Neil Gaiman's Blog, page 50

A quiet Sunday. My trainer, Todd, arrived this morning, took me for a walk and a bike ride. Bill and Sharon Stiteler arrived, along with my assistant Lorraine, and the four of us went down to the beehives: all the bees are doing well. They're "Minnesota Hygenic" bees, a variety of Italian Bee. On Thursday (we think) the three packages of Russian Bees arrive, and we will install them in waiting hives. (The differences between Russian and Italian Bees are in this PDF document. Simply

I'll be doing a couple of events in Edinburgh in August for the Book Festival.

There will be an "all ages" event Wednesday the 19th of August from 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM, and a "Teens and Adults" event in conversation with Ian Rankin, on Thursday the 20th from 8:00 PM - 9:00 PM. Details are up at this website.

The first event will be more Children's Authory, the second a bit more Graphic Novelly.

Tickets don't actually go on sale for either of the events until Monday the 22nd of June, but

posted by Dan Guy
There. I was in Boston and now I am home (This is a Kyle Cassidy picture of me at home, although it is from last month. I put it up on a family website recently to let the extended family know, subtly, that I now had a girlfriend. None of the aunts or cousins noticed that bit. "You have a wonderful fridge," they all said in the comments. "We wish there were fridges like that in England."). (Lots of people who read the link to the SPIN article have been writing nice letters congr

Good morning world.

If you want to watch selected highlights of the me-and-Amanda HousingWorks gig last week (which raised 10K for HousingWorks, hurrah), Spin has them up at http://www.spin.com/articles/watch-amanda-palmer-neil-gaiman-live-nyc. (I read "Feminine Endings" aloud for the first time, and I think it works aloud, which makes me happy.)(Also one of my favourite "I Google You"s)

So the last two weeks of madness is over and I am starting to look around and hoping one day to c

The trouble with the last week was that every day was filled with remarkable things, and I would think, "Right. That's a good blog entry there," but I'd grab sleep instead, and the next day would be just as remarkable and just as long. So I need to do, at the minimum, a round up of the Coraline Musical First Night, being interviewed in the bath, and the Amanda & Me HousingWorks event.... (which the last question in the Q&A section in the middle turned into something a bit more new

They give you medallions if you're nominated for an Audie Award, big heavy ones on ribbons. I keep mine at home, draped on the Lisa Snellings Jack in a Box statue. I have lots of them. This is because when I go to the Audies, I do not win the award, but listen as they read off names other than mine to get their lumps of engraved crystal that are the thing you get when you win.
Last night, The Graveyard Book was nominated in three categories: Thriller/suspense, Children's age 8-12, a

Very quick version: CORALINE musical (http://www.mcctheater.org/currentseason.html)was a wonderful use of Theatre, very haunting and strange. I liked the second-half better, as it felt more and more dreamlike (although CORALINE isn't a dream story). I wonder what someone who had never encountered the story in any form would think, especially during the end when the Other Mother's hand is defeated? I love the songs, the ones I had heard before and the ones I had not, and look forwar

In five minutes I head for my gate to fly to NY. So some quick photographs, courtesy of Kyle Cassidy.

This is Coconut, yawning fiendishly.
 Next are two photographs of me and Zoe, who is blind and lives in a bedroom in the attic.
 
 
Me. My dog. My house. My grey streak which is really kind of cool.
 Pod and Hermione. They are 17, and sweet, but still mad. Hermione likes me. Pod still hasn't made up her mind.

And finally, a couple of shots of my other houseguest of last week, the lovely

This is being blogged while making rhubarb custard for Maddy, to make up for the inedible rhubarb crumble I did the other night. Worst crumble I've ever made. I didn't even know it was possible to mess up a crumble, but I did.

(Here is the Lorraine Bowen Crumble song.)

Several blogs back, I let people know that if they wanted tickets to the Stephen Merritt CORALINE musical they should buy them, as it was a very small theatre and a very limited run. The run has just added two weeks --

It's a beautiful day. Kyle my photographer houseguest is off down the creek taking photographs. 
If you click on http://kylecassidy.livejournal.com/513410.htmlyou will see a photo that he took of me and my dog the evening before last, when the light was golden and it turned the dandelion clocks into sparkles. (Probably Bill Stiteler will turn it into another of his toe-curlingly evil "Hey Girl" pictures.)
(He is out to get art made, as you will learn from the caption.)
I think that th