I’ve returned from a preview screening of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust–tickets provided by the fabulous Livia Llewellyn. Since I got out of the theater, I’ve been wanting to go back. When was the last time that happened to me?

Princess Bride? Goya in Bordeaux? But since then… I can’t remember one.

I don’t want to gush too much, because part of the joy of the film is the discovery. The actors are all strong, particularly Charlie Cox as Tristan. Male ingénues are so hard to play and he is spot on perfect. Normally I link to trailers and what not, but don’t–try not to see a trailer before you go in to watch the film. And do go, tomorrow. Don’t wait. It’s not that there are enormous spoilers, but there are surprises and moments of wonderful ah-ha! waiting for you at every turn in Stardust, and yet it all makes sense and is inevitable. Oh, it’s just wonderful. Go.

I’ll see you there. Partly because I want to see it again and sink back into the world, and partly because I want this film to have a really strong opening weekend so that there will be more.

There’s a funny sort of symmetry for me about seeing this film while I’m making the Coraline puppet. The first time I performed in NYC, was with our production of Old Man Who Made Trees Blossom at Here Theater. The puppets are made out of paper–it’s a different technique than the one I’m using now, but still, it’s the first time I used washi paper on a puppet. One of the other performers loaned me a copy of the ARC (advanced review copy) of Stardust–and behold, here I was tonight at an advanced screening. Funny how things work out.

Edited to add: I forgot to mention that large parts of the movie were filmed in Iceland. If you want to understand, really, why I want to move back…

Here I am, in the middle of laying out the Art Issue of Shimmer and stumble across this lovely, lovely review of our Winter issue.

Do you like fables? Fairy tales? Mythic Realism? Writers like Patricia McKillip, Charles DeLint, and Neil Gaiman at his most fantastical? Then you’ll like Shimmer, I believe. It is a beautiful little zine, perfect bound, with eight art and nine fiction pieces (and one interview); around 80 pages of content when you subtract the front and back matter. I’m not sure about their other issues, but I was left shaking my head wondering if I would ever be able to write as beautifully as the authors included in this issue of Shimmer. I believe the readers and editors did a fine job of choosing material. In some cases it was like reading tapestry.

There’s more! She goes on to say more very nice things about the whole issue–and notices the artists in particular, which always makes me happy.

And if the art in that issue is good, wait until you see the Art Issue. I got to pick gorgeous art and then we asked some of our favorite authors to write stories to fit the art. Just take a sneak peek at this cover by none other than John Picacio. (He’s up for a Hugo, so wish him luck.)

Every piece of art in this issue is something that I’ve drooled over and coveted since I first saw it. Behold! I managed to convince the board to let us flip the usual artist and writer relationship on its head. The stories that we got out of this experiment are by turns chilling and beautiful. I’ll post a trailer for the issue early next week.