How to use this Page

Busy week coming up, with a "Page to Screen" session tomorrow at the SCREEN FUTURES YOUTHFEST at BMW Edge at Federation Square. My session is 2:00 to 2:30; see the site for the full details. www.screenfutures.com/?page_id=285 

There's no bookstore at the festival but I'm happy to sign books that people have bought elsewhere to bring.

Then, Thursday I'm at BookGrove bookshop in Ocean Grove:
1/73 The Terrace 
Ocean Grove Vic 3226
p 03 5255 5973


https://www.facebook.com/pages/Book-grove/175105942522210

Loving being back in New York City; my first visit here was when I was planning Nim at Sea and wanted to walk everywhere that Nim would go (though I took the Staten Island ferry instead of swimming in). It's been fun revisiting some of the favourite places we've been before, but mostly - apart from the best of all, the family time, and catching up with editors who've become friends - we've explored new places and museums: Natural History, the Frick, the Cloisers, and the Met: each wonderful in their own way, each providing the thrill of learning, closely followed the humility of realising how little I know of their topics.

Tomorrow is a visit to another favourite site: the New York Public Library; the home of the beautiful stone lions on the steps outside (and the original Winnie the Pooh inside). I'm incredibly excited about being invited to speak there.

So if you're in NYC tomorrow - Saturday 20th June - come to the NYPL Children's Center on 42nd St, at 3:00, and hear about the Nim's Island journey from idea to book to movie - and say hello!

Who’d have thought it - publicity takes up a lot of time and energy! I had one whirlwind day starting with Channel 10’s (Australia) ’9 am with David and Kim’, and going on to another 11 interviews or photo shoots. It was a great day; interesting to see how different the questions were from different interviewers. My only regret is that I can’t duck into the station’s hair and make-up studio every time I go out - what a luxury that was!

But now we’re gearing up for the Australian premier at Sea World on Thursday 20th March - very exciting! I’m so thrilled that it’s worked out that I can go to both the Australian and the LA premiers.

I’ll be heading to the USA after the Aus premier, and Canada after the LA premier. My schedule isn’t finalised yet but should take in New York, possibly Washington DC, Minneapolis and LA. The public events definitely scheduled (apart from the CUT conference) are:

MINNEAPOLIS: READING & BOOK SIGNING, 27th March, 1:00 pm: at Barnes & Noble
8040 Wedgewood Lane
Maple Grove, MN 55369

28th March, Book signing at Public Library Conference

LOS ANGELES: READING AND BOOK SIGNING, 29 MARCH, 2:00 pm at BORDERS
3700 Torrance Blvd.
Torrance, CA 90453

SANTA MONICA: WENDY ORR & PAULA MAZUR IN CONVERSATION RE NIM’S ISLAND
31 March, 7 or 7:30 pm, Santa Monica Library, Main Branch.


More as I discover it...

But at least the most important thing is organised - the house sitters for our dog Bear. He loves this family almost as much as he loves ours, and they love him back. So they’re always the first people to phone when a trip is planned.

3:14 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

I started typing The Graveyard Book today. I'm chugging my way through chapter one. Starting to recover from Comic-con although it's not yet ten o'clock and I'm ready to sleep already...

I love Charles Bukowski, and tend to buy his books in Scandinavia. Also I love classic Peanuts. I was doubtful that I'd love this reimagining of Peanuts as written by Bukowski, but I'm happy to say that I did. http://www.progressiveboink.com/archive/peanuts-by-charles-bukowski/

Neil --
In the Coraline premiere photo that you linked to a few days ago, you are making two fists on the red carpet as though you are going to leap forward after the flash and pummel someone. I take this to be an indication of some nervousness -- after all these events, is it still common for you to get butterflies? Shawn

The Stardust premiere you mean. Coraline will be next year. no, I don't get butterflies, but I don't enjoy things like red carpets,: you have to imagine about a hundred or so photographers, all shouting (at the same time, not one after another) "Neil, Neil -- look over here!" "Neil, to your right!" and so on, and me trying desperately to remember how to stand up and not look stupid or goofy, and knowing that I'll always be looking at the wrong photographer and, honestly, it's a lot like having people throw rocks at you, except without the pain and the bleeding and the ripped clothes. So it's not really like having rocks thrown at you. But still.

My friend and I recently both ate up "Stardust," because we both want to see the movie and are weird about reading the books that movies are based off of before we see the movie. However, after reading the book and watching the previews, we're both pretty much prepared to see an almost completely different story when we go to see the movie. As the author, how did you feel about the movie version of "Stardust"?

I think you'll be extremely pleasantly surprised. I think it's a lovely movie, and that it's a movie, not a book, and those places where they changed things to make it work as a movie, work just fine. And I think that it's nothing at all like the trailer.

Stardust currently has 100% on rottentomatoes.com!

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/stardust/

And I've seen two people compare it to Princess Bride.

That's nice. It probably won't stay at 100%, but it's a lovely place to start. (And I don't think it means very much, alas. Princess Mononoke was the highest-rated Rotten Tomatoes film of its year, and nobody really noticed.)