Neil Gaiman

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman born Neil Richard Gaiman, 10th November 1960) is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, nonfiction, audio theatre, and films. His works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. He has won numerous awards, including the Hugo, Nebula, and Bram Stoker awards, as well as the Newbery and Carnegie medals. He is the first author to win both the Newbery and the Carnegie medals for the same work, The Graveyard Book (2008). In 2013, The Ocean at the End of the Lane was voted Book of the Year in the British National Book Awards.

He's especially famous for his Urban Fantasy works, including the renowned The Sandman comic series, which was the only work in its medium to win a World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story note . Two of his novels, Stardust and Coraline, have been made into movies. He's also written scripts for other projects, such as MirrorMask by Dave McKean and the Neverwhere TV series. In addition, he worked on the translated script of Princess Mononoke. His young adult work The Graveyard Book became the first book to win both the Newbery Medal and the Carnegie Medal. When they started running out of awards to give him, they began making up new awards specially for him. He also wrote two episodes for Doctor Who, The Doctor's Wife for Series 6 and Nightmare in Silver for Series 7.

A masterful storyteller, he excels at building fantastic, yet believable settings for his stories. His works are marked by extensive use of mythological references and symbolism, often times in "modern" settings. Also a notable One of Us, and despite his work's breathtaking popularity, he has remained remarkably humble and personable, managing to remain faintly bemused every time he finds hundreds of people waiting for him to sign their books or whatnot. Also, he's a highly respectable marsh-wiggle◊ with a very Nice Hat. Or, if you prefer, a Time Lord with a fondness for improbably long scarfs. Adorkable? Very.

Gaiman has some affection for Canon Defilement — and is living proof that this particularly negative trope isn't bad. He described Snow, Glass, Apples, a Perspective Flip of "Snow White", as a mindvirus that he hoped would prevent the reader from ever experiencing the original innocently again. His External Retcon of Beowulf pulls a similar trick. The Problem of Susan is something of a meta-twist on the concept, riffing off of Susan's exile from Narnia: her embrace of adolescence means that, retroactively, she experienced the original adventure as a Darker and Edgier pagan allegory. He is also fairly preoccupied with, though not necessarily an apologist for, Muse Abuse. Stephen King thinks Neil may well be the greatest storyteller alive today, and has said so publicly. Considering that's Stephen King talking, that's saying something.

He's married to Amanda Palmer of The Dresden Dolls. He has a Twitter account and a Tumblr blog, as well as a more traditional blog, one of the first blogs on the internet (it was originally created to document his promotion tour for American Gods back in 2001, and it took off from there). He's also been known to dispense writing advice to fans (often via Tumblr), which usually boils down to "Write something, and keep on writing."

Sang a song about Jeanne d'Arc with Ben Folds on piano. It is magnificent. Also sang the theme song from Fireball XL5 (in honor of Gerry Anderson's passing days earlier) onstage with Palmer during New Year's Eve 2012. It was... quirky.

He's a part-time professor at Bard College. He played a parody of his good friend Alan Moore in a student project (he appears around 24 minutes in).

He once delivered an awe-inspiring (and quite funny) commencement speech to the 2012 graduates of the University of the Arts in Philadelphia.