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Hm, a magician in a top hat…who COULD this be?

5 Stars Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms By Lissa Evans Sterling Publishing Co. 978-1-4027-9806-1 No. Pages: 272   Ages:  8 to 12 ............................ Back cover:  When ten-year-old Stuart stumbles upon a note daring him to find his great uncle’s hidden workshop, full of wonderful mechanisms, trickery, and magic, he sets out on a Willy Wonka-like adventure of a [...]

Welcome Back to Kid Lit Reviews After last thirty days of wildly romping through April from A to Z, I needed to take a little rest.  No kidding, my pinky finger on my writing hand went numb.  The finger was totally and completely numb from the tip to the edge of the hand.  Now that [...]

Michael Chabon (pictured, via) and Ayelet Waldman will collaborate on an HBO drama called Hobgoblin.

Here’s more from Variety: “[It is] an offbeat drama project at HBO that revolves around a motley group of conmen and magicians who use their skills at deception to battle Hitler and his forces during WWII.”

The married couple will write the script and act as executive producers together. This endeavor marks the first time the two have worked together as professionals.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

On the subject of all things Terry Pratchett, there is a North American Discworld convention in "Phoenix, Arizona over Labor Day Weekend, 2009 (Sept 4-7, and maybe September 3 as well)" -- details at http://www.nadwcon.org/.

(Terry's also noted that while Matchitforpratchett is unofficial, this link isn't: https://www.committedgiving.uk.net/art/public/donor.aspx?id=cc)

A first review of The Dangerous Alphabet, the odd alphabet book by Gris Grimly and me, at http://editoon.com/sandbox/?p=849.

You can watch Matthew Vaughn and Jane Goldman collecting an award for Stardust at the Empire Awards. (It took Best SF/Fantasy film, beating some very worthy contenders, so worthy that neither Jane nor Matthew had thought to even jot down an acceptance speech.)

Susanna Clarke's short story Mrs Mabb can be listened to for the next 6 days via http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/arts/afternoon_play.shtml click on Tuesday.

I really loved the New Yorker article on Jamy Ian Swiss and magic (Jamy was my coin magic adviser on American Gods -- see http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/03/american-gods-blog-post-10.html). It doesn't seem to be online, but you can hear Adam Gopnik talking about it at http://www.newyorker.com/online/2008/03/17/080317on_audio_gopnik

--again, just trying to close some tabs before I head off to the UK in the morning, for Eastercon (http://www.orbital2008.org/). Hope I get to see you there...

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Apologies to everyone who wrote from the Portland area asking if I would be doing a signing and if not would I sign just for you. Nope. Maybe next time (as it was I spent a couple of hours signing for all the hundreds of modelmakers, animators, costumers, carpenters and other wonder-workers at Laika. Mostly people's books and Coraline posters, but a few odd things including a naked Miss Forcible).