Stealer of Souls

The 2002 World Book Day special edition of Stealer of Souls had 4 separate editions: a UK general issue, an Australian edition, and special ones each for Ottakars and W.H. Smith's bookshops.

Diana is a 'classic'

Charmed Life has joined the ranks of the classics in a new HarperCollins Modern Classics edition. It includes a special postscript by Diana and has a different cover from the previous Collins editions. The Modern Classics series features the best of children's books - award-winners, continuous sellers, or books that the publishing house just believes children shouldn't grow up without reading.

Film of Howl's Moving Castle

It is now confirmed that Studio Ghibli, set up by acclaimed Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki will be making an animated film of Howl's Moving Castle. The film is due to be released in 2003 and will be distributed by Disney. Hayao Miyazaki (Kiki's Delivery Service, Princess Mononoke) is executive producer of the Howl film, which is entitled Hauru no Ugoku Shiro in Japanese. The bad news for Brits is that Disney's distribution plans do not so far include the UK!

HarperCollins' Publishing Schedule

Still available - special box set of the four Chrestomanci novels. To answer one query, although the HarpeCollins reissues are published in the UK, they are available in Australia - published by HarperCollinsAustralia. Artwork for some of the books can be seen on illustrator David Wyatt's site.

DWJ Judging 2001 World Fantasy Award

Diana says: "When 2001 wasn't real yet, I rashly agreed to be a judge for the World Fantasy Awards. I thought, if I thought at all, that this meant reading a few books. At the beginning of February [2001], they told me it also meant judging Best Artist, Best Non-fiction, Best Personality (provided he or she was over 65 - I don't KNOW any people like that - if anyone seeing this page does I'll be abjectly grateful) and umpteen other things. And parcels the size of beer-crates started arriving, stuffed full of HUGE books, all at least 300 pages long in fine print, all to be read and judged by June. As if this isn't enough, there are four other judges, and they keep emailing to recommend books (that aren't in the parcels) that are even longer. I bleat an email back about how do I get hold of this thoroughly obscure book, and they don't know any more than I do. They've just emailed to say there are several hundred short stories too. Help!"

A DWJ 'song', The Moderator's Song, which appeared in the filk book The Drunken Rabble Project has been reprinted as part of an omnibus edition. The new book is "... and then three come along together", edited by Gytha North and Roger Robinson. ISBN 1-870824-44-X, cover price £8.00 (Not sure yet who the publisher is). For those who haven't had the pleasure of listening to it, filk is songs, and sometimes original music, often with a comic turn, written for and played at science fiction/fantasy conventions.

DWJ has also written the introduction to a collection of short stories by Louise Cooper, Spiral Garden, published in 2000 in a limited edition by BFS UK (British Fantasy Society). The book is illustrated by Cas Sandall, and costs £25 hardback, £5.99 paperback, through Andromeda Bookshop. All copies are signed by DWJ, Cooper and Sandall.

On World Book Day, March 1st 2001, Diana did a chatroom for Books OnLine. She says: "Alas for technology. I couldn't get through to their website. My computer kept saying it didn't exist. I rang them up despairingly and discovered that I was only one of three writers who couldn't. There had been some monster glitch. They had hastily to organize a lady called Honour to talk to me on the phone, reading the questions and then tapping in my answers. It got very fraught because either she was giggling at my answers or saying, 'Just a minute, she'd got a crick in her neck'. And questions poured in too fast for her to keep up and she kept losing her place."

New Goon Is as Originally Written

The new edition of Archer's Goon from HarperCollins is the first edition published as Diana originally wrote it. Previous UK editions copied the American Greenwillow version, which had been 'Americanised'. Diana says: "It was quite an arduous process, but among us all we have finally eliminated (I think) all the transatlanticisms. Cars have boots again instead of trunks, and so on. The American way always makes me think Americans see cars as elephants running backwards very fast."

OUP Completes the Set

It might soon be possible to buy a complete new set of DWJ books. Oxford University Press have included the four Dalemark books - Cart and Cwidder, Drowned Ammet, The Spellcoats and The Crown of Dalemark - in their reprints of modern children's classics.

Listen In

HarperCollins have produced a series of audio tapes of the four Chrestomanci novels. Available from September 2000, they are slightly abridged, but DWJ has approved them. Each audio book is approximately 3 hours long and consists of 2 cassettes.

Diana's editor at HarperCollins says: "In the spirit of multiple worlds and because each title is completely different, I decided to use a different reader for each: Charmed Life is read by Tom Baker (a former Dr Who), The Magicians of Caprona by Nickolas Grace, Witch Week is read by Ursula Jones, and The Lives of Christopher Chant by Samuel West."

Bounders Film?

Talisman Films have expressed an interest in making a film of The Homeward Bounders. However, so far they have not taken the idea any further.

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