Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Martha -- It will start cooling down in Vegas around September (the
evenings are quite lovely in Sept & Oct).  Hope you have a good visit
here, just remember lots of water and air conditioned buildings!

Suzanne
  

    
Good to see Neil arrived safely at home. One's own bed does seem to
have magical recuperative properties. Then again there's also something
to be said of being with your loved ones.

116's topic made me quite smile big time... congrats again for
becoming a NYT best selling author!  Hope you get a few days to rest
before the whirlwind starts again, you deserve it.

Suzanne
  

    
The recently updated New York Times best-seller list:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/07/08/bsp/besthardfiction.html

::pumps fist enthusiastically in the air::

Jade Walker
  

    

Look at the company he's in:  Sue Grafton, Danielle Steele, John Grisham
(wonder if he knows he's mentioned in the book?), Jackie Collins, Mary
Higgins Clark, Anne Tyler, James Lee Burke, and, get this:  American Gods
is five places higher than Steven King's new book!
  

    
JaNell... I've not read any de Lint in far too long. I should fix
that.  :-) I stopped everything I was reading to devour American Gods,
and have lent the book out to two friends since the signing (both of
whom called me up and demanded I explain the comments Neil signed to me
when they hit that page - hehe!) ... I think I'm going to go back to
reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, now, unless my s/o
gets this book on violence and evolution back, in which case I'll read
that. What's your favourite de Lint book?  :-)

Jade - thank you for posting the link. I've been hitting the NYT books
page almost daily, out of some weird hope they would update the page
sooner rather than later. 

Neil - congratulations. From the kitchen, behind the wafts of homemade
hash browns and bacon smoke, comes a shout of "... and such a quality
book!" 

Now, off to find food for a picnic...
-Kelly
  

    
Jade... thanks for posting that the link finally changed.  The
subchart rankings of the NYT has Neil at #5 from independent
booksellers and #8 from the chain booksellers. And as Linda pointed
out, he's among some of the book industries' heavy hitters! Way to go
Neil!

Suzanne
(who is now off to pack more for the move)
  

    

Just a word or two about why we have two topics.  This one is primarily
for The Mob to visit and chat in a Neil-related sort of way.  The other
one is for talking about American Gods.

I mention this because I didn't want folks to think that only Neil and
Martha can talk in that topic.  By all means, take your comments and
questions about AG to topic 116 to participate in the interview.
  

    
Kelly- my favorite de Lint? Hmm, let's see... Memory & Dream, or
Svaha.
Charles and MaryAnn are great con guests, too; they had a small
concert up in their room Saturday night, and it was amazing. Charles
learned "Copperhead Road" just for ConCat, 'cause it's about a road
moonshiners used to transport the stuff into Knoxville. He was thrilled
that I drove him over part of it on the way from the airport- I
actually live only a few blocks from the route...
  

    
Rebecca-"meltingly kind" is a wonderful way to describe Neil! Do you
write?

Kathy-Since you like the "foreign customs" part of Herodotus, that
made me wonder if you've read "The Travels of Sir John
Mandeville"...its this odd little book from the Middle Ages about this
guy's supposed travels around the *world*.  Lots of funny little
stories and notions.  Everyone should take a look at it, it's
interesting to see what people in Europe used to think about the rest
of the world.

I noticed there's some de Lint fans on here...I've had my eye on his
books for awhile now, but haven't read any. What's a good one to start
with?

--Blythe, off to look into topic #116
  

    
"Dreams Underfoot", a collection of stories in and around the
fictional (I think) town of Newford is a good place to start. De Lint
is absolutely the best, in my opinion, at melding myth with urban
reality. His writing is very understanding of how people are, very rich
and layered, but with clarity. His home page is
http://www.cyberus.ca/~cdl/
.
  

    
Re: Dan's question on 116

Dan- Well, first Neil will see what all of us have to add, and the
postings on the AG Annotations Board, and various others, and the
reviews; then, after five more years of research and rewrites, the
Annotated American Gods will be out at a whopping 1,536 page monolithic
size... 12 pages of credits... in seven volumes... and with at least
three colleges offering minor degrees around it... a foundation
begun...
New cults will form, desperately seeking a place in the third version,
to be written by his heirs after he mysteriously disappears, and
Hollywood, which once spurned him, will begin to give the foundation
all their money and divorce their spouses if the spouses don't want
their children raised in the cul...

Say, I just wandered back into reality through the back door...

Weird.
  

    
Wow, it worked! Finally scraped enough pennies together to sign on
here.  I stumbled onto the Well back in topic 73, but have been lurking
in the shadows until now.  I just wanted to say Hi to everyone, I
prolly won't be a prolific poster, but I do look forward to joining the
conversations.  And rather than some hamhanded introduction about
myself, I thought I would post my "Meeting Neil" story since it seems
the season...

The first and only time I have had the pleasure of meeting Neil was at
the LA Last Angel tour in October.  Now, I was so excited about the
tour that I was sure it was a conspiracy that the tickets would go on
sale while I was vacationing in Dublin and wouldn't have internet
access reliably.  Rather than dealing with time zone changes and
international calls, I got my cousin to buy the tickets for us.  And
come the day of the sale, I called my cousin about 5 times in an 8hr
period to try and make sure he got us tickets.  I couldn't get thru to
him at all and it about drove me crazy.  I was sure it would sell out
in minutes just to spite me.  

In any case, we got tickets successfully and come one fine October
morning, I woke up at 6am, after having worked until midnight and
picked my cousin up and hit I 10 to LA.  We arrived with enough time to
find our hotel and have some horrid pizza before heading out the door
and finding our way to the reception.  (Which of course had been moved,
but we didn't know that, thankfully being the geek that I am, I had
printed out Mapquest directions to both sites.)  When we finally got to
the right place, Neil hadn't made an appearance yet so we milled about
and picked up a few choice items from the sale table.  Then Chris Oarr
came out and announced that Neil was having problems with his voice
and would still be greeting us, but wouldn't talk much as he was saving
his voice for the reading.  

Enter Neil. <Lisa goes into full fangirl mode and tries desperately to
blend into woodwork.>  Chris Oarr was doing a wonderful job of
sheparding him around the room and I was very happy just sitting and
watching him say hello and generally make people smile everywhere he
went (not nearly as stalker-ish as it sounds.) My cousin and I both
felt completely happy just being there and figured that if we sat over
in a corner and didn't meet Neil it would be fine with both of us...
the poor man looked so tired and if there was any chance that not
saying Hi to us would help him read a bit longer... plus that way we
wouldn't have to worry about forgetting our names.  

But then, just as we thought we were in the clear (and I have
absolutely no idea why we were so frightened) Chris Oarr started
guiding Neil towards us and commented on us waiting patiently in the
corner.  There was another person sitting near us on the floor, and as
he rose and started speaking to Neil I started telling myself that a
large mexican girl fainting on him would not necessarily be the best
first impression to make on Neil.  He said hello to my cousin and then
to me and urged us to grab a bite to eat from the buffet table, at
which point instead of asking for a photo with him or saying something
moderately relavent, I babbled something about driving from Arizona and
having bad pizza in the hotel room.  I'm sure he said something else
at that point, but I couldn't tell you what it was.  I was starstruck,
and good.

So Neil walked away, I didn't get my picture, but I loved, absolutely
loved the reading (we were only about 3 rows back from the stage) and
have high hopes of someday meeting Neil and not sounding like a
blathering idiot.  :)    

Ok, sorry for the length, but I wanted to share that story with people
who would understand. <g> Now I am off to explore the rest of the
topics here and see just how much trouble I am going to get into now
that I have full access... muahahahahaha ;) 
  

    
A great, fun, relaxing weekend, during which I finally saw "Say
Anything..." for the first time, and was happy I hadn't seen it sooner,
because it's just that special kind of movie.  Also saw AI, which I
thoroughly enjoyed but which could have ended twenty minutes before it
actually did with good result.  Not to say I didn't *like* the ending,
but...

On obscure Jim Henson movies- picked up The Muppet Movie DVD and
grinned like a six-year-old through Jim Frawley's camera test, which
isn't obscure, but which reminded how badly I want to see Timepieces. 
And, of course, Living with Dinosaurs, now, which I'll have to go on a
quest and find.

On DeLint- my favorite is Trader, which I loved.  I picked up his
other stuff, but then discovered that, well (don't be offended), he
seemed like fantasy's version of John Grisham.  I read a couple of
other books (Greenmantle, Jack of Kinrowan, etc.), and it always seemed
like I was reading the same story.

Neil- congratulations again, and welcome back... It's good to have you
back.  We missed you, when we weren't meeting you in person again. 
And, really, thanks again for making my month at the Magnetic Fields
concert.

Rebecca- Welcome to you.  Pleasure to have you.  Stay a while.

-Will, who really must do some work.
  

    
Oh, and welcome to you, to Lisa.  Sorry about that.  Would you guys
like a hard cider, now you're here (and you too, Neil, now you're
back)?
  

    
E-mail from Sarah:
 
Arrived home from the DreamHaven Books signing not long ago.  'Twas a
looong but pleasant and interesting time.  Met Elise for a brief
moment...hullo!  Kudos to Neil for the subhuman levels of patience to
sign and chat with all of us.  For the sake of your right hand, I'll wish
for Ambidextrous Blessings before your next tour...
 
Sorry this is miles from the comprehensive reporting many of you have
treated us with, but slack just allowed me to just scrounge a little page
together of a few freshly snapped photos that can be found here :
http://www.envy.nu/ambienteye/photos/ngs/ngsigning.html . 
 
Thanks to all.
 
-Sarah. 
And now back to those few remaining ag chapters.  Num.
 
  

    
Will- I'm not offended at all- if you notice, I very carefully don't
say a dern thing about deLint's fantasy stuff- I don't read fantasy
anyway, unless I'm desperate and the only other choice is a Harlequin
Romance- but prefer his Urban Mythology. 
Guess it's like football to me- if I can't do it, for some arbitrary
reason like gender, or in the case of fantasy, no relation to real life
and no possibility of it, either - then I ain't interested.

Like the song says, "Don't dream it, BE it."
  

    
JaNell--so Memory and Dream is good, and should be read?  I hate to
admit that not only have I not read any deLint (for no known reason),
I've actually had the abovementioned book for about 5 years...I bought
it to read on a trip, was too tired on said trip to read it...and since
then it seems to have some sort of taboo on it, and I can't manage to
pluck it from the shelf...

Blythe--I do indeed write; I got some stuff published in my college
days, even went to some writer's workshops, and then (yet again, for no
known reason) I just went totally the Emily Dickinson route.  I don't
know if I'd let somebody read my grocery list, these days.  But Neil
really is meltingly kind.

Speaking of writer's workshops, the ones I went to were at the Hindman
Settlement School in very very Eastern KY (the Appalachian Writers
Workshop), and at one of them I finally got to meet Sharon McCrumb, who
is a good friend of one of my uncles (who's also a writer).  Has
anyone read her?  Sort of mystery/Appalachian
ballads/folktales-infecting-the-present-day stuff.  One of her books,
The Rosewood Casket, is based, in part, on my family.  Which is an odd
feeling.  So most of the time, while I was talking to her, she was
grilling me for strange family-related information.   Not exactly
meltingly anything, I have to say, but she was really very nice.  I
just felt a little vampirized, afterwards. 

Wow, sorry, I'm running on a bit.

(puts down cider glass)
  

    
Janell - ROTFL! Thank you.. that kicks my Monday morning off nicely.

Lisan - Welcome!
  

    
Goodness, yes, I'm so rude:  Hello Lisa!  
Have some cider...
  

    
Janell - Re:116.  (WARNING: POSSIBLE SPOILERS)








I'm not sure that any more women who have sex in AG die then men do...
In fact... I think that the only people who have sex (or mentioned
sex) that don't die at one point or another are Bast and that girl that
we see Wednesday with in the hotel.
Laura dies. The guy she was blowing dies. Shadow dies. Wednesday dies.
Bilquis dies. Her "john" dies (becomes "one" with the universe?)
What's that woman's name that Shadow picks up hitchhiking? By the end
of the book, she's got a lover AND she's gay and she lives! (Yay!)
  

    <hidden>
  

    
JaNell- ROTFL= rolling on the floor laughing.  I know you asked Dan,
but I figured, since I knew...  And the sex Shadow has only sort of
happens in a dream; the cat goddess makes love to him, and, while it
seemed a dream, it was pretty apparent (at least to me) that it
actually happened.

Rebecca- Try Trader, too.  That was the first I read, and I really
enjoyed it.
  

    
I had a dream about Neil last night.  I wish that I could remember
more of it.  I was walking with Neil and we were chatting and then we
got to his house and he invited me in for dinner.  So I stood around
with him chatting in the kitchen as he fixed some sort of pasta dish
with really thin noodles.  I don't remember eating per se, but at some
point that felt like it was afterwards I said "I should probably go
now." and Neil said "That might be nice; I'm just back from a reading
tour and I'd kind of like to go out on a date with my wife tonight." 
So I grinning and told him I'd see him later and then I left.

Lisa -- Welcome. ^_^

I finally tracked down a signed copy of AG in my area.  (In the
process of hunting for it, I was pleased to find that every bookstore I
went to had copies on the shelves.  I informed them that they'd better
make sure to keep it in stock, as it was now a NYT Best-seller.)  The
copy that I found had a nice little doodle of a pair of eyes.  I didn't
buy it, in the end, because: (a) I already have quite a number of
things signed so graciously by Neil and figured I'd give someone else a
chance, hoping that it wouldn't just end up on eBay, (b) I already own
two copies and (c) on Friday, like sometime totally out of my wildest
dreams, I found tucked in the back of a tiny bookstore a shelf that
begs to be called All of The Rarer Gaiman Stuff That Dan Always Wanted
But Could Never Find -- they have practically everything but the Duran,
Duran book -- and I decided that I had to buy their copy of _What I
Thought I Saw_, which has the photograph of Neil and Maddy signed by
Neil and Kelli Bickman.
     Apparently, the owner is a big fan.  So I'll be spending the book
budget there for the next several weeks.
  

    
Dan, Will - I'm just desperately looking for something to talk about
over there, and apparently, I'm looking too deep or behind perfectly
normal doors that go outside to regular gardens... *SIGH*.

Think I'll slink back over here, and just talk to y'all, where I can
be as silly as I want to be, or as deep as I can be...
and not look like a *complete* misfit... ;>
  

    
JaNell - hehe, I don't think slinking is necessary; I *know* I've
heard weirder questions (just see the comments Blythe and I were making
about the Seattle UW signing...) I think my favourite deLint book is
The Wild Wood ... I probably sit and read it every few months, just
because...

Will (I think it was Will, anyhow) ... I saw AI this weekend, as well.
I must admit I agree, it should have ended 20 minutes sooner; would
have been the more tragic, and not created as many gaping plot holes
(altho there were a few big ones before that, as well) ... my partner
and I were both relatively disappointed in general, tho - it just
seemed so endlessly, pointlessly sad... and what was with the weird
middle "intermission" ... *shakes head*  Well, it definately felt like
a Kubrick movie.  :-)


-Kelly, who's braving her foot in mouth syndrome and posting a
question in the interview topic...