American Gods author Neil Gaiman and musician Amanda Palmer raised more than $80,000 for a five-show tour on the North American west coast. Above, we’ve embedded a video about the project.

The literary duo tried to raise $20,000 on Kickstarter to fund the recording costs and merchandise production. However, within forty-eight hours they raised $70,000. Currently, they have more than $85,000 in pledged funds. Every backer who submitted $1 or more will receive a digital recording of the show.

Here’s more about the show: “we’ll have a piano, a ukulele, and maybe some other weird instruments, as well as some unpublished and uncollected Neil Gaiman stories and poems. we’ll both probably switch up what we’re presenting from night to night. we’ll be taking questions from the audience, chat-style, and trying to do special things in each venue, busting out a few surprises, and more or less trying to feel like we’ve connected with you…” What do you think?

Read more

Sarah Odedina will be leaving Bloomsbury Children’s Books to serve as publisher of a new children’s fiction list at the Swedish media group, Bonnier.

Odedina published all of J.K. Rowling‘s Harry Potter books during her fourteen-year tenure at Bloomsbury. She has also worked with authors Sharon Creech, Jennifer Donnelly and Neil Gaiman. She began her career at Penguin Books and Orchard Books.

Odedina (pictured, via) explained to Publishers Weekly: “It was a very hard decision to leave Bloomsbury but a very easy decision to join Bonnier. These opportunities don’t come along very often and it was so clear that I should accept it.” Her start date at Bonnier has not yet been announced because Odedina has agreed to stay on at Bloomsbury a successor has been appointed.

At the season finale of Minnesota Public Radio’s WITS this weekend, novelist Neil Gaiman joined a talented crew of writers and musicians onstage to sing a song he wrote about Joan of Arc. We’ve embedded a video clip above–what do you think?

Over at BoingBoing, Maggie Koerth-Baker called WITS “a very nerdy, slightly tipsy, younger cousin of A Prairie Home Companion.” Follow this link for more video, audio and photos from the event.

Here’s more about the video: “Author Neil Gaiman shows his songwriting chops at Minnesota Public Radio’s Wits with a song he wrote as part of the 8in8 project. He performs ‘The Problem with Saints’ with Josh Ritter, John Munson, Steve Roehm, The Ascots and The Brass Messengers.” (Via HarperCollins Canada)

Author Neil Gaiman hopes to write a sequel to his novel, American Gods. According to an interview with MTV News, the novelist has a “boxful of stuff” he would include in the sequel.

Gaiman explained: “The first book was very much about the grifters and the lowlifes, and you don’t really get to see much of the new gods and you don’t really get a sense of those gods who are doing incredibly well in America. In the second book, I definitely want to go into both of those things.”

Gaiman (pictured, via) released the 10th anniversary edition of American Gods on June 21st. This edition (the author’s preferred text version) contains 12,000 additional words–expanded chapters, essays and interviews.

Read more

Wall Street Journal reporter Meghan Cox Gordon criticized themes of “explicit abuse, violence and depravity” in YA fiction over the weekend. As of this writing, her controversial essay has received 71 comments and 152 responses on Facebook.

Here’s more from the article: “Now, whether you care if adolescents spend their time immersed in ugliness probably depends on your philosophical outlook. Reading about homicide doesn’t turn a man into a murderer; reading about cheating on exams won’t make a kid break the honor code. But the calculus that many parents make is less crude than that: It has to do with a child’s happiness, moral development and tenderness of heart. Entertainment does not merely gratify taste, after all, but creates it.”

What do you think? The YA community responded with scores of online essays and the #YAsaves twitter hashtag. Below, we’ve listed tweets from several popular YA authors. The video embedded above features the band Tiger Beat performing their musical homage to the genre “YA Song.”

Read more

Jeff Howe has partnered with The Atlantic to relaunch the online book club, One Book, One Twitter. 

Howe explained in the announcement: “I’d always intended to relaunch One Book, One Twitter … It has a new name—1book140—but what hasn’t changed is the global, participatory nature of the affair: The crowd is still in charge.”

Twitter readers will choose the book to read in the online book club.  You can still vote on the following titles: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood, The Keep by Jennifer Egan, Snow by Orhan Pamuk, Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart, and Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead. Reading will commence on June 1st.

Read more

This week the BBC aired its highly anticipated Doctor Who episode written by author Neil Gaiman–instantaneously spawning a line of t-shirts and mugs.

“The Doctor’s Wife” episode took a surreal trip through the time-traveling mythology behind the science fiction series, earning the author 20,000 Twitter messages in a single day.

Follow this link to watch an interview with Gaiman offering advice for writers who want to write for a famous series like Doctor Who.

Minnesota House majority leader Matt Dean has issued a halfhearted apology to fantasy author Neil Gaiman for calling him a “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota.”

Earlier this week, Dean criticized Minnesota’s House Legacy Funding Division for paying Gaiman to appear at a speaking engagement.

Dean told Minnesota Public Radio: “[My mom] was very angry this morning and always taught me to not be a name caller. And I shouldn’t have done it, and I apologize.”  Dean still insisted that the author should have “donated his time” to the patrons of the Stillwater Library.

Read more

Inspired by Minnesota House majority leader Matt Dean‘s attack on author Neil Gaiman, Twitter sensation Evil Wylie created a web comic based on famous Charles Atlas ads.

Earlier this week, Dean criticized Minnesota’s House Legacy Funding Division for paying the novelist for a speaking engagement.  The legislator called the author  “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota.”

Above, we’ve  embedded Wylie’s complete comic. What do you think?

Republican House majority leader Matt Dean publicly criticized Minnesota’s House Legacy Funding Division for paying Neil Gaiman (pictured, via) for a speaking engagement.  The legislator called the author  “pencil-necked little weasel who stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota.”

According to the StarTribune, Republican representative Dean Urdahl proposed a new amendment that would make Minnesota-based cultural groups compete for funding.

Gaiman responded with this tweet: “Sad & funny. Minnesota Republicans have a ‘hate’ list. Like Nixon did. I’m on it. They also don’t like capitalism.” He also pointed to a blog entry about “political football” over the speaking engagement in question.