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Hi Neil! I'm really happy you managed to squeeze in an event in Japan after all. Could you please clarify though if the 6.30 is am or pm, please?I also wrote a short guide on how to access the place - with maps and all - which might be of use to English speakers who have a hard time finding their way in Tokyo. It can be found here: http://sesam.hu/WordPress/2007/09/15/neil-signing-in-japan/
Kind Regards,SeSam

What an astonishingly helpful map -- thank you. And it's 6:30 pm.

Hi Neil,

It was great to see you in Sweden and get the opportunity to see Stardust long before the actual release date. And the movie was great btw, but I certainly missed a few things from the book. I wish that we could have stayed for the signing, but that will have to be the next time.

Me and my wife had some time in the line to get in to see the movie and started to think about one thing. Since I am working as a music promoter and agent the question that came up is: When you travel to events like this - do you have a tour manager? Most bands and artists that I work with do have one (the bigger the band, the more they act like a nanny...). And - do you have a rider prepared for you when you arrive like a proper rock star?

All the best & keep up the good work! :)

Niklas

ps - I am the one who for quite a while translated this journal into Swedish (just for fun and practice, I think that 99% of your Swedish readers understand English just fine), but after the arrival of our son last April all my spare time is lost (in a good way!). So if anyone wants to take over, they can e-mail me on [email protected].

Nope, no Tour Manager, although Angharad Thomas from the UK end of Paramount International, and Louise and Eva from the Swedish bit of Paramount were in Lund, organising the various press and TV interviews that I was doing and making sure that turned up on time. In Italy I had Christiana from my publisher Mondadori doing the same thing -- making sure that the interviews happened when they were meant to happen, while my daughter Holly kept a happy eye on me and made sure that I ate.

I keep thinking that if ever I do another reading tour I'd have a tour manager, though. (I know. When I did the Last Angel Tour in 2000 I said it was going to be the last ever reading tour - http://www.cbldf.org/pr/000825-gat2000.shtml for details - but that was seven years ago. And I miss it.)

Tour riders would be fun. (I have read too many of them with a crooked grin on my face over at http://www.thesmokinggun.com/backstagetour/index.html .) If I did a reading tour I'd take great joy in putting one together and demanding good sushi or miniature horses or something, but whatever I demanded or however I demanded it it wouldn't be as good as Iggy Pop's backstage rider...

Last night I introduced Stardust to the Swedes and did a Q&A after. Today I was interviewed by the Swedish press, then did a book-signing, and then I was given the "Finn the Giant" Award. In the crypt of the Cathedral at Lund. Beautiful live music was played, the legend of Finn the Giant was retold, and I was made the second person, following the unfollowable Terry Gilliam in 2005, to be honoured with the award.

In addition to a scroll, and flowers, I was given an amazing piece of art as my Award -- a portrait of me as a Saint, of sorts, all framed and ready to hang.

And then I left in the rain for the airport, happy to have met so many nice people and wishing I could stay longer in Lund.

....

Right. Here are the details of the upcoming Hay Festival London event...

Tuesday 2 October, 6pm

Neil Gaiman in conversation with Claire Armitstead, literary editor of the Guardian
The Criterion, Piccadilly
Book signing following the event.


The film of Stardust premieres in London on Wednesday 3 October. We have a pair of tickets to the premiere: all ticket-holders to the Hay Festival event at The Criterion will be entered into a draw and the winner announced at the book signing.
Tickets £5
Book at http://www.hayfestival.com/ or on 0870 990 1299.

Probably worth mentioning that the Criterion seats 600 people, which is slightly less than the last event in London, a year ago, so if you want to be sure that you can come, get tickets early.

This just came in from Japan...


Dear Neil


I am a Japanese fan who is dying to see Japanese release of Star Dust, coming this October. This is not exactly a question, but do you know about the special menues are available at Pascal Caffet and Shiseido Parlour (Both are famous sweets shops in Japan) in Yokohama Takashimaya while the department store is having photograph exhibition of Star Dust? Those menues are Star Dust Sweets Set (Pascal Caffet) and Star Dust Parfait (Shiseido Parlour).

http://www.takashimaya.co.jp/yokohama/new3/index.html

Anyone who eats the menu will get a chance to win a pair of tickets of Star Dust. As your fan, I am wondering if I should take two hour trip to Yokohama to try both menues. (^^)

Kominami Mie

Hullo. Only if you like parfait and sweets, I would have thought. (I loved the website you linked to -- I'd not seen the Japanese Stardust poster before, and it makes me strangely happy that it has the Ghosts on it.)

Also, from it I learned that there's a whole Japanese Stardust website at:

http://www.stardustmovie.jp/top.html

In addition to which, late this afternoon I was told that...

On Friday, the 21st of September, at 6:30 in Japan, I will be doing a signing, at

Kadokawa Shoten

2-13-3 Fujimi,

Chiyoda-ku,

Tokyo

102-8177

Japan

(This is my publisher's office, by the way, not a bookshop. They were kind enough to agree to let me do a signing because I told them that people had been writing in to my blog from Japan and asking when I'd sign their books. So if you're in Japan, please come...)

...


Hi Neil

I thought you and your readers might like to know that the Mitch Benn podcast featuring an interview with you is now online - http://www.mitchbenn.com/podcasts/

Lena

Oh good. (I am now slightly less travel-weary than when I did the interview with Mitch, for those who worry about that sort of thing.)

...

Jonathan Ross's In Search of Steve Ditko documentary is broadcast in the UK this Sunday, on BBC4, and you can read what Jonathan has to say about it at http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2169000,00.html

Actually, the plane wasn't to Stockholm. It was, rather counter-intuitively, to Copenhagen. Where we were driven over an enormous bridge to Sweden, and were deposited in Lund.

Which is an astonishingly pretty University town, filled with green spaces and pretty buildings. There's a John Bauer exhition in the Museum I'm going to try to get to if I get any time tomorrow that isn't interviews or signings...

(Here's a Bauer painting. I was going to put up a Kittelson picture as well, because Norwegians know what trolls look like too, but I couldn't see any of the ones I wanted in a quick scan of the web and I'm standing in a hotel lobby typing...)

The Stardust signing and Q&A tonight is sold out, but the signing tomorrow at the Lund Town Hall at 2:30 is open to anyone, and I suspect that the mysterious event in the crypt of the Cathedral at 4:30 is likewise....

...

For those of you who are wondering (as I was) how and what my dog is doing, the Birdchick has posted some information about herself, the bees, giant puffball mushrooms, and my dog (who can be seen both investigating puffballs and being sympathetic as Sharon gets her First Bee Sting over at)

http://www.birdchick.com/2007/09/favorite-moment-of-beekeeping-thus-far.html

http://www.birdchick.com/2007/09/brrrrrr.html

http://www.birdchick.com/2007/09/hello-bee-sting-goodbye-dignity.html

which are the sort of things that I'd be posting if I wasn't on tour. Sigh.

Last night's Mantova Literary festival event was really fun. Two more to go today -- the one at 10:30 tonight for the volunteers and all sounds like it will be very wild and fun. ("Do you mind if people dressed as your characters are up on the stage with you?")

Neil, Last month you wrote that you would be signing in Sweden soon. I can't seem to find any information on this neither on the Internet or on your site. Will you be posting time and place in advance so that I may buy cheap train tickets (or fix my car)? Regards,anders.

Information came in yesterday... so: on the evening of Thursday the 13th of September I'll be presenting Stardust and doing a Q&A at the Fantastic Film Festival in Lund.
On Friday the 14th at 2:30pm – 3:30pm I'll be doing a signing at the Lund Town Hall. And then at 4:30 I will be at an event in the crypt of the Lund Cathedral...

The following week I'll be in Japan, and I should have information on that very soon.

Right. Leaving the press office now.