A friend (who just happens to be a photography wiz) worked on my Neil Gaiman photo and wheee! Now you can tell it really, truly is neilhimself!
The other night I dashed down to Decatur and heard him speak. But apparently, I didn’t dash down soon enough, as I was watching and listening from a balcony seat. That may have wreaked havoc on my photo, but it didn’t matter when it came to Mr. Gaiman’s delightful discourse. Following are a few things I learned:
If I lived next to a graveyard instead of the suburbs, I may have written The Graveyard Book. Now I know why all my characters have names like Mark or Tiffany and hang out in boring, old playgrounds. I’m just kidding about that- I’d never name a character Tiffany.
Neil Gaiman may return to DragonCon someday. Probably not.
Mr. Gaiman’s daughter was the inspiration for his book Coraline. He told a charmingly, funny tale about his little girl and her make-believe world and how one thing led to another, including those weird button eyes. Actually, he could not remember how he came up with the eye idea. But he wishes he could. Not to beat a dead horse, but if my daughter had told me creepy/funny stories I could have written Coraline. Instead, I’m stuck with Girl Scout stories. Which, now that I think about it, had a couple of scary GS leaders.
Mr. Gaiman doesn’t think all that tweeting he does helps him write. I think he just likes to tweet. Sometimes about things he probably shouldn’t. (Sign up on Twitter and you can follow him. And me! neilhimself is probably a tad more interesting.)
Thank goodness, the Little Shop of Stories participated in a promotional competition for The Graveyard Book and won. Because Neil Gaiman is witty and exceptionally generous and how would I have known that, if I hadn’t been sitting up there in the balcony in Decatur, Georgia?
(You can read my sad tale of having to leave before getting my book signed by neilhimself over at Cathy C.’s Hall of Fame. But Mr. Gaiman stayed till 1:18 in the morning, autographing books. And I heard he was charming and witty till the very end!)
