Yesterday I went to Diana Wynne Jones's house in Clifton/Hotwells, to take part in an unveiling ceremony for a plaque, installed by the Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society, or CHIS (pronounced CHIZZ, a la Nigel Molesworth ( Read more... )

In case anyone hasn't heard about it from other sources, I'm here to tell you about the kickstarter for the 2024 Diana Wynne Jones conference in Bristol, slated for 2-4 August (in other words, if you're visiting the UK for Worldcon, why not come to both?). There are only a few days to go, and the pledges are not quite there yet, so if you'd like ( Read more... )

One of the great sadnesses of not being able to go to Japan this autumn is that I have missed the 10th Anniversary Madoka Magica Exhibition... Luckily there is this report at least, but how I wish I'd been there ( Read more... )

This morning I should have been travelling to Heathrow, there to board a plane that would have taken me to Tokyo for the next six weeks. It would have been my first taste of autumn in Japan, a season that's normally inaccessible because of my teaching duties, but which a semester's research leave had prised opened like an oyster. Alas, in the words ( Read more... )

Ayako, as a die-hard Diana Wynne Jones fan who came to Bristol specifically to reside in the city of her heroine, has of course read all the books in Japanese, but she recently got through The Merlin Conspiracy (aka 「花の魔法、白のドラゴン」 or "Flower Magic, White Dragon") in English too, so some of our recent jaunts have had an MC theme, visiting the British ( Read more... )

Before the lockdown, Ayako and I visited Diana Wynne Jones's son Micky and his wife Noriko, mostly to catalogue the books in DWJ's study. While we were there, they kindly let me photograph the original "Fire and Hemlock" picture, which inspired the novel of the same name. Today, they even more kindly gave me permission to post the photograph, which ( Read more... )

Going through my mother's photographs, etc., has revealed my first ever rejection letter!


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You know how you keep putting something off because you're too busy to do it justice right now, but putting it off makes it even more daunting, because the amount that needs to be done just keeps getting bigger, etc ( Read more... )

It's been ten years since Farah Mendlesohn and I last organised a Diana Wynne Jones conference in Bristol. Too long? Well, if you'd like to see another, here's your chance...

In my Marie-Kondo-fuelled rage for tidying I came across some material from the Diana Wynne Jones 2009 conference that fjm, chilperic, lady_schrapnell and I organised at UWE, Bristol. This included a copy of the message Diana recorded for the conference, since (because of illness) she was unable to attend personally - something I know she regretted. In it she reads the ( Read more... )