As Michelle mentioned in the Semi-monthly on newsgroup, yes, there’s a Sandman-related convention is in the works for mid-November in Minneapolis, fingers crossed.
Will post more once all the wheres, whens, and whys are a bit more solid, but it’s looking to be well worth budgeting for!
According to Locus, Coraline is up for a Nebula for best novella; awards are to be announced in April.
Also, Wolves in the Walls is up for Best Short Fiction at the 2004 British Science Fiction Association Awards, also to be announced in April.
For those of you trying to keep track of what books have been nominated and/or won which prizes, Neil’s entry into the Locus Index to SF Awards is:
http://www.locusmag.com/SFAwards/Db/NomLit44.html#1596
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Ain’t It Cool posted a fan’s report on Dave McKean’s press conference at the Clermont Ferrand Short Film Festival and what he gathered from talking to him afterwards; it features much discussion about MirrorMask. With thanks to both Reg and Steve for waking me up with that.
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From Comic Book Resources:
NEW YORK, February 10, 2004 - The Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art today announced that author Neil Gaiman (1602, American Gods, Coraline, The Sandman) will be the keynote speaker for the 17th Annual HARVEY AWARDS Banquet to be held June 26 in New York City.
“There’s always been something very special about the Harveys,” Gaiman recalls. “I remember how thrilled I was, first to be nominated in 1991, and then, a year later, to win my first Harvey Award: partly because it really is the professionals’ award, and partly because it’s named after Harvey Kurtzman.”
“I’m very much looking forward to the event, and hope that I can think of something sensible yet entertaining to say in my keynote speech,” says Gaiman. “Failing that I have until June 26th to learn how to make balloon animals.”
Gaiman has twice earned a HARVEY AWARD as the year’s Best Writer for his work on The Sandman comics series for DC Comics’ Vertigo imprint. Gaiman’s work in comics during the past year includes Endless Nights, the latest Sandman graphic novel, as well as the comics series 1602 for Marvel Comics’ Marvel Knights imprint.
Named in honor of the late Harvey Kurtzman, the HARVEY AWARDS are one of the comics industry’s oldest and most respected awards for recognizing outstanding work in comics and sequential art. Each year, nominees and winners of the HARVEY AWARDS are selected exclusively by comics creators – those who write, draw, ink, letter, color, design, edit or are otherwise involved in a creative capacity in the sequential art field. Nominations for this year’s HARVEY AWARDS (for works published between January 1, 2003 and December 31, 2003) will be accepted up until midnight Friday, February 13, with Final Ballots to be distributed to all qualifying professionals in early Spring.
“We are all delighted and thrilled that Neil Gaiman has agreed to be this year’s keynote speaker,” says MoCCA Trustee and HARVEY AWARDS Committee Chairwoman Nellie Kurtzman. “I’m sure Neil will do a terrific job since — as a past Harvey Awards nominee and winner himself he knows just how special it is to have one’s work recognized and honored in this way by fellow comics industry professionals.”
Winners of this year’s HARVEY AWARDS will be announced on the night of June 26 during a banquet to be held at the historic Puck Building in downtown New York City as part of the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art’s Third Annual MoCCA Art Festival weekend.
Sponsor-level Tickets for seats at this gala affair are now available, with Individual Tickets to go on sale in the Spring. For reservations or more information about this and other museum events, visit the MoCCA Website or call the museum at 212-254-3511. Visit www.harveyawards.org for more information specifically about the HARVEY AWARDS.
Sorry folks, somehow the server ate the current news datafile, and I’ve had to restore a backup dated February 6th.
Both Endless Nights and Wolves in the Walls have been nominated in the “Best Illustrated Narrative” category by the International Horror Guild.
From the January 26th Publisher’s Weekly:
An unusual anthology that will star a number of prominent authors as lyricists for a “lit rock” group was signed by Brooklyn’s small Soft Skull Press. It’s called As Smart as We Are, after a line in one of the songs, and will offer work by 17 writers, including such marquee names as Margaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Dave Eggers, A.M. Homes, Jonathan Lethem, Neil Gaiman and Rick Moody, among others. They have all written for a Brooklyn-based group called One Ring Zero, which has become a kind of house band for McSweeney’s Publishing, and their work will appear along with a CD of their songs. The project was signed by Soft Skull publisher Richard Eoin Nash, for publication in May.
–John F. Baker
You can find more about the As Smart As We Are CD on One Ring Zero’s website, and through this article in the October 10th Forward (Neil has also mentioned it on his journal back in December).
Paul Cole reported the following on the 15 Feb Sunday Mercury:
Legends II
THE premise is simple. Invite the biggest names in science fiction and fantasy to revisit the worlds they’ve created and offer a new slant on the stories that have already made them best-sellers.
Hence the second helping of Legends finds Raymond E. Feist back in Riftwar territory, Anne McCaffrey breathing new fire into the dragons of Pern and George R. Martin singing a new song of Ice and Fire.
But surprisingly it’s the new kids on the block who rule the roost, even if the likes of Tad Williams and Neil Gaiman are hardly spring chickens when it comes to this neck of the wild woods…
…Britpacker Gaiman, meanwhile, bridges the gap between his acclaimed American Gods and forthcoming Anansi Boys, with a short story which finds protagonist Shadow in Scotland.
Ancient gods drawn from the world’s mythologies are still warring with their contemporary counterparts - the more glamorous gods of television, technology and the media.
The Monarch Of The Glen gives the exercise a tartan tint and suggests that the scope for Shadow’s continuing quest for peace could well be limitless. These two tales are worth the price of admission alone.
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From Dorman Shindler’s review of Legends II from the January 25th Austin American Statesman:
Though Gaiman is just now completing the second novel in his American Gods series, Silverberg finds his cutting-edge fantasy work so mind-blowing that he was included here with The Monarch of the Glen, a short story about a creature known as “the Shadow” who is recruited as bodyguard for a wealthy man. It’s a dark and disturbing piece that — in some ways — is reminiscent of works by the Brothers Grimm
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lucy_anne | 
02 22nd, 2004| 