Neil Gaiman in Sydney

[the_grynne]

Saw Neil Gaiman in conversation with Wil Anderson at the Sydney Town Hall tonight. Part of the annual Sydney Writers' Festival, which runs through all of this week.

Asked a question (the only female to do so, I think) about -- of all things -- his blog(If you're one of those people who are pretending to be Neil Gaiman on the net: he knows about

Comments

[decidedly]

Oh, Neil. I could listen to that man talk for hours and hours. My every attempt at seeing him has been thwarted - thus why I live vicariously through others. So jealous.

May I ask for more detail on your question and response?

[the_grynne]

He was a terrific speaker, easy and relaxed and SO funny. The interviewer asked him a lot about his collaborations: he spoke about how "Good Omens" was written (and the expected orthodox backlash that never came: "There wasn't even a proper sustained book-burning attempt...not even in southern America, where they burn train timetables"), the story behind making Mirror Mask (going to Jim Henson's house and seeing all these old, degrading muppets). He read a short story "Orange" that he was working on for an anthology of "science fiction for teenagers" -- the first time he had read it to an audience.

I asked about how he felt about his blog -- whether it had become more of a burden, now that he'd been doing it for ages and so many people were reading it, or whether it was still a liberating, cathartic medium. He answered that it was a bit of both. He'd started it in 2001, when almost NOBODY knew what on earth a blog was, and he was just doing this thing that no one knew about, and now everybody and their mother was blogging; it was

[the_grynne]

Hee. I checked, and he did write "Orange" on the flight over to Sydney.

[so_spiffed]

Because I have nowhere else to put it: Eh.

[the_grynne]

What was that!?!

I don't know who was bluffing who?

Although, Joss was great at keeping a straight face throughout.

[so_spiffed]

No idea.

No idea.

Yes he was. :)