Under muted lights the crowd buzzed—talking excitedly, shifting seats, reading and re-reading the pamphlets. On stage poised a lone podium with a microphone shining in the rays of a soft spotlight.

The lamps dimmed suddenly then flicker back to their full brilliance. The audience cheered with the warning to find seats, and note cards were passed to each person for questions to be written down and given to the speaker.
The event was about to begin.

In downtown Tuscaloosa, a steady stream of people converged under the twinkling stars of the Bama Theater that Thursday night. 1,078 fans and fanatics wait for 7:45 p.m. and the speaker that will enter the spot light.

Tickets sold out in 120 seconds, while others drove for hours to attend- a collision that dictated that not many seats in the auditorium would be left empty. In a game of musical chairs, I found myself in a seat that smelled like olives, but only four rows from the stage.

University of Associate Provost and Executive Director of Creative Campus, Dr. Hank Lazer was the first to walk out from behind the curtains to the podium, welcoming the audience and recalling how the idea for the evening’s speaker first materialized. He and Kate Bernheimer were having morning coffee discussing their fondness for a certain author, and if they could invite him to visit the campus.

“We wanted to make it happen,” Lazer said.

As a published author and UA professor, Bernheimer was chosen to introduce the speaker. Weaving an intricate speech, she praised the guest for his many accomplishments that span literature, poetry, graphic novels, drama and film.

Winner of numerous awards and honored to be named as one of the top ten living post-modern writers in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, the evening’s guest has been critically acclaimed and globally recognized for his talent with words. Bestseller of American Gods, Anansi Boys, The Graveyard Book and celebrated DC Comic series, Sandman, the speaker’s novels Coraline and Stardust have also been spun into big screen, Hollywood films.

“Please welcome, Neil Gaiman,” Bernheimer said.

Amongst the screams and thundering applause, Gaiman walks across the stage in all black and a leather jacket.

“We love you,” two girls screamed in unison.

He stopped behind the podium and beamed at the ecstatic crowd. With tussled hair and a storyteller’s voice, a concoction of laid-back rocker and poet, Gaiman charms critics and readers with his witty humor and chilling plot twists. Combined with his many triumphs and honors, it was a rare gift that he ventured so far from the Golden Globes and England to pay our state a visit.

The author patiently waited for the noise to lull before holding up a stack of note cars—all questions from the audience.

“I like how vocal you are,” he said in a fluid, English brogue.

Gaiman pulled the top card and read, “How did you end up in Alabama? Did you lose a bet or what?” The crowd was a gush of laughter and applause.

“This is a state I’ve never been to,” he said. “People don’t think that there are any people down here, yet here you are.”

“ROLL TIDE,” someone in the audience shouted, and the crowd was driven into another frenzied cheer.

Gaiman offered the crowd a choice. “Disturbing” or “Goofy” readings were at his disposal—the majority changed for the former, and Gaiman had prepared several works to satisfy their hunger for the darker side of the author’s writings.

The first story, in the form of a letter from a stalker, a human statue’s obsession with a young girl ended in the woman discovering that the man was hiding in the room watching and waiting for her to finish his letter and turn around.

Next in Gaiman’s bag of tricks, “My Last Land Lady,” written only a few weeks earlier was the narration of a corpses shocking explanation of how his land lady had murdered him and sunk his body in the ocean where he laid with her other victims. The unnatural cluster stared up through the water at their murderer as she glared down at them from her window.

Then there was a comical story written during the course of one of Gaiman’s flights and finished while sitting in baggage claim (without bothering to actually pick up his bags). It was a list of answers to unknown questions—a series that covered the course of the girl’s sister turning into a rebellious teen, then an orange, tanned dictator, then an alien who controls the families thoughts.

Several more selections entranced the crowd, before Gaiman turned to the stack of inquires left unanswered.
“Is your closet color coordinated?” one note card read.

Gaiman looked down at his wardrobe and chuckled.

“On the left side, I put the black clothes, on the right, black clothes, and in the middle, I put the black clothes. It’s much simpler that way.”

Another asked how the author constructs the foundations for his stories.

“There’s no such thing as pure imagination,” he replied.

Gaiman stated that observation leads to questions. “What if this were to happen?”

Answer after answer flowed from the stage: He always dreamed of becoming and author, his favorite characters in his works were “the odd ones around the edges,” and C.S. Lewis’ Narnia series were his preferred books as a child. His guilty pleasure is bee keeping, his own nightmares were used as beginning inspiration for the Sandman comics, and Diana Winn Jones is one of his favorite authors. He had “not a hope in hell” of Coraline winning the Best Animation nomination at the Oscars, and he said it was 73 percent awesome to know Terry Pratchett.

Writing multiple things at a time, the author expressed detestation for the term “writer’s block.” Author’s get “stuck” because writer’s block is myth, according to Gaiman.

“Gardeners do not get gardening block, cellists do not get cellist block, and shoe salesmen, most definitely, do not get shoe salesmen block.”

A question about Gaiman’s advice for other writers proved the most insightfully ingenious and complexly clever response of the evening.

“Write,” he said as laughter echoed in the theater

Hours later, Gaiman announced that it was time for the evening to end. Apologetically, he would not be signing any books except for a book for a woman’s six-year-old son, who twittered her request. There was not enough time to allow everyone the opportunity, but the author was happy to at least grant one fan’s hope. The author stressed that he did not like to think of people as numbers, but faces.

Murdered bed and breakfast guests, human statues haunted the empty podium as the crowds slowly drained out of the theater. Whimsical horror clung to the corners of the room and minds of those who heard Gaiman’s stories spoke aloud. No one would quickly forget the evening they had spent with Neil Gaiman as visions of the supernatural and mysterious tugged at their imagination and, perhaps, inspired.

by Heather Smith