Neil Gaiman’s ‘Blueberry Girl’ Is Ready For Release

At long last, Neil's poem for Tori Amos's daughter can be shared with the world
Friday, February 27th, 2009

Many years ago (as the story goes), while singer Tori Amos was still pregs with her first child, the amazing author (and personal friend of Tori) Neil Gaiman composed a poem/prayer for her “bump” that Tori and her husband Mark Hawley said looked like a blueberry (or something along those lines). Tori loved the poem/prayer so much that she allowed Neil to use it to raise money for various charities in the years since the birth of her daughter Natashya Tash Lórien Hawley in September of 2000. Now, 9 years later, the poem/prayer Blueberry Girl is being made available as a children’s picture book illustrated by the amazingly talented Charles Vess. Here are a few screencaps from a just released promo video that features Neil reading the poem and some animated images of Charles’s illustrations:


Longtime fans of Tori Amos know what this poem/prayer means to her and I, for one, am thrilled that it is finally being made available to us. I was VERY fortunate to get to hear Neil read Blueberry Girl aloud at a book reading he did here in SoCal late last year. You can click HERE to watch my video of Neil’s reading of the poem back then — or you can click below to see the new promo video for Blueberry Girl that has just been released to the Internets …

READ THE REST OF THIS POST »

Permalink | 9 Comments »

The ‘Graveyard’ Shift

The TV Guide
Tuesday, October 7th, 2008

Last night I was very fortunate enough to attend Neil Gaiman’s sole SoCal stop on his new book tour for his latest work The Graveyard Book. As I mentioned before, Gaiman is touring the country reading chapters from his new book in lieu of his traditional book signing tours — the readings are then posted online HERE so that everyone can enjoy them. It turns out that Neil suffered a broken finger and cannot endure his usual 5-hour booksigning regimen but this book reading tour is, IMHO, vastly more entertaining. There was a nice crowd of folks already in line when I showed up at Lincoln Middle School in Santa Monica, CA (where last night’s reading took place). In addition to hearing Neil read from his new book, we were also treated to preview video footage from the animated version of his book Coraline, that will be released in theaters next February. It was directed by Henry Selick, the same man who directed Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and features the voices of Dakota Fanning and Teri Hatcher. We were also treated to a Q&A and a special reading of his soon-to-be released picturebook Blueberry Girl (illustrated by Charles Vess), which features the prayer/poem that Neil wrote for Tori Amos’s unborn daughter back in 2000. Here are a few pics from last night’s reading and a bunch of great info from the event:


Before the reading, Neil’s book publicist Elise brought me backstage to say hello to Neil before he was to take the stage. Randomly Emmy Rossum was with him backstage helping him sort thru audience questions for the Q&A portion of the night. I got to hang out with them both for about 15 minutes … it was then that Neil allowed me to see, hold and read (for the first time) the Blueberry Girl picturebook which hasn’t been published yet — he had with him the unbound galley version of the book. Neil read half of Chapter 7 of The Graveyard Book (because it is the longest chapter in the book it had to be spilt between two readings) and it can already be seen online HERE. After the jump, read about some of the questions he answered from the audience, check out the cover artwork for Blueberry Girl (which Neil allowed me to photograph for sharing) and watch video of Neil reading the Blueberry Girl poem himself …

READ THE REST OF THIS POST »

Permalink | 7 Comments »