Tonight kwc, littlestar and I journeyed down to San Jose State University for An Evening with Neil Gaiman. Neil started off with a brief introduction and then decided that instead of doing the typical thing of reading from Fragile Things, he'd read us some works he's never read to an audience before.
The first story he read to us was one called "Orange" which came to him while he was at an airport waiting for a flight. He described to us the pain of getting the idea then, typing it out on his computer to the last possible word before getting onto the flight, waiting anxiously for them to tell the passengers they could use electronics again, and then dashing off the plane to search for a power outlet to charge his battery drained computer.
The second story Witch's Gravestone, was from a collection of shorts that he had writen for middle school children called M for Magic. He also dubbed it "The Graveyard Book, Chapter 4", because of its similarity to Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book, except instead of an infant wandering into a Jungle, the infant wanders into a Graveyard instead. It was a longer work, and since he's never read it before, he didn't know how long it would take.
After the reading of Witch's Gravestone, The Graveyard Book Chapter Four, it left us only a little bit of time for questions.
Q: Can you elaborate more on one of the characters in the Graveyard Book?
Yes, his story will be told in the book, as soon as Gaiman gets it out. He really wants to do this book as his next kids project.
Q: Will you and Terry Pratchett work on another project?
Gaiman talks a little about the Good Omens movie, and the whole grout/farthing rights.
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