What about libraries? Yes, you should absolutely go do libraries. Then people see me pushing refugees, and they say, “How can you say that when there are disabled veterans not being looked after?” Well, good. How much does the bread supply cost for 100,000 people? How about the electricity? All that sort of thing. If you’ve got 100,000 people in camps, like you do in Zaatari camp in Jordan, the Syrians, just think about everyone lining up in the morning to get their bread supply. I think the worst thing in the world is when I go out there and say, “Send money to refugees.” There are over 65 million refugees in the world right now, the highest number of displaced people we’ve had since World War II, and they are out of money. Neil Gaiman: If I were them, I would look around for things that genuinely matter to them. In the current atmosphere, where do you think people can put their money and time to make the world a better place? Houston Press: You do a lot of charity promotion, everything from individual stuff like Cinnamon's cancer fundraiser to more sweeping organizations. But on the other hand, you wind up going, “Oh my gosh, I never would have thought of that. You have to say, “It’s not my thing.” If you’re going to let other kids play in the sandbox, you have to be prepared for them to break the wheels off the toy, or to bring a toy you hadn’t planned, or whatever. Sometimes it’s a thing where you have to kind of be a grownup. Neil Gaiman: It is a fascinating process. Do you like watching a work evolve after you finish it, or is it a painful process? Houston Press: I know you recently went back and did a preferred text of American Gods, and obviously the show just came out. There was this wonderful thing on the Sci Fi channel called Seeing Ear Theater, where we did “Snow, Glass, Apples,” which I adapted for Bebe Neuwirth, and Brian Dennehy and Michael Emerson, before he was famous, starred in an adaptation I did of “Murder Mysteries.” In each case it was such a delight bringing these things to life. I was doing a lot of it in the late '90s. I keep thinking it’s one of those things I should be getting back in, making some magical audio stuff. A wonderful adaptor, Dirk Maggs, he’s done Neverwhere, Good Omens, Stardust, How the Marquis Got His Coat Back, and is going to be doing Anansi Boys next. Neil Gaiman: These days what seems to happen is adapting things I’ve already done. Houston Press: Have you ever been approached by, say, Big Finish or one of those groups for doing something? I do love audio plays because they have all the immediacy of theater or film, but they still engage the imagination in the way that prose does. Which I write almost none of for having to send my children out to dance in the street for money to pay for their father’s radio play-writing habit. Neil Gaiman: I have an enormous softness for radio plays. Which medium is your favorite to write in? Novels, comics, short stories, everything. Houston Press: You write across so many mediums. He’s such an astonishing actor and a really good man. I even knew what kind of story I wanted to write, so I was really sad when I learned he had happened without me. It’s six hours of television, and I kept promising myself that as soon as it was wrapped up, I would write a story for Peter. I spent Peter’s entire time as Doctor Who working on Good Omens for the BBC. Neil Gaiman: Yes, I feel terrible I didn’t get to write for Peter. Houston Press: Because I’m also the resident Doctor Who writer, I want to first ask, will you be doing more Doctor Who, and do you feel bad that you didn’t get to write for Peter Capaldi? The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. We got a chance to sit down with him in advance to talk about Doctor Who, American Gods, refugees and the time he fled to Galveston to escape the cold of the American Midwest. Neil Gaiman is the author of a library of tales across comics, novels, film and more, and he’s coming to Houston to speak for the Society for the Performing Arts.
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