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With villain names like Professor Von Evil and the Flaming Eyeball, how can you not be dying to read Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon’s debut picture book THE ASTONISHING SECRET OF AWESOME MAN, illustrated by Jake Parker? With short text and plenty of derring-do action (take a peek inside), this picture book will be a favorite of kids who love comics, as well as kids in your storytime programs.
In its starred review, School Library Journal said “the depiction of a showdown between Awesome Man and his nemesis-the Flaming Eyeball-is priceless. Readers may notice that there’s a moral peeking out from Awesome Man’s cape, but they’ll still grab this story in their ‘ginormous Awesome Power Grip’ and not let go.”
Monica Edinger (of Educating Alice and Huffington Post fame) recently had the chance to interview Michael Chabon himself! Here’s how the conversation went:
Photo by Jennifer Chaney
From reading your Pulitzer Prize-winning adult novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, fans probably know you have a long-term relationship with superhero comics. Can you give us a taste of your own childhood introduction to them and how that might have inspired this story of Awesome Man?
Well, of course I remember seeing Batman and the first animated Spider-Man show on television when I was very small… but my first true plunge into the world of superheroes came through the comic books that my father began to bring home for me, as soon as I could read. He had grown up reading them himself, and felt they were an important part of a kid’s education.
You clearly revel in language and names — Professor Von Evil, Moskowitz the Awesome Dog, positrons, and…pooped (and what kid doesn’t like saying “pooped!”). As an adult author known for reveling in words and language, how did you manage to balance that with the need to keep things relatively simple for a picture book audience?
I was really thinking about the parents here–how much it meant to me, when I was reading a book aloud to my children for the 33832nd time, if there was a little verve or snap to the language. Probably the all time champ, in that regard–to me, at least–is William Steig. Nobody used English, in kids’ books, the way he did.
You have children of your own — were they helpful in the creation of this book?
I wrote this book for my younger son (I have two, and two daughters), Abe. He was the direct inspiration, in every way, for the main character of AWESOME MAN.
Are you a reader of children’s books yourself and if so, what are some of your favorites?
One of the greatest, and most lasting, pleasures of having children, for me, has been the excuse and the opportunity that bedtime reading has given me to revisit, and re-relish (usually), so many of the books I loved a
The U.K.-based Man Booker International Prize released its longlist to book publishers of 13 finalists for the 2011 award yesterday, but only 12 care to be considered; John Le Carré rejected the nod, offering up an explanation that amounts to little more than “I prefer not to.” Included on the list are three American authors–Anne Tyler, Philip Roth, and Marilynne Robinson–and for the first time, two Chinese writers, Wang Anyi and Su Tong. The award, worth $94,000, is given every other year based on an author’s entire body of work. With christian book publishers informed, the winner will be awarded at the Sydney Writers’ Festival on May 18 and will be feted on June 28 in London.
The assembly of Gujarat, a western Indian state, voted unanimously to ban Pulitzer Prize-winning author Joseph Lelyveld’s new book Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle with India. The controversy began over early reviews out of the U.S. and U.K. highlighting passages insinuating that Gandhi had a possible intimate relationship with a German man named Hermann Kallenbach. More bans are pending in India, where homosexuality was illegal until 2009.
Simon & Schuster announced it would publish a book of James Garner’s memoir The Garner Files on Nov. 8, 2011. In a press release, Garner saiid, “I’ve avoided writing a book until now because I feel like I’m really pretty average and I didn’t think anyone would care about my life.”
The most difficult readers to reach are, without question, teenage boys–especially teenage boys from poor, urban neighborhoods. But Paul Langan, a 39-year-old white man from the suburbs of New Jersey, has found a way to tap into the market of “black and Latino urban middle and high school students who are struggling readers.” The Bluford series covers topics like fighting, bullies, and drug dealing, which for many of the young readers constitutes “everyday-life situations.”
Gun- and baby-toting woman of action Angelina Jolie will be getting the comic book treatment. It sounds like it’ll be a realistic, biographical take on her life, but Jolie as a full-fledged action hero sounds so much more interesting. Radioactive lips? Brood of toddler sidekicks? Yes, please.
How do writers deal with bad reviews? Not always well, especially when blogging is involved.
What would you give for this stunning reader’s retreat, a library in the woods? It makes me feel cozy and contemplative just looking at it. Not to mention really, really rich.
Hopefully all of you heard the buzz yesterday about the title and cover reveal at The Huffington Post for the new collection of poems and drawings by Shel Silverstein, EVERY THING ON IT. Here’s the fabulous cover:
It is on-sale September 20, 2011.
To celebrate the reveal and next month’s celebration of poetry, it makes sense to share a Shel poem today. This is a poem that I actually recited in a poetry competition in fifth grade so it has a special place in my heart – it’s a personal favorite:
SICK
by Shel Silverstein
“I cannot go to school today,”
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
“I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox
And there’s one more – that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue –
It might be instamatic flu.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broke –
My hip hurts when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a sliver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my heart is — what?
What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is…Saturday?
G’bye, I’m going out to play!”
I found that hilarious in fifth grade…but, even as adults, don’t we all want to claim all these illnesses to get a day off work! Still hilarious.
Have a great weekend, everyone!
“Sick” from WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS, 30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION
by Shel Silverstein
ISBN 9780060572341
Lucy Coats has already blogged (Wednesday, 9th Feb) about the remarks that Martin Amis made when he was interviewed by Sebastian Faulks for the BBC 2 programme, Faulks on Fiction. Her blog has attracted 60 comments and the outrage felt has resonated as far as the national press and the Huffington Post. Martin Amis, as the Guardian on Saturday pointed out, is no stranger to controversy.
I, too, saw the programme and after the first dropping of the jaw, I thought that he actually had a point. Just in case anybody doesn't know, or does not want to scroll down the page and see his words in purple 18 point type, he said:
'People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book. I say: "If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book."'
So far, so insulting. He then went on to say:
'The idea of being conscious of who you are directing the story to is anathema to me because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable. I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write.'
Once I heard that, I could see where he was coming from. I did not think he was saying 'all children's writers have half a brain', that would be false logic. He was just explaining his own writing stance and he is entitled to do that. He writes literary fiction for adults, as such he sees it as his task to write to the top of his register and would not, could not accept any restraints on that.
The disregard for the reader that Amis expresses is just not possible when one is writing for children. Children's writers, and I include writers of Young Adult fiction, are ALWAYS aware of what their readers will and will not tolerate, or will or will not understand. Anyone who denies this is being disingenuous. Quite apart from the target readers themselves, there are other agencies involved. We have to worry about things that would not trouble writers of adult fiction in the least - see Leslie Wilson's blog below. How many writers for adults would feel the need to explain and justify their use of swear words or the incidence of sex in a novel? How much we take these factors into consideration, how much we allow them to limit our fiction, is up to us, but those limitations are there. We do not use our full palate, as Patrick Ness would say. How can we? We have to write at a lower register because we are adults and our readers are children.
There are other pressures on us, too. Pressures that have nothing to do with our writing but everything to do with the market place. In a squeezed market, there is more and more demand from publishers for novels that will sell. Books that fit into an obvious, popular genre - action, dark romance, whatever. A book that is perceived as 'too literary' is seen as problematic. The equivalent of the literary novel is a rare beast, and becoming more endangered by the minute. If one or two do sneak through, they usually turn out to have been written for adults in the first place and tweaked a bit in a bid to capture that holy grail, the crossover market.
In an interview in the Observer Review (13th February, 2011)) Nicole Krauss attests that the comment she heard most frequently on a U.S. book tour for her novel, The History of Love, was: 'this book is difficult'. Krauss worries that 'we are moving towards the end of effort'. Readers don't want to have to think too hard, it appears, whatever their age. That is the spectre that frightens me. In the hope of keeping that at bay, I actually want Martin Amis to write to the limit
15 Comments on It's That Man Again... Celia Rees, last added: 2/15/2011
For me the problem is Amis's 'lower' register. The idea of a 'lower' register implies a hierarchy. Children's and young adult fiction are 'lower' and adult fiction is 'higher' by implication. Amis did not equate brian injury with 'mainstream' as opposed to 'literary' fiction. He equated it to writing for children. Amis, it seems is tolerated for these views and I am insulted by them.
With respect, I don't believe Amis should be given the benefit of the doubt re: his remarks about children's fiction. While it could be argued that there's been some overreaction to his comments, Amis has too long and notorious a track record when it comes to tactless, thoughtless commentary; in the interest of genuine fairness, his history should be borne in mind. Amis knows full well that every author, consciously or otherwise, tailors their work for an appropriate readership, so his position is disingenuous in the extreme. Sadly, I suspect that Amis's remarks about the absence of constraints in his fiction are an example of his air of superiority and pretentiousness - all that's missing is a sweep of the smoke-filled air with an elegant hand - after all, these are the kind of self-indulgent conversation pieces that an amateur poet might stoop to. Finally, even his few champions do him a disservice, and display the kind of condescending conceitedness natural to the man:
'Like any ace reporter, I Google Martin's name and find that a fatwa has been declared against him over shock-horror comments he made an interview that have inflamed fine-feeling people everywhere and could easily be interpreted as an insult to the unborn, if they knew how to read.
Because of this, entire villages have risen up in wrath and occupied Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square too, demanding that he recant or face witch trial for being conceited.'
More talk of proles and their literary and social superiors here:
Ps I'd like to point out that I actually agree with much of Celia's post (which I think is both articulate and well-written); I'm just not so sure that the reaction against Amis's comments should cause children's fiction authors to examine themselves and their work. As one can see by the clumsy and insulting 'religious fanaticism' analogies of the article I linked, Amis and his champions have little interest in truth, let alone the truths revealed by introspection.
Celia, that was also the meaning I took from his remarks. (I was watching the original programme and the person I was watching with also didn't think he was saying anything disparaging, though the use of the word "brain-injury" was very misguided.)
I also, to be honest, am not as offended as some by the use of the phrase "lower register". As long as we don't think that it's easier to achieve - but the problem is that too many people DO think it's easier to achieve. And that is what makes us all most angry, I think.
If - and it has to be true - writing for children involves writing within certain constraints (re: a child's understanding, descriptions of sex, swearing, etc), then it is a form which demands as much, if not more, technical skill as writing for adults. There should be less of this tacit assumption that writing for children is somehow easier. I mean, why? Because children's books are shorter? Sonnets are shorter than epics, but that doens't make us despise them. Because children are smaller and less experiences than adults? Does that make books written to delight and thrill them, and expand thier imaginations, automatically puerile?
I agree Amis may have been thinking about himself much more than he was thinking about children's authors (quite possibly he's never even met one, and I wonder how long it is since he read a book for children?) but I think the disparagement and disdain in his comments was quite real and unthinking.
I do strive to produce work that is 'articulate and well written' because... I'm a professional, adult writer, even though I write for children. Far from being crass and stupid, I think Amis was being rather clever (a trait clearly not shared by his 'supporters' - as quoted by Steve). I don't think he is saying that, as writers for children, we have to use a lower register, but that we choose to, because of what we do. Also, I'm sure he would acknowledge the problems we face, the difficulties, the challenge of what we do, but would probably reply that he would not choose to use his writing ability in this way. His choice - and ours.
But isn't everyone constrained by something? I think it is the constraints that tend to make the best art - the need to write for an audience tends to limit self indulgence. None of us are free and he himself confines himself to a narrow range of milieus and types. For me the great skill of great children's writing is its exploitation of the constraints to produce something that appears simple on the surface but which has been shaped by adult intelligence and insight. I think to call that writing at a 'lower register' is not entirely accurate as it suggests the lowering applies to everything.
As I mentioned in my own blog - http://steepholm.livejournal.com/156057.html - I think it would be idle to deny that Amis was being intentionally snotty about children's writers with his 'brain-damage' remark. Nor was it off-the-cuff - he's used it before, and knows exactly what kind of reaction it's likely to provoke.
The idea of not writing for an audience but for oneself is of course a widespread one, and in one sense I think it's something we all do. But the opposition between that and having an idea of one's audience in mind is a false one, and in any case it's a stick one could equally well use to beat Shakespeare, Virgil, etc ad nauseam, all of whom tailored their work for an audience. Amis may imagine that his indifference makes him their artistic superior, but we don't have to share his New Critical delusion.
As for 'lower' register, I don't believe, having watched the clip carefully, that he was talking about children's literature at all at that point, but about the language of his protagonist John Self. But it's really an example of trying to make a virtue out of what is in fact a stylistic limitation - the fact that Amis can't create a voice like Self's in a manner that is both convincing and interesting from a literary point of view. In this case it's not a matter of not using the full palate (which no writer or artist does at any one time, of course - the result tending towards brown sludge), but of arguing that a small palate is superior to a large one. Personally I don't buy it.
I agree with what many people have said: children's writing is just a different art-form. A lower register? That does seem disparaging to me. There are, as has been said, constraints in writing a sonnet; in a short story or a novella you can't allow yourself the same spread that you can in a novel. That's not to say that these forms aren't worth practising. However!! Amis can say what he likes. I get artistic satisfaction from writing my novels, I got artistic sustenance from reading children's books when I was small. And whatever the constraints, someone like Tove Jansson, for example, can put a world of feeling, aching, yearning and humour into the Moomin books which is the artistic equal of a lot of literary fiction. incidentally, a lot of very distinguished authors for adults have produced wonderful kids-lit. Look at Ted Hughes's The Iron Man. So why should we make the man's vapourings so important, one way or another?
While pottering down to Waitrose, I had the following additional thoughts: I doubt whether adult literary fiction has always been so very free of constraint. Even ten years ago, there was a demand for a recognisable product, for a book that was 'like' the previous one. That's the market side. On the other side, there have always been subtler cultural pressures; the kind of things other people write; the kind of subject matter and mode of writing that the reviewing (and prize-awarding) establishment regards as cool. There is never any need for anyone to consciously censor themselves ; it's implicit in the literary climate, which is not, and never has been, I suspect, immune to fashion.
Celia, he may not have been saying "all children's writers have half a brain", but he was quite clearly saying: "Writing for children is so easy that I could, and probably would, do it if I had a serious brain injury."
He was certainly, as you say, making another point besides this, but that doesn't mean he should be allowed the insult.
And I agree with Anne & others about the implied hierarchy. What does it actually mean, to write in one's highest register?
Well done for trying to see where Amis was coming from. You have helped to make some sense of it, but I still think his comment that "fiction is freedom..." is arrogant nonsense!
Just imagine him coming to your house and swearing in front of your kids, then explaining 'sorry, but conversation is freedom to me and any restraints on that are intolerable'. :D
A 76-year-old British writer has been jailed for six weeks in Singapore after the High Court found him guilty of contempt of court over a book that raised questions about the independence of the judicial system.
Alan Shadrake, who lives in Malaysia, had refused to apologise for the content of his book, Once a Jolly Hangman, which deals with the use of the death penalty in the island state.
Mr Shadrake had offered to apologise for offending the judiciary before being convicted two weeks ago, but Justice Quentin Loh ruled that his book had scandalised the court.
He said Mr Shadrake had shown “a reckless disregard for the truth” and “a complete lack of remorse”. The defendant had contended that the book amounted to “fair criticism on matters of compelling public interest”.
At a sentencing hearing on Tuesday, Mr Shadrake was also fined S$20,000 (US$15,400) and ordered to pay costs of S$55,000. The prison sentence was lighter than the 12-week term sought by the prosecution.
M. Ravi, Mr Shadrake’s lawyer, had urged the court to censure the author rather than imprison him. “This is by far the most serious sentence [for contempt]. It is the harshest punishment so far [for this offence in Singapore],” Mr Ravi said.
Mr Shadrake was arrested in his hotel room after travelling to Singapore to publicise the book in July. The Singapore authorities have said that charges of criminal defamation are also being considered.
Overseas human rights campaigners condemned the proceedings. Phil Robertson, deputy director of New York-based Human Rights Watch, said Singapore was “damaging its poor reputation on free expression by shooting the messenger bearing bad news”.
The Singapore authorities have robustly dismissed claims that the courts discriminate against individuals on grounds of nationality, background or status.
Ministers are unapologetic about restrictions on free speech, however, which they say are essential to prevent conflicts between the prosperous island’s mainly Chinese, Indian and Malay population groups.
K. Shanmugam, the law minister, said in a speech in New York two weeks ago that Singapore’s “small society” could not withstand the impact of US-style media freedoms.
“For example, the faultlines in our society, along racial and religious lines, can easily be exploited,” he told an audience at Columbia University.
Singapore’s controls on expression include a state-supervised and mainly state-owned media, tough libel laws and restrictions on street gatherings of more than four people.
Mr Shanmugam questioned the objectivity of organisations such as Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based press freedom organisation, and Freedom House, a US group that campaigns for civil liberties.
RWB ranks Singapore 136th in the world for press freedom, below Iraq and Zimbabwe, while Freedom House has angered Singapore by ranking it below Guinea, where more than 150 anti-government protesters were last year killed during a rally.
“I suspect that our rankings are at least partly due to the fact that we take an uncompromising attitude on libel – and the fact that we have taken on almost every major newspaper company [in the world],” Mr Shanmugam said.
Singapore, with a population of 5m, also imposes heavy penalties on criminal offenders, including caning for violence and vandalism, and the death penalty for murder and drug trafficking. It has one of the lowest crime rates in the world.
A quickly assembled home team in the Canadian book publishers industry has claimed victory over the so-called “Toronto multinational book factories” with a deal to bring out another 40,000 copies of The Sentimentalists, Johanna Skibsrud’s largely unavailable, Giller Prize-winning novel.
Under the terms negotiated between tiny Gaspereau Press of Nova Scotia and Vancouver-based publisher Douglas & McIntyre, the Friesens Corp. of Altona, Man., has agreed to print a new paperback edition by this Friday. “Because of the urgency of the situation, we will pull out all the stops,” Friesens sales manager Doug Symington said.
The deal brings “three proudly independent Canadian entities” together to solve the crisis that emerged when Skibsrud’s unheralded debut novel won Canada’s most prestigious literary award, according to publisher Scott McIntyre. “With our sales, marketing and distribution system onside, an exceptional novel will quickly reach the wide audience it deserves,” he added.
The books should be available for sale early next week, according to McIntyre. Printed in paperback with a pumped-up cover image and the signature red sticker of a Giller Prize winner (as well as the Douglas & MacIntyre Book Publisher imprint on the spine), they will sell for $19.95 compared with the original edition’s $27.95 cover price.
Booksellers snapped up the entire new edition within hours of its being announced, according to McIntyre, and Friesens is reserving paper stock to print another 20,000.
Gaspereau Press made headlines across the country last week when it turned away Toronto publishers eager to bring out more copies of the award-winning book, which it had hand-printed in an edition of 800 copies and was reproducing at a rate of 1,000 copies a week even after it won the award. But even as the company attempted to justify the go-slow approach, calling the Giller win “an interesting opportunity to slow the world down a hair and let people realize that good books don’t go stale,” Gaspereau co-publisher Andrew Steeves was negotiating a new deal with Douglas & McIntyre.
“D&M had always been my back-pocket doomsday scenario,” Steeves said yesterday, adding, “I was as surprised as anyone when we actually won.” He added that the company will continue producing its deluxe edition with a wrapper printed on a hand-cranked letterpress.
Both publishers emphasized the advantage of the new deal to Skibsrud, who had remained quiet last week while her publisher vowed not to compromise its principles by selling large quantities of her novel to an eager public.
It was patience well rewarded, the author wrote yesterday in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail from Istanbul, where she is vacationing. Admitting that she “doesn’t have much knowledge or interest in the business end of things,” Skibsrud said she was “so glad that a solution has been arrived at that allows the books to be distributed widely without sacrificing any of Gaspereau Press’s practices and ideals, which make them so unique and special to work with.”
Even Friesens, a $70-million, can-do book manufacturer, is sympathetic with the Nova Scotians. “I get where they’re coming from and I can also somewhat understand the Toronto-versus-the-rest-of-the-world mentality that they’re showing,” Symington said, adding that Friesens and Gaspereau are a good philosophical fit.
“We’ve been around for 103 years, we’re employee-owned, we’re a privately held company, so all the staff out here has a high concern and a high regard for books,” he said. “We’re big, but we’re not so big, so to speak.”
The book is such a “cause célèbre it will just shoot out of the gate,” McIntyre predicted, saying that opinion on the matter
The Most Amazing Libraries In The World Part Two
The Huffington Post features a slideshow of the “Most Amazing Libraries In the World Part Two” as a follow up to part one from last month. Check out the amazing photos of some incredible libraries! The joys of bookshop browsing
Sam Jordison comments that “searching real shelves is the most satisfying way to find literary treasures – but can it survive the rise of Amazon and ebooks?”
Oscars target tweens (recruiting stars like Miley Cyrus, Zac Efron, Taylor Lautner and Kristen Stewart to serve as presenters at this year's show. Also Comedy Central revives the "Def Comedy Jam" spirit enlisting Russell Simmons to debut a new... Read the rest of this post
As news of Hillary Rodham Clinton's impending concession filters through the Internets today, I think all webby journalists should be thinking about one person. Mayhill Fowler.
"Who?" you may ask. This 61-year-old citizen journalist has followed the campaign all season for The Huffington Post, and she is single-handedly changing the way the rest of this presidential campaign will be reported.
Last night, Fowler recorded former President Bill Clinton saying some off-the-cuff remarks that became breaking news this morning. Earlier this year, Fowler reported some comments that Barack Obama made at a fundraiser. Both times, she went to places where reporters don't usually report, and she made national headlines.
Citizen journalists like Fowler have been ignored and ridiculed for years--and nobody ever expected them to make news. Now they are, and all writers should pay attention. Jay Rosen summed it all up a few months ago. All the rules have changed, and reporters of all stripes need to figure out what to do about it:
"Michael Tomasky of the Guardian thinks we broke the rules, emphasis on “the.” Or that Gawker gawked. We’re in uncharted territory here. Descriptor languages missing. People get mad when they don’t know what to call things. Mad or daft."
What do you think? Is Fowler breaking the rules? Or fixing a broken press?
An urgent message from Dave McKean, who is making a low-budget film called LUNA right now:
I urgently need 2 white paper origami crabs to appear in a scene in Luna, like this one: http://db.origami.com/displayphoto.asp?ModelID=2244 if anyone is willing to make them and send them to the UK straight away, I can pay a small fee to cover time (or a signed drawing or book?), give them a name check in the final credits, and give them a fedex account number for shipping.
Go to the FAQ page if you're an Origami whizz (and I know there are Origami whizzes out there, as I get given amazing things at signings) and drop me a line, and I'll put you straight in touch with Dave. Who will probably soon be drowning in Origami crabs.
Went in to Hair Police today and saw Wendy who turned the strange messy mop that my hair had turned into into a rather nice haircut. From there to Dreamhaven where I signed lots of stuff for Elizabeth and the www.neilgaiman.net site, including a half a ton of Absolute Sandman Volume 2s. As I drove home Roger Avary called to let me know that he's reopening his website after a couple of years without one -- http://www.avary.com/.
Then to Maddy's Parent Teacher conference. She's doing wonderfully at school, and got an impressive report card -- which, for the first time ever, she really had to work for, as she came to the UK for the Stardust premiere and having lost a week of schoolwork. (She's coming to LA with me for the Beowulf premiere, but is only missing one school day to do it.)
And then home. Opened the copy of Bust I'd picked up at DreamHaven (officially I get it for my assistant Lorraine, but I always read it first -- sort of like when I'd pick up a copy of Bunty for my sisters as a boy), and found myself staring at an unexpected advert for the Good Omens and Stardust scents from BPAL. Which reminded me that I had meant to congratulate the amazing Beth, who is the mind (and the nose) behind BPAL -- and a woman who has raised an enormous amount of money for the CBLDF this year -- on her wedding.
(And if you haven't looked at the CBLDF site recently -- http://www.cbldf.org/ -- Gordon Lee goes to trial on Monday. Finally. After three years, two completely different sets of "facts", and $80,000 in legal bills so far for something that should never have been a police matter in the first place... http://www.cbldf.org/articles/archives/000318.shtml for the story so far.)
Lots and lots and lots and lots of emails from people telling me that Marmite can be found all over America, normally beside the baking supplies (probably because of the word Yeast). I don't think I'm going to need Marmite again for another couple of years now, but than you all for the info.
(first time question!)
I've just heard from a friend who was quite annoyed. He met this famous UK author while the author was doing research on his latest book - and the author used my friend's anecdote as quite a major plot device in the book. However, my friend wasn't asked for permission or acknowledged in any way.
Has this ever happened to you (in the opposite direction of course)? I'd think there'd be lots of stories you've been told bubbling in your mind, and sometimes you wouldn't even realize that a story has been told to you by someone else. Would you contact someone if you were using a story of theirs?
I try reasonably hard to credit people who helped (see the very long list of names at the back of American Gods) but find it hard to find fault with the author in question. Authors are packrats. If you tell us an anecdote -- unless you preface it with "I am about to tell you an amusing and/or interesting anecdote. Should you at some future time use it in a book you will need to contact me to obtain my permission, or at least credit me by name. I shall now tell you the anecdote and then give you my contact details in a form in which you won't lose them," -- then it's fair game. I think our attitude -- I don't speak for all of us, but enough -- is that if your friend thought his anecdote would have made a good book, he should have written it himself.
I don't know the names of the people who took me down the sewers or into the disused tube tunnels when I was doing Neverwhere, but their anecdotes certainly made it into the book. I didn't give the name of the financially dodgy agent whose interesting approach to paying over royalties inspired the character and behaviour of Graham Coats in Anansi Boys either (probably a wise move, that). And, as you say, very often you know someone told you that Mad King Ludwig of Bavaria obtained a doctor's note to get out of being married, but who it was or when has melted down in the compost heap in the back of your mind to the brown sludge of memory. It's like remembering jokes, and who told them to you. The shape is now there in your mind, and you know the punch line is "Two coffees and a choc ice," but how it entered your head is a mystery.
(And it's worth pointing out your friend might be wrong. I get letters sometimes from people saying "You got this from me." And the people who send the letters believe it, but it's not the case. I find myself replying "Actually, I wrote this four years before you wrote your story," or "I understand you think I got this from something you said. Actually the entire story was in this newspaper on this date, and that was where I got it from.")
Having said all that, I'm also really sympathetic to your friend. Many years ago I was on a panel where I said "I'm going to write a book called X," and no-one laughed longer or louder than the bloke next to me on the panel who, eleven months later, brought out a book with the title I'd mentioned. I was in a conversation with another author who mentioned being stuck on a plot thing, and I said "Oh, that's an easy one," and made a suggestion, and suggested a title for the book for good measure, and he said "I owe you lunch for that one," but I scanned the acknowledgements in vain looking for a thank you when the book came out, and didn't get a lunch out of it either. And conversely I have fuzzy warm feelings for all those people who wrote books and actually did say thank you, and used their acknowledgments to acknowledge.
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After a long day, i got "your" love letter that the new york times sent out. It was rather funny and made me laugh a lot.(was even funnier trying to explain to my roomate that it wasnt a real love letter)Did you have anything to do with the writting of those love letter? Or did the new york times write them without the help of the varies authors? Do you know if every one got the same letter? Just curious, thanks.
(I just discovered that there is a chipmunk living in the drainpipe that backs onto my bedroom, which explains the mysterious noises that I haven't mentioned here in case people started doing wolves in the walls jokes.)
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You know, the main reason I've been wearing more or less the same thing for about 20 years is that I don't ever have to wonder what to wear. It makes life easy.
My assistant Lorraine just asked me what I wanted to wear to the Beowulf premieres in the UK and the US and I realised with a sort of creeping horror that I didn't know. I already wore a tuxedo-and-bow-tie to the US Stardust Premiere, and I wore a leather jacket black tee shirt and and black jeans to the UK Stardust premiere. That pretty much completely exhausts my range. I suppose I could wear a different leather jacket, or perhaps a tie instead of a bowtie with the tux, but (shakes head gloomily). I don't know. Decisions, decision. (I asked an actress friend what she was going to wear and learned that clothes designers actually lobby to have actorish people be seen wearing their clothes on the red carpet. I had to explain that it doesn't work that way for writers. I suppose I could toss a coin.)
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I've been using Google Documents to share ODD AND THE FROST GIANTS with people who needed to see it... and just realised that none of the little corrections and fixes I've been entering -- and dutifully saving -- have been saved. Instead it seems to have taken a version of the document open in Google Documents on another computer somewhere in the house as its master text, which means the saves I've done on the downstairs computer I'm on have apparently not taken. (I've sat there going through all the old saved versions it's kept -- 121 of them and they only seem to go back and forwards between a couple of versions in which a But changes to a Still, because at a guess it's open in two different tabs somewhere on whichever computer it's on that Google is paying attention to...) Between the people who can't get in to see it and write me grumbly emails, and the way Google Documents sometimes fails to send the letters inviting people to look at it (but still lists them as now having access to the document), I think I should have paid a bit more attention to the word BETA underneath the words Google and Documents.
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Hello Mr. Gaiman!
I just thought you might be interested to know I've carved a Jack O'Lantern of you for our dorm's pumpkin competition. I'm hoping to scrape a "Most Original" for it, but I might lose to the Andy Warhol's Marilyn Pumpkin. Ah well.
Here is a link to a picture of it I posted on facebook.
Sorry it's not lit up, apparently they're a fire hazard. Such is dorm life.
I hope you're not weirded out by this. But really I don't know, I might not be as original as I think I am. Probably dozens of Neil O'Lanterns get made every year!
Thanks,
Katy Gehred
Probably. (Small grin.) No, I think it's just you. if more turn up I'll try to link to them here...
Neil,
We thought we'd let you know that you seem to have a bunch of knitter fans! A Knitters for Neil group has been started on the up and coming fiber arts site Ravelry.com, just thought you might get a kick out of knowing it exists. We're hoping to come up with some interesting you-inspired knits, so if you wouldn't mind letting everyone know that if they would like to join or have any ideas we can be found at http://www.ravelry.com/groups/neil-gaiman-knitters
Thanks!
Lauren
It seems like Ravelry is something you sign up for and then wait to be invited to join. But consider it plugged...
Not a question, just pointing out something your readers might find useful: you can buy british editions of books and ship them (almost) worldwide without having to pay postage at The Book Depository website (www.bookdepository.co.uk). (I am not affiliated with this website, I just find their service useful and impressive)
Good to know, although it doesn't look like you can pre-order stuff there. Right now for Odd they send you to Amazon.co.uk, anyway.
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I just learned that the official on-sale date of The Graveyard Book is September the 30th 2008 ...
Maddy wants to know why I haven't posted a photo of her on this blog for ages, and suggests that simply by posting a recent photograph I could prove to the world that I still love her...
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Lots of people wrote and told me I could order Marmite from Amazon.com -- and I did! It just arrived. Unfortunately a bottle was smashed in shipping, and I discovered that Amazon won't let you return or refund grocery items, so I don't think I'll be doing that again.
And many of you wrote and asked me to explain Marmite. And I shall. but not now.
...
Right. Back to rereading Bone.
0 Comments on the simplicity of black... as of 1/1/1900
Last night I wrote a thirty second scary story. Actually I wrote a 90 second REALLY scary story, then chipped at it, hacked and deleted and rephrased until it was thirty seconds long. Afterwards I wished I'd saved the 200 word version.
This morning I went to the local NPR radio station and recorded it -- we cut out another sentence, and I slowed down a hair -- for an NPR Hallowe'en special...
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I believe that the curious can see the whole, uncut, me getting an award at Scream 2007 thing at
Neil Gaiman accepts "Hell's Dildo" at the 2007 Scream Awards.
It cuts off before I welcome Roger Avary and Ray Winstone to the podium to introduce Beowulf, but if it hadn't you would have seen Roger wearing his "Scary Trousers" tee shirt in front of a billion people.
I should mention that the amazing Cat's Neverwear site is over at http://www.neverwear.net/ and you can get your Kendra Stout "Scary Trousers" or your Dagmara Matuszak "Anansi Boys" tee shirts there. (I suggested that Cat should do a tee shirt with the full "I believe" speech from American Gods on it next...)
Which reminds me -- I've now finally seen the bound insides of the Hill House ANANSI BOYS (you can see pictures at http://hillhousepublishers.com/hh-update-22oct07-01.htm) and they are astonishingly beautiful. Hill House are still trying to get straight answers out of the Polish printer about when he's actually going to have the books bound and delivered to the US -- he's made too many promises to them that haven't come through -- but it looks like it's getting closer and closer to being a reality.
This is more of a marmite locating datalet then a question.
There is a large and rather unusual store near Cincinnati, OH called Jungle Jims.
Along with Jim's collection of large animatronic singing creatures, there is a decently size section of foods from England in the international part of the store.
They have a website at junglejims.com at which you can view some off the strangeness under the attractions section.
Marmite, of course, is there and also Hobnobs and various and sundry other foods of interest.
I feel like I'm writing a pamphlet for a tourist attraction now, so I'll stop.
Whenever I drive across America -- which isn't often -- I try and stop in at Jungle Jim's on the way back. And not just for the UK food, but for the amazing variety of world food. It's an amazing place. Would that all supermarkets could have that magic.
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I just heard about the event chronicled in http://117hudson.blogspot.com/2007/10/show-must-go-on.html We were lucky in that the actor who was hurt was the only one who was sort of understudied (as one of the wolves had also played Lucy's brother in an earlier production) so they reconfigured the second half for seven people instead of eight to do the wolf party...
... Mr. Gaiman,
I checked to see if you've mentioned it yet this year, and saw that you hadn't-- would you mind taking a second to remind your fans who haven't already signed up that National Novel Writing Month begins in a week?
I'm a first-timer, but a lot of your journal entries recently have really inspired me to sit down and write, and NaNoWriMo is a great way to combine your advice and a great community. Figured I'd send in reminder in case there are others who feel the same way I do. Thanks!
-Laurie
I can do even better than that. I can point people to http://www.nanowrimo.org/ And I can finish my Letter Of Encouragement to the troops...
0 Comments on And now a word for those we sponsor.... as of 10/24/2007 1:56:00 PM
I'm typing ODD AND THE FROST GIANTS currently. Am wondering whether to change the title to Odd and the Frost Giant, because only one Frost Giant ever comes onstage (as it were), although there are others in the background, and of course there's always Loki.
I was just looking at the new expanded Beowulf website, over at http://www.beowulfmovie.com/. They had TV spot trailers up, and I was pleased to see in this new one had lots of little bits of footage that weren't in the stuff I've seen so far (which is minutes 15-30 approximately) -- shots from the Race with Brecca, of Beowulf from the last part of the film as an older man, bits of Dragon footage, and a lot more than just Grendel's Mum in human form. It says it's easily embeddable, so I will give it a shot.
Am really looking forward to seeing it all and finding out what it is that Bob Zemeckis and his team actually made.
(The video's acting a bit oddly when I put it into Blogger. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it behaves when I post this. And if you're reading this on an RSS feed and it cuts off here, click on the link to actual the neilgaiman.com/journal webpage to keep reading)
Meanwhile... the web takes you odd places. I mean, I'm out of Marmite. Not a problem in the UK, but problematic in the US. So I google to find out how to order Marmite, and the next moment I'm discovering that you can make Marmite go white by hitting it for half an hour. FOR THE SAKE OF ALL THAT'S HOLY, WHO ORIGINALLY HIT MARMITE FOR HALF AN HOUR AND DISCOVERED THIS? It's at http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuunsaiki/303084929/
Hi Neil,Thanks for link to the Wikipedia entry on cants. Now I finally have a word to describe Carny Talk, a language my grandparents taught me, that they used in the carnival back in the 30's. I'm always looking for more information about that. Here's the page where I discuss the version I was taught: http://www.winterscapes.com/carny.htm -Kate Winter
Thanks, Kate. I loved your link to http://welcometothefair.com/lingo/ and thought I should link to it here for people who are planning to write Novels in November. After all, half of those words are plots...
I was fascinated by this Guardian article -- http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/10/observer_books.html -- not only because it links to the winners of the Guardian "graphic short story" prize (suddenly I find myself turning into Eddie Campbell, and wanting to explain that Graphic Novel just means comics anyway, and Graphic Short Story actually means er, comics), but I was bemused by the view of history in which quality UK newspapers started reviewing comics seriously in 1996, about eight years after the real reviews started. I think what the writer is actually saying is that he was surprised when he started editing the book page to find that his reviewers were doing reviews of graphic novels, but to his surprise these reviews and the books they were reviewing were as good as the other books they were writing about.
With villain names like Professor Von Evil and the Flaming Eyeball, how can you not be dying to read Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon’s debut picture book THE ASTONISHING SECRET OF AWESOME MAN, illustrated by Jake Parker? With short text and plenty of derring-do action (take a peek inside), this picture book will be a favorite of kids who love comics, as well as kids in your storytime programs.
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As news of Hillary Rodham Clinton's impending concession filters through the Internets today, I think all webby journalists should be thinking about one person. 
For me the problem is Amis's 'lower' register. The idea of a 'lower' register implies a hierarchy. Children's and young adult fiction are 'lower' and adult fiction is 'higher' by implication. Amis did not equate brian injury with 'mainstream' as opposed to 'literary' fiction. He equated it to writing for children. Amis, it seems is tolerated for these views and I am insulted by them.
With respect, I don't believe Amis should be given the benefit of the doubt re: his remarks about children's fiction. While it could be argued that there's been some overreaction to his comments, Amis has too long and notorious a track record when it comes to tactless, thoughtless commentary; in the interest of genuine fairness, his history should be borne in mind. Amis knows full well that every author, consciously or otherwise, tailors their work for an appropriate readership, so his position is disingenuous in the extreme. Sadly, I suspect that Amis's remarks about the absence of constraints in his fiction are an example of his air of superiority and pretentiousness - all that's missing is a sweep of the smoke-filled air with an elegant hand - after all, these are the kind of self-indulgent conversation pieces that an amateur poet might stoop to. Finally, even his few champions do him a disservice, and display the kind of condescending conceitedness natural to the man:
'Like any ace reporter, I Google Martin's name and find that a fatwa has been declared against him over shock-horror comments he made an interview that have inflamed fine-feeling people everywhere and could easily be interpreted as an insult to the unborn, if they knew how to read.
Because of this, entire villages have risen up in wrath and occupied Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square too, demanding that he recant or face witch trial for being conceited.'
More talk of proles and their literary and social superiors here:
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/wolcott/2011/02/a-dismaying-development.html
Ps I'd like to point out that I actually agree with much of Celia's post (which I think is both articulate and well-written); I'm just not so sure that the reaction against Amis's comments should cause children's fiction authors to examine themselves and their work. As one can see by the clumsy and insulting 'religious fanaticism' analogies of the article I linked, Amis and his champions have little interest in truth, let alone the truths revealed by introspection.
SJ
http://spauljensen.wordpress.com
Celia, that was also the meaning I took from his remarks. (I was watching the original programme and the person I was watching with also didn't think he was saying anything disparaging, though the use of the word "brain-injury" was very misguided.)
I also, to be honest, am not as offended as some by the use of the phrase "lower register". As long as we don't think that it's easier to achieve - but the problem is that too many people DO think it's easier to achieve. And that is what makes us all most angry, I think.
But I agree with your comments.
If - and it has to be true - writing for children involves writing within certain constraints (re: a child's understanding, descriptions of sex, swearing, etc), then it is a form which demands as much, if not more, technical skill as writing for adults. There should be less of this tacit assumption that writing for children is somehow easier. I mean, why? Because children's books are shorter? Sonnets are shorter than epics, but that doens't make us despise them. Because children are smaller and less experiences than adults? Does that make books written to delight and thrill them, and expand thier imaginations, automatically puerile?
I agree Amis may have been thinking about himself much more than he was thinking about children's authors (quite possibly he's never even met one, and I wonder how long it is since he read a book for children?) but I think the disparagement and disdain in his comments was quite real and unthinking.
Typos... sorry.
You have expressed very well, Celia, what I wanted to say. Thank you.
I do strive to produce work that is 'articulate and well written' because... I'm a professional, adult writer, even though I write for children. Far from being crass and stupid, I think Amis was being rather clever (a trait clearly not shared by his 'supporters' - as quoted by Steve). I don't think he is saying that, as writers for children, we have to use a lower register, but that we choose to, because of what we do. Also, I'm sure he would acknowledge the problems we face, the difficulties, the challenge of what we do, but would probably reply that he would not choose to use his writing ability in this way. His choice - and ours.
But isn't everyone constrained by something? I think it is the constraints that tend to make the best art - the need to write for an audience tends to limit self indulgence. None of us are free and he himself confines himself to a narrow range of milieus and types. For me the great skill of great children's writing is its exploitation of the constraints to produce something that appears simple on the surface but which has been shaped by adult intelligence and insight.
I think to call that writing at a 'lower register' is not entirely accurate as it suggests the lowering applies to everything.
As I mentioned in my own blog - http://steepholm.livejournal.com/156057.html - I think it would be idle to deny that Amis was being intentionally snotty about children's writers with his 'brain-damage' remark. Nor was it off-the-cuff - he's used it before, and knows exactly what kind of reaction it's likely to provoke.
The idea of not writing for an audience but for oneself is of course a widespread one, and in one sense I think it's something we all do. But the opposition between that and having an idea of one's audience in mind is a false one, and in any case it's a stick one could equally well use to beat Shakespeare, Virgil, etc ad nauseam, all of whom tailored their work for an audience. Amis may imagine that his indifference makes him their artistic superior, but we don't have to share his New Critical delusion.
As for 'lower' register, I don't believe, having watched the clip carefully, that he was talking about children's literature at all at that point, but about the language of his protagonist John Self. But it's really an example of trying to make a virtue out of what is in fact a stylistic limitation - the fact that Amis can't create a voice like Self's in a manner that is both convincing and interesting from a literary point of view. In this case it's not a matter of not using the full palate (which no writer or artist does at any one time, of course - the result tending towards brown sludge), but of arguing that a small palate is superior to a large one. Personally I don't buy it.
I agree with what many people have said: children's writing is just a different art-form. A lower register? That does seem disparaging to me. There are, as has been said, constraints in writing a sonnet; in a short story or a novella you can't allow yourself the same spread that you can in a novel. That's not to say that these forms aren't worth practising.
However!! Amis can say what he likes. I get artistic satisfaction from writing my novels, I got artistic sustenance from reading children's books when I was small. And whatever the constraints, someone like Tove Jansson, for example, can put a world of feeling, aching, yearning and humour into the Moomin books which is the artistic equal of a lot of literary fiction.
incidentally, a lot of very distinguished authors for adults have produced wonderful kids-lit. Look at Ted Hughes's The Iron Man.
So why should we make the man's vapourings so important, one way or another?
While pottering down to Waitrose, I had the following additional thoughts: I doubt whether adult literary fiction has always been so very free of constraint. Even ten years ago, there was a demand for a recognisable product, for a book that was 'like' the previous one. That's the market side. On the other side, there have always been subtler cultural pressures; the kind of things other people write; the kind of subject matter and mode of writing that the reviewing (and prize-awarding) establishment regards as cool. There is never any need for anyone to consciously censor themselves ; it's implicit in the literary climate, which is not, and never has been, I suspect, immune to fashion.
Celia, he may not have been saying "all children's writers have half a brain", but he was quite clearly saying:
"Writing for children is so easy that I could, and probably would, do it if I had a serious brain injury."
He was certainly, as you say, making another point besides this, but that doesn't mean he should be allowed the insult.
And I agree with Anne & others about the implied hierarchy. What does it actually mean, to write in one's highest register?
A very good post by Charles London:
Why I Write for Children: A Response to Martin Amis
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/charles-london/why-i-write-for-children-_b_823497.html
Well done for trying to see where Amis was coming from. You have helped to make some sense of it, but I still think his comment that "fiction is freedom..." is arrogant nonsense!
Just imagine him coming to your house and swearing in front of your kids, then explaining 'sorry, but conversation is freedom to me and any restraints on that are intolerable'. :D