Just the other night I was lucky enough to chair a wonderful 5x15 event with one of our stellar contributors, the great Neil Gaiman, in conversation with David Mitchell -- who may not be a contributor to First Light but who is a hero all the same! The author of the Sandman comics (and so much more) and the author of Cloud Atlas (and so much more) had never met before; it was a privilege to watch them really, really hit it off. Sometimes when you chair an event, you have to steer it: you make sure the questions keep coming, you nudge the author (or authors) in the right direction -- that sort of thing.
But sometimes as a chair you just get to sit back and enjoy the show -- and this was one of those occasions! And, lucky you -- there's a podcast of the event available to listen to, posted by the great folks at 5x15.
Now -- I'll admit that there isn't any Garner-talk in this podcast. But if you love Alan Garner you'll love this chat between two passionate authors who believe in books without boundaries, books that move between this world and the next. In the green room beforehand, Neil and I were chatting about Alan, however -- and while I can't tell you what we said (Spoilers! As we Whovians say...) I can promise you that our little talk made me even more excited about Neil's piece in First Light. But then -- I'm excited about everyone's piece. As, I know, are you!