Neil Gaiman Speaks at Emerson Colonial Theatre

On Oct. 2, author Neil Gaiman took to the stage at Boston’s Emerson Colonial Theatre to read his work and answer questions from the audience. Gaiman is a bestselling English author whose works include “Coraline,” “Neverwhere,” “American Gods,” the “Sandman” comic series, and “Good Omens.” He has been the recipient of the Newbery and Carnegie Medals.

Throughout the event, Gaiman cycled between answering a variety of pre-submitted questions from the audience and reading from some of his published works.

In response to a question about whether “Seven Sisters” — the much-anticipated sequel to “Neverwhere” — will ever be published, Gaiman talked about balancing multiple writing projects following the end of the WGA strike, in which he was heavily involved.

“When the writers went on strike, if I had known it was going to be a five month long strike, I would have picked up the novel on the first day of the strike and just dug deep into it,” Gaiman said. “I thought, ‘This can’t go on for very long.’”

Yet the strike lasted a full five months, and Gaiman did not begin working on “Seven Sisters” until September. Still, Gaiman promised that he has made progress on the book, saying that he is “Six chapters into it now.”

But “Seven Sisters” is not the only thing on Gaiman’s plate. He also has to finish writing Season 3 of “Good Omens,” the Amazon Prime streaming series based on the wildly popular novel that he co-wrote with Terry Prachett in 1990. The fantastical comedy follows Aziraphale and Crowley, an unlikely angel-demon duo. Season 2 of the show ended on a dramatic cliffhanger, and many of Gaiman’s current readers’ interest in his work was sparked by the show.

While Gaiman has promised that he will write a novelized version of Season 3 if the show is not picked up again by Amazon, his fans are still hoping that the final installation will be revived now that the writers’ strike has ended.

“Started that before the strike. I’d written the first episode and the last fifteen minutes of the last episode, mostly in case I got hit by a bus. People wouldn’t have that,” Gaiman said.

Gaiman also revealed that he is finishing up a third project: a new children’s book.

“What I did to do during the strike was start a children's book about frogs in Central Park,” he said. “Mostly it’s a book with frogs and librarians in it. So, gotta get that finished, and then I will get back to the ‘Seven Sisters.’”

After a first round of questions, Gaiman read the first story from his book “Norse Mythology,” a retelling of ancient Norse myths, which he proudly said was written in Cambridge, Mass.

After reading from “Norse Mythology,” Gaiman responded to a question about the inclusion of Wanda, a trans character, in his 1991 “Sandman” issue “A Game of You.”

“What motivated me to write trans characters in ‘Sandman’ was that I had trans friends. And I wasn’t reading anything that they were in,” he said.

Both Gaiman’s books and television shows have been praised for their inclusion of LGBTQ+ representation. Gaiman has additionally supported the expansion of his adapted works, such as the “Sandman” and “American Gods” streaming shows, to include even more LGBTQ+ characters than he originally included. In an interview with Logo, he stated that his trans characters are “integral” to his “Sandman” stories, and that he wants his work to “reflect the world that [he] lived in.”

After talking about his own inspiration to include LGBTQ+ characters, Gaiman expanded on how the comic space has opened up to include trans voices.

“A lot of people asked me recently, ‘If you were writing Wanda now, if you were writing that story now, how would you write it?’ And my response is, I probably wouldn't write it now or anything like it because there are so many fabulous trans women and trans men who are writers now and they are telling their own stories,” he said.

After answering this round of questions, Gaiman read two other stories, from his books “A Calendar of Tales” and “Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances,” respectively.

Gaiman also gave writing tips at the event. One audience member asked if Gaiman, as a former journalist, had any advice for working on a piece of arts-related journalism.

“Just put the most interesting thing that they said at the very beginning, to begin with. Put a second most interesting thing at the end, so you have a good finish. And you can just sort of busk the middle,” Gaiman said.

Overall, Gaiman’s event allowed fans to listen to stories in the beloved author’s own voice and discover the answers to their most pressing questions about his work.

—Staff writer Hannah E. Gadway can be reached at hannah.gadway@thecrimson.com.