a couple of days. People on Twitter are reading it to their children, which makes me happy.

You can get it Amazon, Barnes and Noble, from Independent bookstores via Indiebound, or pre-order a signed copy from Books of Wonder at http://www.booksofwonder.com/prodinfo.asp?number=105164.

Right now the reviews are coming in. They are mostly really nice. Even the one for the three-minute long Audio Book.

I got a press release from Harpers this morning, and I'll cut and paste a bit from it into here....

PRAISE FOR CHU’S DAY

“The rhythm of Neil Gaiman's humorous picture book about a sneezing panda, ‘Chu's Day’, replicates the tantalizing on-again-off-again feeling of a sneeze that is just . . . about . . . to explode . . . but doesn't. ...The explosion, when it finally comes, will delight children ages 3-6 with its comic magnitude.”

—Wall Street Journal

“The hows and whens and whys provide the substance of this slight tale, which is enriched primarily by the sly humor in Adam Rex’s deeply hued oil paintings. … You can bet that when Chu finally does sneeze, it comes at an unexpected and inopportune moment — and shows Gaiman’s keen understanding of a 5-year-old’s comedic sensibility.”

—New York Times

“A humorous story of a small panda with a giant sneeze! … Adam Rex's warm and colorful illustrations show in detail just why Chu's parents feared this little panda's sneeze.”

—USA Today

“Gaiman’s comic timing gets a boost from strategic book design and from Rex’s hyperreal paintings, which emphasize Chu’s round, fuzzy form and apparent harmlessness. Gaiman and Rex deliver a classic one-two-three punch, making hay from the notion that a cuddly baby panda is not to be trusted.”
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Kids will find the idea of a monstrous sneeze funny, and it may prompt some attempts of their own. Rex’s richly detailed illustrations are brimming with fantastic touches. Share this one at toddler storytime for lots of giggles, or one-on-one for spotting details in the art.”
— Booklist

A CHU’S DAY EVENT!

NEIL GAIMAN and ADAM REX will be doing a book-signing at BOOKS OF WONDER on Saturday, February 23^rd at Noon!

*Neil and Adam will be pre-signing a quantity of limited edition CHU’S DAY posters which will be available to fans at the event and online for a donation to Books of Wonder*

And the other reason I am posting a bit from the press release is that Adam and I are doing a release event at Books of Wonder on Saturday February the 23rd. We'll sign all the copies of Chu's Day anyone wants, and other books as well. Books of Wonder is one of my favourite Children's bookshops in the world. They've been going through some rough times recently.

The last release event I did there, on the 7th of March 2009, had a certain amount of tragedy in it -- in the taxi on the way to the signing I learned my father had died unexpectedly of a sudden heart attack, and it was the 8 hour signing event that helped me keep it together and not fall apart. (Here's a Youtube video of me talking about and reading Blueberry Girl on that day, and not falling apart.)

It's at 18 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011 on Saturday, the 23rd of February, at Noon.

Goodnight.

Amazing Book Cover Announcements and throwing up in anniversary gutters

noreply@blogger.com (Neil Gaiman) — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 01:15:00 +0000

My publisher, William Morrow, have just released the cover for my first adult novel in about 7 years, The Ocean at the End of the Lane. It comes out in June. It looks like this:

This is how the publisher describes it:

The Ocean at the End of the Lane is a fable that reshapes modern fantasy: moving, terrifying and elegiac—as pure as a dream, as delicate as a butterfly’s wing, as dangerous as a knife in the dark. It began for our narrator forty years ago when the family's lodger stole their car and committed suicide in it, stirring up ancient powers best left undisturbed. Dark creatures from beyond the world are on the loose, and it will take everything our narrator has just to stay alive: there is primal horror here, and menace unleashed—within his family and from the forces that have gathered to destroy it. His only defense is three women, on a farm at the end of the lane. The youngest of them claims that her duck pond is an ocean. The oldest can remember the Big Bang.

And they've announced the existence of the beautiful Chip Kidd-designed Make Good Art speech book, which will be out in May. (An actual "by popular demand" book, because lots of other publishers came to my agent and asked if they could make my speech last year at UArts into a book, in time for Graduation Time this year. And we went to my normal publisher and suggested they do it, and they agreed.)

Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012 from The University of the Arts (Phl) on Vimeo.

Chip is probably the finest book designer in the world. And in this book he breaks all the rules of design and makes something amazing in its own right.

Amazon run the biography of from Chu's Day on the Make Good Art Amazon page, which will undoubtedly confuse some people.

Morrow have also released The Ocean at the End of the Lane desktop wallpaper in, so far, six version, so you will not forget that it is coming out:
iPad (Download)
2560x1440 (Download)
1920x1080 (Download)
1024x768 (Download)
800x600 (Download)
640x480 (Download)
And…
A 3-D image of The Ocean at the End of the Lane (Download)
A 3-D image of Make Good Art (Download)

They look like this:

...

I sang the Fireball Xl5 theme, as you probably know if you've been reading this blog.

Here's the footage of that, and my new year's wish:

In other news, my second wedding anniversary last night was fun, except for the food poisoning, which meant that Amanda and I threw up in gutters a lot, and I spent this morning in the ER watching her get a saline drip. We went out for such a fancy anniversary dinner, and it was the most expensive food we've ever thrown up. Next year I think we'll just go somewhere we like.

(I read Michael Fry's The Odd Squad in the ER, because that was what I had with me. Perfect ER reading while the person down the hall is screaming and the homeless man in the wheelchair has begun to grunt, loudly and incoherently, and your wife is sleeping on a drip beneath the beautiful black Kambriel greatcoat, which seems to have found its person. Funny and sweet with a steely centre.)

I'm now on my way to Minneapolis from New York, to see my daughters and my dogs, and to take part in the pilot for a new NPR radio show.

...

REMINDER: Sydney Australia. Melbourne's sold out, but there are still tickets to come and see me in Sydney on January the 25th. It will be a long, fun evening. There may well be some music. (And if anyone from Salt & Poppet is out there, and if you still have the Australia Day Poem puppets from Melbourne and want to repeat it in Sydney, let me know.)

Tickets are onsale at http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/370024/cbf6892451/1575524295/4dd7bdf0bc/