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Happy World Read Aloud Day! (March 5, 2014) The first Wednesday of March is World Read Aloud ... ☞
Blues for Zoey is published—today! (January 28, 2014) Good news everyone: Today is the day Penguin/Razo ... ☞
The Greatest / Saddest / Oddest Events of 2013 (January 10, 2014) Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to the year two- ... ☞
Book Trailer for Prince Puggly of Spud and the Kingdom of Spiff (with lemmings) (December 5, 2013) Okay. So, yes. Technically, I’m a bit late w ... ☞
The Creature Department Emerges from its Cave (November 6, 2013) At long last, it’s finally here. Ladies and gent ... ☞
How to Read in Two Languages at Once (September 23, 2013) Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the Har ... ☞
Showtime, featuring Machiko (August 13, 2013) Here’s something. Good friend and fellow aut ... ☞
Behold! Gügor Speaks! (June 17, 2013) At the end of May, at Book Expo America 2013, peop ... ☞
Poetry, Neil Gaiman, “Writers as Outsiders” and Cowboys in the State of Texas (May 11, 2013) Last month (April 2013), I headed off to the Texas ... ☞
The Creature Department ARCs Glow in the Dark! (March 26, 2013) Imagine my surprise when I opened the box of ARCs ... ☞
London Street Art (March 4, 2013) Since relocating to London, I’ve been repeat ... ☞
The Creature Department: Coming in November 2013 (February 13, 2013) I’m very pleased to announce the upcoming pu ... ☞
Zorgamazoo Wins Germany’s Award for Best Children’s Audiobook (February 1, 2013) Good news everyone: Zorgamazoo has been awarded G ... ☞
Victor Rivas’ Artwork for Prince Puggly (January 12, 2013) As of today, it’s exactly one month before t ... ☞
2012 in Pictures (December 31, 2012) So that’s it for 2012. The world didn’ ... ☞
- Masterclass: Fantasy Writing for Young Readers
on 17 May 2014 ( 12:00 PM )
@ Theodore Bullfrog Pub
Happy World Read Aloud Day!
The first Wednesday of March is World Read Aloud Day (not to be confused with World Book Day, which happens annually on the 6th of March and which, I assure you, is every bit as thrilling). World Read Aloud Day is run by the good people of LitWorld, striving to make this planet a better one through literacy and storytelling. Kudos! This year, the (also) good people at the Canadian Children's Book Centre asked me to celebrate World Read Aloud Day by—well, reading aloud from one of my books. Obviously. It's right there in the name of the day. The first thing I did was hire myself a handsome wig of dreadlocks...which was only the beginning. Soon I had an eighteenth century frock coat, a
Blues for Zoey is published—today!
Good news everyone: Today is the day Penguin/Razorbill Canada publishes my new novel, Blues For Zoey. In my valiant and continued fight against categorisation, this book is a departure from everything that preceded it—i.e. a pair of comic fantasy novels-in-verse for young readers; a hardboiled fairy tale; and a newfangled, "transmedia" collaboration with a special effects company. Here we have a whole new animal. Blues for Zoey began as an idea I had for a coming-of-age story about money, rather than sex (although both are well enough represented). As the novel progressed, music and murder slipped in there, as well as the choice to give the protagonist an ambiguous, mixed ethnicityâ
The Creature Department Emerges from its Cave
At long last, it’s finally here. Ladies and gentlemen and children (of all ages), may I proudly present, THE CREATURE DEPARTMENT. Right now, the book is anxiously clawing its way out of its secret underground lair, dragging its horns and hair and teeth and tentacles...into fine bookshops everywhere! Massive thanks to the many, many people involved in bringing this book into the light: My publisher, Ben Schrank, and my editor, Rebecca Kilman, at Razorbill/Penguin in New York; my agent, Jackie Kaiser at Westwood Creative Artists; Nick Hooker and Mike Woods at Framestore New York; Simon Whalley, Selena Stokes and the digital team at Framestore London; Elena Stokes (no relation), who has work
The Greatest / Saddest / Oddest Events of 2013
Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome to the year two-thousand fourteen! Well. That makes it official: I can now no longer distinguish between the present and future. Everything after "2014" sounds like science-fiction. But let's not forget the past. Here are—in my humble opinion—the more interesting things that happened in 2013. 1. The Formosan clouded leopard declared extinct After a 13 year study in the forests of Taiwan, the Formosan clouded leopard was officially declared extinct in the spring of last year. The last live sighting was in 1983, by a group of indigenous hunters. Ironically, those hunters consider it taboo to hunt the animal. The leopards went extinct in the usual way, f
Book Trailer for Prince Puggly of Spud and the Kingdom of Spiff (with lemmings)
Okay. So, yes. Technically, I'm a bit late with this. Prince Puggly of Spud and the Kingdom of Spiff was published waaaay back in February and it's now December. That's ten months too late for a book trailer to adequately serve its purpose, but hey...better late than never, right? Right? In any case, here's a little...ahem..."book trailer" for a book I published nearly a year ago. But seriously, who's counting? (Me, apparently. cf. the previous paragraph, the "ten months" bit.) On the upside, this video has lemmings. How can you not love lemmings? Lemmings!