WisCon 35

Memorial Day weekend, we drove east to WisCon, Madison’s one-and-only feminist science fiction and fantasy convention. WisCon is my favorite con: great programming for fans and academics and writers, a strong and very real sense of community, and lots of old friends. And there was cheese! (More about that later.) WisCon 35 was really the […]

The Graveyard Book

I just found out that Neil Gaiman’s riveting novel The Graveyard Book has been awarded the Newbery Medal. Well deserved! I bought my copy in Scotland and read it at Dalkeith House in one gigantic gulp. My UK edition features lovely and delicate drawings by Chris Riddell, while the US editions have darker, more atmospheric […]

The Dream Hunters

I’ve been reading Neil Gaiman’s story The Dream Hunters, both the novella illustrated in 2000 by Yoshitaka Amano and the new graphic novel by Gaiman’s frequent collaborator P. Craig Russell. Both are lovely. The Amano version features 60 beautiful full-page illustrations, illuminating Gaiman’s spare and elegant prose. P. Craig Russell’s version of the fairy tale […]

Fantasy matters a lot

…so says Neil Gaiman, who was the keynote speaker at the Fantasy Matters Conference this weekend in Minneapolis. He read the opening chapter of his new (as-yet-unfinished) novel The Graveyard Book, which was really quite charming, spooky, and lovely. I gave a scholarly presentation on Peter Jackson and Hayao Miyazaki, and I was very glad […]