Kit has posted the Anansi Boys reading from the Sydney Kinokuniya bookstore on his weblog, Poison to the Mind. Again, the file is in mp3 format.
So now we have a bit of Chapter 3 and of Chapter 5. The fun lies in trying to determine what lies between.
From the July 25, 2005 Publishers Weekly:
Talking Manga With Neil Gaiman Calvin Reid: Why manga? Neil Gaiman: I got the idea at the PW/AAP Summit meeting in April. Art Spiegelman and I decided to be on the graphic novel panel. At lunch, I sat next to Tokyopop president John Parker and he said he’d talked with the Jim Henson company about manga versions of the Henson films Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal, and he mentioned Mirrormask. CR: Did you and McKean have plans for a Mirrormask graphic novel? NG: We’ve been asked many times to do a Mirrormask graphic novel and said no. Dave always wanted Mirrormask the film. He had a concern that if there was a comic, people would think that the film was the aptation. CR: What changed your mind? NG: I liked the idea of a prequel. When we first meet Helena, the young girl who enters the fantasy world looking for the Mirrormask, a lot of backstory has gone on. We thought it would be nice to use the manga to fill in the story, so that it’s not simply an adaptation, but a complementary story. You can see the film or not. If you have seen it, it would add to the story. CR: Do you read manga yourself? Do you like it? NG: I like it, and I also have some experience with anime [Gaiman wrote the English adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki's 1997 anime Princess Mononoke]. But I’m not the target reader. What I love about manga is its ability to reach this new audience of readers. I’ve been traveling through Singapore and New Zealand where manga has great market penetration. About 80% of the readers are girls; they’re all in the 1825-year-old range. They all read manga, and someone introduced them to the Sandman [Gaiman's graphic novel series]. It’s really a good thing. Manga has sent all these readers to me.
With thanks to Batwrangler for the help!
“Kit Brash” has posted a bit of the Anansi Boys reading (in mp3 format) from the Galaxy Bookshop in Sydney.
With thanks to Kit for the link!
A good portion of the State Library of Victoria talk from July 18th is available for download in mp3 format.
With thanks to Baralier for the link!
This will be a longer “Clippings” post when it is not so near 3am, I think.
But I did want to ask if anyone was able to locate the full text of the following article:
“Comic release; His fans have been known to faint on meeting him, but Neil Gaiman takes adulation in his stride”, Sonia Kolesnikov, South China Morning Post, 24 July 2005.
Thanks in advance.
Someone has posted the link to the Which Neil Gaiman Book Are You quiz, yes?
Besides translations of the journal into Castellano, Espaol, and Franais, there is still an active blog for the Philipines fan base.
From the Manila Bulletin Online: The encounter that never was It’s come and gone, but for most of the fans, Neil Gaiman’s brief visit to the Philippines is still keeping quite a number of blogs abuzz with their asssorted takes on their encounters. It’s even showed up on local comic strips, such as Lyndon Gregorio’s Beerkada, where the artist joked about hitching his own wagon on the three days of Gaiman-ia. But through all of these accounts, there’s one point-of-view that’s been woefully ignored, one unheard perspective that has never had it’s say: The bitter moanings of those who were just barely able to make it. I plan to remedy that now. It’s not like I didn’t meet him because of lack of trying. On the first of his three-day stint, I made my way to the Rockwell tent, just like the thousands of Gaiman faithful. Since the signing was to start at 3 p.m., I thought I was in pretty good standing when I arrived at 11 a.m. Was I ever wrong. I was met by a line of about 700 people, some of whom had been there as early as 5:30 a.m., all queuing up to have their Gaiman memorabilia signed by the man himself. Staring at my one book of Gaiman’s collected short stories, Smoke and Mirrors, and the unbelievably long line, I just shook my head in resignation and went out to have lunch with friends who had arrived earlier. If that particular experience had taught me anything, it was this: Never underestimate the devotion of fans. 15 minutes with Neil The “peoplescape” was colorful; fans not only lugging their books around but proudly donning costumes of The Endless, the family from Gaiman’s iconic Sandman comic book series. Death and Delirium, in particular, were very popular among the fans. There was one lucky girl though. While everybody else was sweating it out in the line, with only the slight chance of actually meeting the man as a consolation, Erin Chupeco had something a little more substantial to look forward to: She was going to spend 15 minutes interviewing Gaiman. Chupeco won a writing contest where the winner would get a chance to meet the author and interact with him for 15 minutes. The contest involved writing a review on any of Gaiman’s work, and Chupeco picked Coraline, a story about a little girl who opens a door into an alternate reality where she encounters her “other mother” and her “other father.” Chupeco had been introduced to Gaiman’s work in the 90s, during which the Sandman series had already achieved cult status since its publication in the 80s. The reason for this enduring affection for a series that is almost 20-years old, explains Chupeco, comes from the originality of Gaiman’s vision. “He has a unique way of looking at things,” she says. “He can take an idea, like Death, for example, and turn it into something so different that you don’t immediately recognize it. You usually think of Death as the grim reaper with a scythe, a hood and a skeletal face. But in the Sandman, Death is a perky goth girl, which he patterned after a goth diner waitress who served him coffee. Being able to see Death from a different point of view inspires you to look at things in a different way yourself.” After the Gathering At this point, almost every other version of the story has already been told, from the excellent music provided by The Late Isabelle, to the exciting previews of MirrorMask, a movie project between Gaiman and longtime collaborator and illustrator Dave McKean, to Gaiman’s own amusement at our seemingly boundless enthusiasm, as evidenced by the now oft-quoted “wall of sound” entry in Gaiman’s blog. Any other opportunity for me to meet the man were not in the cards, as I already had a prior engagement for the next two days of his stay. I begged my brother to line up for me during Gaiman’s Gateway appearance, but to no avail. As such all of my enjoyment was acquired through vicarious means, mostly through reading other people’s blogs. There were two blogs that I took particular interest in reading. One was Erin’s, who by the looks of it did indeed have the time of her life. I am still, quite frankly, in a daze. How do you quantify time spent with someone who you’d spent seven years wanting to be like? How can you justify that spending two nights of excited unsleep, two days of breathing in a crowd of people of varying unwanted odors, is worth the sacrifice, knowing you’re in the very same room with your idol? How do you argue with one’s parents that waking up the day after, with a running fever, a painful throat, and snot in the most unwelcomed of places, all brought about by the complete disregard taken for one’s own personal health during the days leading up to the interview and the book signing, is a small price to pay? I stared at him all throughout the interview, I admit that frankly. I stared at him so hard and so long that it took me some time to realize he had answered my question and was looking expectantly back at me for my next. He was so nice and friendly and unequivocably, unquestionably, terrifyingly SMART, yet he answered all my inane questions like they were worth answering. My voice shook, I was alternately grinning like an ass and shaking like a leaf the whole time, but I didn’t even care. I told him afterwards that I hope to one day be where he is right now, and he told me to go for it that if he could do this, then anyone can. The other one was that of Neil Gaiman’s himself. After the huge political rally in Makati that was held right beside his hotel, to the enthusiastic fans, to the signing sessions that I heard went on until 1:30 in the morning, would he still want to grace the country with his presence? Apparently, he does. I don’t think I’ve ever been more exhausted at any point in a signing tour than I am right now. (Having said that, I don’t remember ever having felt so loved by so many people.) But I get to sleep until I wake up and that’s so good… I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who made my trip to the Philippines the most memorable trip ever. I’d thank you all personally but there are several thousand of you, and my fingers would start to hurt again. But thanks again to you all. And yes, I do want to come back. And for us bitter few, nothing sounds quite as good as the prospect of a second chance.
–Ronald S. Lim
From the July 23rd Philipine Daily Inquirer:
Every once in a while, a rift in the natural order of things occurs and we walk through the looking glass, and thereafter attempt to make sense of the strange new landscape. That’s what it felt like two weekends ago, as if I had crawled through a crack hidden somewhere between the fantasy and children’s story sections of Fully Booked in Rockwell, and into a bizarre universe where there were more characters dressed in black than in an Ozzy Osbourne concert. It was a peculiar gathering indeed, where goths, who looked like they hadn’t seen the sunlight in years, peaceably mixed with self-confessed geeks, who looked like they hadn’t seen… um, other people in years (not that there’s anything wrong with that). Add to the three thousand-strong rabble were the creative juice drinkers of local ad agencies, indie musicians, left-of-center artists, aspiring writers and anyone who’s ever felt “tortured” in their life. (Visibly absent, I must note, were the fashionable people who hold series A stock in the society pages, in what I’d boldly dub as the biggest Anti-It event of the year.) Like an infinite echo of sound were the voices retelling fragments of stories you only encountered in dreams, or nightmares. Of talking pumpkinheads, beached devils, retired angels, people with buttons for eyes, Norse gods, androgynous temptresses, Buddhist monks, a happy-go-lucky female version of the Grim Reaper and most of all, a morose, paste-faced lord of the Dream World. At the center of it all was no rock star, no Hollywood celeb, no religious cult leader, no Stephen Hawking-type prodigy of the quantum physics community, not even a militia man mobilizing the crowd for a revolution. He’s more than that, nothing short of a legend, or even a god to many people-like the ones who camped outside Rockwell as early as 3 a.m. He’s Neil Gaiman. World-renowned author, author of renowned worlds. Imagine that, Gaiman commanded a bigger crowd in a tent that day than the anti-Arroyo forces at Ayala Avenue. (I guess it’s because he’s just so much better at creating fiction.) The multi-awarded, best-selling author known most for his seminal, nine-year long labor of love, “The Sandman,” as well as his novels and children’s books of pure pleasure, such as “Neverwhere,” “American Gods,” “Stardust,” “Coraline,” and “Wolves in the Walls,” came to Manila as part of a signing tour to promote his upcoming film, “Mirrormask.” ‘Wall of sound’ Neil commented that the reception was a “wonderfully surreal and strange contrast to Singapore… if you were there, you’d all be in lines and be very, very quiet.” Once again, the wall of sound. With not a trace of false modesty, he confessed that he thought it was all a big set-up. “This mad enthusiasm… I get a weird, vague feeling that this is all a big mistake.” What, that we lined up for hours upon hours in the blistering heat expecting like, a famous rock star by mistake? For once, Neil Gaiman, I can honestly say that you’re wrong! He he, I love you… Endless lines Like many people, I had all these cool things to ask him as I waited patiently in line, like “do you have any unfinished stories in the Library of Dreams that we don’t know about?” or “what did you play when you were with the punk band Chaos?” or even “love the way you weave Milton in your work!” Rrright. From alluding to John Milton, I ended up instead channeling Paris Hilton, blubbering like a retarded primate when I finally met him. I handed him my ancient copy of “Season of Mists,” “Endless Nights” and “Coraline.” He was pleasantly surprised to see that the first page of “Coraline” already had an old autograph of his, plus his sketch of a rat. It was an old birthday gift from a friend who acquired it for me in a past signing tour in New York City. So Neil added another sketch, to which I brilliantly reacted with, “That’s… awesome. You rock!” Man in the Mirrormask
The rabid crowd was treated to the trailer and selected clips from the awaited film, “Mirrormask,” which Neil worked in collaboration with longtime confrere and award-winning mixed media artist Dave McKean, produced by the Jim Henson Company. Balancing his silver laptop, Neil finally did the impossible feat of silencing the crowd as he read aloud part of his latest novel in the works, “Anansi Boys.” At the brief question and answer portion, Neil proved to be a really nice, down-to-earth guy with this wonderfully caustic sense of humor, so far removed from the broody, angst-ridden writer archetype, thank God! When asked by a fan (who was shaking like a leaf in the middle of a thunderstorm), about what sacrifices he had to make to become a writer, Neil responded, “You never get to view the big sacrifice. It wasn’t like J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett and J.K. Rowling came knocking on my door and said, ‘we’ve come to indoctrinate you into the club.’” He first thought about becoming a writer when he was around 19 or 20 years old. “I couldn’t sleep, I was having a bad nightmare at 5 in the morning. I thought, I want to be a writer, and if I don’t do anything, I’ll be on my death bed saying to myself ‘I could’ve been a writer.’” He describes his fantasy-filled career path: “It’s pretty glorious. I make things up. People like it.” Writers Forum The “mad enthusiasm” spilled well over the weekend, until the Monday of the invitational Writers Forum at the Music Museum. A show of hands revealed that students, employees and bosses chucked school and work that day, inciting Neil to comment, “the whole Philippine economy is at stake because you’re here!” In the more intimate setting, Neil shared that he knew he had to make a trip one day to the Philippines. Since he’s allowed to go behind the scenes of his website, www.neilgaiman.com, he noticed that the Philippines was among the top tier of countries constantly visiting his little address in cyberspace. “I thought, there must be some very computer-savvy people who are either very bored, or really like reading. So I thought I should go there one day and find out who they are.” He went on to say that though he didn’t know what to expect in Manila, he did think while growing up that the Philippines was a place where “all the really cool artists came from, artists who had really elegant lines and a sense of beauty.” He even acknowledged that some of the best DC Comics artists were Filipinos, naming the likes of Nestor Redondo, Alex Nino and Alfredo Alcala as examples of “the giants, the greats.” Mentor, sage, leader of a future revolt? In only an hour or so of just listening to Neil, I had picked up more cool tenets to live by than in a whole semester of Creative Writing classes in grad school. A few footnotes on success: “I discovered that the ones on top of their professions are the really nice ones. It’s the second raters who are the pains in the arse and want Perrier poured in their toilet. I decided I was going to be one of the first raters; one of the nice ones, it’s so much easier.” His advice to aspiring writers: “Read everything you can, read even the stuff that has nothing to do with what you are interested in. You’ll find some of the more peculiar anecdotes in nonfiction. Watch everything. Steal from everywhere.” A funny question was then posed by a girl who asked how he could use his loyal, multitudinous fan base “for the greater good.” (SFX: collective chortle from the audience.) Neil replied wryly, “Stay where you are, you’ll be sent your orders. I really should mobilize you fans. I try to use my blog for good and not for evil. As time goes on, if I realize it’s time to move on to the post-human condition, I will announce it in my blog.” From Anansi to calamansi Ah yes, Neil’s blog. Moments before his departure to Australia, he bid farewell to the Philippines in his online journal. I’ll go on a limb and say that I even perceived a sentimental tone there. (A bit odd coming from Gaiman, or any British guy for that matter.) Apart from confessing that he thinks he’s now addicted to calamansi juice, he wrote lines that, well, would make even non-Gaimanites go “awww.” Check it out yourself, he wrote, “I don’t remember ever having felt so loved by so many people.”He did mention on Day One that having now been to Manila, he’d love to set a story here. Who knows? Maybe one day I’ll be devouring a future novel called “Calamansi Boys” and happen upon a character toasting to absent friends, lost loves and old gods, not with a bottle of Chateau Lafitte 1828, but with San Mig Light. One can only dream.
–Tals Diaz
From the July 1st Library Journal: McCabe, Joseph. Hanging Out with the Dream King: Conversations with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators, Fantagraphics. 2005. 300p. ISBN 1-56097-617-9. pap. $17.95. GRAPHIC ARTS Hy Bender’s The Sandman Companion (1999) featured extensive interviews with writer Neil Gaiman on the creation of his acclaimed Sandman series, along with commentary from Caiman’s collaborators on the work. This new volume reverses that balance-bookended by two interviews with Gaiman, it is made up mainly of interviews with others who have worked with Gaiman over the years, including much of Sandman’s creative staff. Through them, the reader gets a window into the other side of the creative struggles and joys that brought Sandman to life. McCabe also covers more recent Sandman work (interviewing Yoshitaka Amano, artist of Sandman: The Dream Hunters) and goes beyond Sandman, talking with other Gaiman collaborators like Terry Pratchett (Good Omens),Andy Kubert (1602),Alice Cooper (The Last Temptation), and Tori Amos (whom Gaiman helped conceptualize the album Strange Little Girls). The interviews focus on working with Gaiman but touch on other aspects of the subjects’ careers as well. An interesting, even entertaining, look at one of comics’ best-loved writers, this is recommended for all libraries.
–Steve Raiteri
From the 23rd July Daily Telegraph:
Living the fantasy Listen to the softly spoken Neil Gaiman and you would think he had all the time in the world. No rash statements or jumbled thoughts here … he deliberates over questions before giving an eloquent answer, delivered in a soothing tone. By rights, he should speak like Donald Duck on full throttle; Gaiman lives at a frenetic pace. The British-born author is now in Australia as part of a four-week tour, which has already taken in parts of Asia. “It really has been amazing,” he says. “In the Philippines 3000 people turned up at one venue and I signed books for 700 of them.” It turned into a 10-hour book-signing marathon. Gaiman is bemused at being the centre of such adulation but at the same time considers himself blessed to have such fans. “I’ve heard stories from authors like Stephen King and Clive Barker and their awful experiences from deranged readers,” he says. “The main trouble for me is I often receive gifts from fans and it’s hard to get everything safely back home.” “I have a stock answer to the question of what I like best about being an author. I usually say `I get to sleep in’. When I’m doing these tours, however, my answer becomes: `I get to visit these really cool places’.” The fervour reflects the readership he has developed during two decades. In Australia, he is best known for the groundbreaking series, The Sandman. The 75 issues, which were released monthly from 1988 to 1996, have been credited with elevating comic books (or graphic novels, if you seek a swankier name) into the field of literature. Collected into 10 volumes, the series remains a big seller. Sandman reviews were often filled with such descriptions as darkly humorous, ambitious, hallucinogenic, elegant, hip and edgy. Such words could equally apply to most of Gaiman’s fantasy canon, which spans novels, children’s books, short stories, poetry, radio plays, TV, films and adults novels. His latest novel for adults, Anansi Boys, is due to be released in October. Gaiman believes different stories require different forms to take their ideal shape. Regarding the diverse media he works in, Gaiman says: “When I try a new field I go in with the arrogance of the ignorant. I just think: `Yeah, I can do that’. Then by the time I realise I can’t do it I’m too far in. And by then I’m just having too much fun, anyway.” When he’s not writing or on the international promotion trail, Gaiman, who lives in the US state of Minnesota, enjoys spending time with his wife and three children. “I like to potter around the garden. I’m a crap gardener but just being there clears my mind.” “Basically I write; I’m not that good at anything else.” “When I was about 20 I had one of those dark nights of the soul. I was lying there and I thought, ‘I want to be a writer. If I don’t do anything about it, one day I’ll be 80 … I will be on my deathbed and I’ll be thinking, I could have been a writer’. “I decided to try to live the dream. I just feel so lucky.”
–Glen Coleman
From the 24 July Sunday Age (Melbourne):
What’s fame got to do with it? Eclectic writer Neil Gaiman is as devoted to his fans as they are to him; it’s probably why he gets 3000 people at a book signing — and why he looks so tired.
Neil Gaiman looks exhausted. For the past month he’s been making his way to Melbourne via Glasgow, Manila and Singapore, promoting his latest book, Anansi Boys, a comic novel about brotherly love, hate and mythology with stylistic echoes both of P.G. Wodehouse and Shakespeare.
Wearing his signature black leather jacket, Gaiman says that in the Philippines people were “enthusiastic on a level that makes the Brazilians look reserved and polite”.
Even he was surprised when 3000 people turned up to an event intended for 700. It started at 4pm and he was still signing books at 1am. It’s not immodest then for Gaiman to post tips on his website about how to make his book signings run smoothly.
“Eat first. I’m not kidding. If it’s a night-time signing of the kind that can go on for a long time, bring sandwiches or something to nibble (some signings with numbers handed out may make it possible for you to go out and eat and come back. Or you may be first in line. But plan for a worst-case scenario of several hours of standing and shuffling your way slowly around a store). If it’s a daytime signing somewhere that a line may snake out of a store into the hot sun, bring something to drink. I always feel guilty when people pass out.”
Although this trip is taking its toll, he still manages to be unfailing good-humoured, admitting that the problems of his extraordinary success are still far more interesting than the problems of failure. Gaiman also says that he has trouble saying no, which is probably why he looks exhausted a good deal of the time.
Your average author has readers — Gaiman has fans that have followed his eclectic body of work that spans his sophisticated Sandman comic series to the frightening children’s picture book, The Wolves In The Walls.
It was the comic books that established his cult status, beginning with the first book in the Sandman series, Prelude and Nocturnes in which Gaiman introduced the Master of Dreams, who is captured and imprisoned for 70 years. When he finally escapes, he embarks on a quest to claim three powerful objects.
At a reading a few years ago, another Gaiman fan, Stephen King, turned up. The pair was supposed to catch up for dinner but late into the evening, Gaiman was still signing books. “We ended up in Steve’s hotel room, sitting on the floor eating hamburgers.” King told him that he usually only signs for an hour and after that, he leaves the bookshop and hundreds of disappointed fans. Gaiman shrugs his shoulders and says, “I just can’t do it.”
Between events he religiously updates his blog (neilgaiman.com), posting information about where he’ll be and how the trip is going. It reads like a captain’s log but the weeks away from home, combined with a crazy schedule, might be taking its toll as words such as “shell shocked, pooped, marathon and brain-dead” appear more frequently. Not all authors reach out to their readers the way Gaiman does. He answers questions, chats about his books, discusses art, influences and whatever happens to be on his mind.
Mention Gaiman’s name and you get one of two responses: Who is he? Or, he’s my favourite author. “I exist in a peculiar binary space. I’m the most famous author that nobody’s heard of.” The downside? Bookshop managers who think they’ve invited a lovely low-key author to chat about books often find themselves overwhelmed by the army of fans who turn up to a Gaiman event.
Gaiman was born in Portchester, England, in 1960 and says he was “a much weirder kid than I ever thought I was”. At seven he begged his parents for his own bookcase and carefully covered each book in clear plastic and put them in alphabetical order. He throws his hands up and says “Now that’s f—ing weird! No seven-year-old does that.” At school he was “the single most crappest kid at sports anyone had ever seen”. During cricket matches, as teammates desperately called out his name, Gaiman would only appear to be fielding when, in fact, he was making up stories. Inevitably, the ball would hit him on the head.
After a stint in journalism and a biography of ’80s band Duran Duran, Gaiman achieved notoriety for his graphic novels, the Sandman series, a set of comic books for adults. Norman Mailer called them “a comic strip for intellectuals”.
In 2001, his first novel, American Gods, was published to rave reviews. Described as a hallucinogenic road-trip story wrapped around a deep examination of the American spirit, it was a fixture on The New York Times bestseller list for weeks. The following year, Coraline, his first book for children, about a little girl who discovers she has another set of very sinister parents living behind a door in her large, spooky house, also made the list.
Collaboration has always featured in Gaiman’s work and his two picture books for children, The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped my Dad for Two Goldfish were illustrated by his friend Dave McKean. Both books are pitched at younger readers but Gaiman’s witty prose also appeals to adults.
Gaiman likes to mix it up. “I’m a storyteller. Children’s novel, comic novel, graphic novel, picture book. I love doing different things and surprising my readers.” In his new book Anansi Boys, Gaiman wanted to deliver a comic novel with “lots of tragedy”.
Set in the US, England and the Caribbean, the book is about Fat Charlie Nancy and the sudden arrival of his brother, a narcissistic control freak who wants to take over Fat Charlie’s life, including his job and fiancee. Like most of Gaiman’s work, it features characters who begin in the real world but end up in a completely different place, one not on any ordinary map.
But the writing process hasn’t always been easy for Gaiman. Half way through Anansi Boys, he got stuck and stopped writing for four months. Just talking about it makes him look troubled; it was, he says, an “incredibly gloomy” period. In the end, he telephoned his agent and told her that his past success had all been a fluke and that he’d rather just return his advance and call it a day. Gaiman recalls there was long pause before she calmly responded: “Oh, you’re at that point of the book are you?”
Gaiman pretended to be outraged but knew she was right and says, “I went back to writing the book but felt rather less unique”.
In 1991, Gaiman moved to the US because his American-born wife was keen to have their three children get to know her family and Gaiman says they were able to buy an Addams Family-style house in Minnesota on four hectares for the price of a one-bedroom flat in London.
“It’s an obscenely cold place. You assume that when it snows, it’s cold, but here, there are 15 other layers of cold beneath that. When you take a breath, you can feel every single hair in your nose.” But he’s happy to be an Englishman and has no plans to become an American citizen. On his blog, he writes enthusiastically about the perfect cup of tea, something he managed to have when he was in Australia a few years ago.
When he’s writing, everything except playing with his youngest daughter, Maddy, is an irritation. And when it comes to his relationship with his wife, Gaiman says: “I’m really good at some things — ask me to write a book, short story or script and I’m in my element but ask me to do my tax or go to the bank and I’m really, really crap.”
On the subject of his fans, Gaiman says he’s very lucky.
“Clive Barker had some mad guy living on his front lawn, Stephen King had a strange woman in an attic who pestered him but my readers are genuinely lovely people who tend not to be crazy.”
They give him presents, too, and Gaiman is delighted about the hand-knitted scarf a fan gave him at last weekend’s Continuum 3 sci-fi convention in Melbourne.
Asked if he might ever consider slowing down his frenetic pace, Gaiman says that no matter what he’s doing, he tries to stop while he’s still in love with it. “That’s why I ended Sandman. I don’t want to wake up one morning and think oh f—ing hell, I have to write something.” There’s a chance he might end his online journal because he never wants to fake it. “It’s almost getting to the point where I may not be able to tour as much,” but, he adds rather unconvincingly, “I’ll see how I’ll feel in November”.
But in all honesty, Gaiman can’t slow down — he’s too busy with a series of projects that include an operatic version of The Wolves in the Walls, a script for a film version of Beowulf directed by Robert Zemeckis, and MirrorMask, an illustrated film script by Gaiman and Dave McKean that’s being produced by Tim Burton.
Tired but still smiling, Gaiman shrugs his shoulders and says, “What can I say? I have the best job, it’s so much fun but if for some reason I stopped writing fiction … I might try my hand at a travel book.”
–Frances Atkinson
Voting for the Quill Awards starts on August 15, both online and at Borders Bookstores (US). 1602 has been nominated for Best Graphic Novel, and Taverns of the Dead, which contains the short story The Winner, has been nominated for Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror.
Voting ends September 15th.
More talk about the Mirrormask manga in the July 19th Publishers Daily
Mike Rogoway reports on Laika (formerly Vinton) Studios, Phil Knight, and Coraline (albeit peripherally) in the July 20th Oregonian.
Coverage of the Australia tour has been quiet, at least comparatively, with that article in the 18 July Age being one of the few online notes.
Unfortunately, while there has been a feature in the 20 July Canberra Times, it’s unavailable through any of my resources.
Finally, here’s yet another example of things you find when looking for other things. Which brings up an important point.
The days of Neil-related information taking up three or four spans of 100 Google entries are a long ways behind us.
So I leave it to our dear readers to let us know about interviews, features, book signings, convention experiences, and other information by providing us with links to your websites and blogs.
Email rim101(@)yahoo.com with your news.
And thanks in advance for your help.
From the July 20, 2005 www.inq7.net: More dreamtime with Neil Gaiman In the week leading up to Neil Gaiman’s stay in the Philippines, Just a Philosopher’s Stone’s throw away from his hotel, anti-government protestors had gathered. He was checked into the Peninsula Manila under the name of Mr. Punch, a character from one of his own books. That Gaiman is now living a rather adventurous and surreal life not unlike that of one of his fictional people is to be expected. By telling the story of Dream, ruler of the Dreaming, and his dysfunctional family, the Endless in “The Sandman’s” 75-issue run, Gaiman has seduced a world’s imaginings and has let his creative wanderlust take him where it may, to novels, children’s books and other creative endeavors. Do you have an upcoming project with Marvel Comics? (Smiles and answers very carefully) Yes. Can you say something about it? (Smiles wider and shakes his head vigorously) No. “Coraline” was followed by “The Wolves in The Wall.” Now, you’re coming out with “Anansi Boys…” Well, “Anansi Boys” is an adult novel-well, sort of. Actually, “Anansi Boys” is an odd novel. “American Gods,” which won the Hugo and the Nebula and the Bram Stoker and the SFX, the Locus and so on and so forth, is definitely not a book for kids. I mean it has horror and extreme sex, and all sorts of cool stuff. “Anansi Boys” is the next adult novel, but it has no extreme sex, no sex, no swearing, there’s absolutely nothing in there that I wouldn’t mind a 12-year-old reading. On the other hand, “The Graveyard Book,” which is the next children’s book, begins at least in the current draft, with four pages of a serial killer walking around a house in the dark, having killed all of the family, and looking for the baby to finish them all off. It’s the scariest, nastiest thing I’ve ever written. These days, I don’t make a lot of separation between the adult stuff and the kid’s stuff as I should. Along those lines, you’ve done quite a bit of film work, with the English script for Hayao Miyazaki’s “Princess Mononoke,” the script for “Good Omens,” and now “MirrorMask.” Following your gustatory metaphor, is cinema another kind of meal that you really enjoy? Absolutely. The fun for me of cinema is that it’s a completely different kind of adventure. And there’s also this huge kind of teamwork involved. The strange thing about cinema and TV is this. When you read a novel by me, it’s a book by me. That’s what you get. When you read a comic by me, it’s a comic by me and an artist. When you’re looking at film, you’re looking at something I thought up, as interpreted by a director, as told to you by 80 people and the limitations of budget. It’s so much of a different thing. On the other hand, I love the reach of film. I love how many people see them. I love, right now, the weird technical possibilities of film and that “special effects” no longer mean what they did. And that is really interesting. The things that Dave McKean experimented on in “MirrorMask” will wind up proving useful somewhere down the line. You’ve always been interested in different kinds of mythology and different ways of thinking. Is there anything new that you’re currently fascinated by or enjoying? What books are you reading? Right now, I’m sort of just loading the hopper. Right now, I’m just finding out about it. The joy of being an author for me is that the place where you get ideas or background material is never other people’s books, it’s always weird little books about unlikely things. I just finished reading a book on the history of the menagerie of the Tower of London, going back to the 13th century. I’m now reading a book about the legends of the 10 lost tribes of Israel, and that’s really interesting, how virtually every ethnic group in the world has been identified as part of the lost tribes of Israel. That’s why you’ve become both an icon of reading and writing in the world. How does that feel? If I ever thought about it, it would be a bit alarming. It’s like the blog (NOTE: you can find, along with other fascinating resources on his website, http://www.neilgaiman.com). I’ve been keeping the blog since January 2001, which is about as far back as people have been blogging. There were dinosaurs blogging when I started. “Dear blog, met a stegosaurus today.” Overall, there’s probably a million words’ worth of stuff in the blog and you could probably extract a small book of advice for writers from this stuff I’ve written to answer specific questions. But I never set out to keep the blog as a source of advice for writers. It’s just that lots of people want to know things like, how do you this and how do you deal with writer’s block and whatever. And this is how I do it, this is what I think it is. Is it still as much fun for you or has it gotten more difficult as time has gone on, now that your reach is so wide and there’s a huge audience for your stuff? I think it’s just different. I’m not sure that harder is right, and I’m not sure that more fun is right. It gets harder to arrange time because all of the sudden you become like a bowling ball on a rubber sheet. When you’re a young writer, you say yes to everything. And then there’s a point when you turn around and… you have to start saying no, which is very hard for a freelance writer to learn. I still enjoy writing. The most fun I’ve had the last year was going to Glasgow and hearing them workshop “The Wolves In The Walls” as a children’s opera by the National Theater of Scotland. And it was absolutely funny and wonderful. The second most fun was writing “Anansi Boys,” and that’s just the process of me and my pen going off every day and writing. I think that includes the terrible days, of “Christ, I’m an idiot, what makes me think I could be a writer,” and the days when I didn’t even bother picking up my pen because I’m completely struck in a story and had no idea what was going to happen next. I was three-quarters of the way through “Anansi Boys” when I called up my agent and said, “I have to tell you, the book is crap. I think I’m going to go and stop writing now. We’re just going to have to tell Harpers that we’re never going to finish the book.” And she says, “Oh, so you’re at that point in the book.” And I say, “What do you mean?” And she answers, “You always get there. All my writers do.” Three-quarters of the way, that’s how you feel about it. And then suddenly it all pulls itself together. I’m so happy with the book, it’s so funny and so light. I like the fact that people read the book and it makes them happier and makes them feel better, and that’s what it was supposed to do. You’ve ventured into all kinds of genres, but is there something specific you still really want to do? I’d like to write a stage play. I’ve never created an original stage play. I’ve had stage plays adapted from things I’ve written and I’ve watched them and I’ve liked them, or I haven’t. I would love to do something for the stage, to see what happens. Does it surprise you that you’re popular, say, in this country, or when you see the reactions you get when you travel? No. The thing is, I have a more like a “kind-of” famousness. There’s the normal kind of famousness that people have, which means people have heard of you even if they don’t like your stuff or don’t listen to you. Everyone in the world knows that Britney Spears is famous. I’m pretty sure she’s the girl who sang “Oops, I Did It Again.” But apart from that, I can’t identify a Britney Spears song at gunpoint, and, honestly, give me a machinegun and line up 30 average-looking blond American girls and tell me to shoot Britney Spears and I can hit anybody. But I have a sort of binary fame. Because I tend to exist in either “Neil-Gaiman-I-haven’t-heard-of-him-what-does-he-do,” or “Neil-Gaiman,-oh-my-God-he’s-my-favorite-author.” There’s not an awful lot between them. What was becoming very apparent to me, because I get to go backstage at my website and I get to see where people are coming from-I noticed that Singapore, with a population of four million people was coming in at number five or number six, and the Philippines was coming in at number eight or nine, out of the world. That was the point when I said I have to go to the Philippines, I have to go to Singapore, I have to go and sign in these places because I know there are people there reading this stuff and I’ve never been there and I want to find out what they like. I went this morning to judge the art show and it wasn’t choosing between apples and oranges but like apples and chocolates and mirrors. So, I go down there, it’s 9:30 a.m. and there are 350 people there, and they catch sight of me. One moment, I have 100 people shouting hello and I say hi, and then it just sort of erupts into a deafening, top-of-the-throat (begins to produce his estimation of a crowd shouting) ahhhhhhhh. It didn’t feel like The Beatles. It felt much, much odder than that. I thought, “This is the Philippines, they are loud, they are vocal and they are really enthusiastic. This is going to be really fun.”
–Ruel S. de Vera
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lucy_anne | 
07 29th, 2005| 