In this update from the North American Discworld Convention, have we got a deal for you! We've got news on the latest UK Discworld book releases, convention news, a couple of updates from Terry, and a new book giveaway. In exchange, you’ll tell us how to build a better convention by filling out a brief survey. It’s the best bargain you’ll find outside of Sham Harga’s All-You-Can-Gobble-for-a-Dollar, and won’t leave you nearly as queasy.

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The Color of Magic on ION Television - Now in early 2009, with Hogfather repeated on Nov 30th.

Orignally, RHI FIlms and ION Television had planned to air The Color of Magic on Nov 23rd. However, after sending out press releases they changed their plans and will now air it sometime in early 2009. We're disappointed that it won't be on sooner on this side of the pond. Once we do find out the new date, we'll make sure to let everyone know. In the meantime, they have scheduled a repeat of Hogfather for next Sunday, Nov 30th, on ION Television at 7 pm ET/PT. ION Television is available via satellite (Direct TV Channel 305 and Dish Network Channel 280, which is a recent change) as well as via cable and local station broadcasts. To find out where you can catch it in your area, go to http://www.iontelevision.com and enter your zip code into the "Find us by Zip Code" box in the upper right corner. Times may vary depending on your local station, so it’s best to check your local listings to make sure of the exact time. So if you haven't picked it up on DVD yet, here's a chance to catch it again.

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A Couple of Updates From Terry

Terry posted this at http://www.pjsmprints.com/news on October 24th:

At last some progress is being made on Unseen Academicals since we got through the making of the BBC2 documentary and all the alternative calls on my time that seemed to have filled the past year. Today, for example, I have nothing to do but write and Rob and I were just mentioning how odd it is to have a day which does not involve some kind of travel, meeting, or interview. In fact Rob is about to interview me right now:

Rob - Would you like a cup of tea, Terry?

Me - That is a very good question, but I think I would like a coffee, please, and do we have any of that nice shortbread left?

On the health side, there's very little change. Various tests over previous months appear to show me as being very stable; if you take a view that my ground state of being is stable in any case. The many experts that I have met during the making of the documentary seem rather puzzled, although there is actually no doubt that the scans show that I do have some form of dementia. However, I am still pretty much at the stage where if you didn't know, you wouldn't realise that there is anything wrong.

BBC Radio 4 has asked me to appear on "With Great Pleasure" on Christmas day and currently the floor of the office is covered in books as I try to pick my fifteen or so favourite literary pieces. The show will pre-recorded in Bath on November 14th or 15th and free tickets will be available on a first come first served basis. We will post more information right here as soon as we have it.

All the best.

 

Terry Pratchett

PS - We have now found space to hang the now famous Pratchgan in one place. We'll post photos shortly.

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Terry posted this at http://www.pjsmprints.com/news on November 11th:

Terry's November Update

Folks,

We have seen the first half of the BBC documentary and it looks pretty good. Importantly, it would seem at the moment that we have witnessed that rarest of things, a film crew that has been allowed into a convention and hasn’t tried to stuff the fans. Some of you know you were filmed in costume, and that’s it. There’s footage of the reading and stuff, but the general look and tone is some distance away from the usual "Star Trek Loonies" portrayal. There’s also reasonable footage of the signing at the Southbank back in June and we are assuming that the Hayling Island / Waterstones Piccadilly day will be in part two. We definitely noticed a few of the usual suspects such as Dave Boggis and Rentawitch. It's going to be good.

You might also be interested to know that Charlie Russell, our John Grierson Award nominated director, can be seen on BBC 2 at 10:50pm this Sunday, November 16th, in the documentary he made about his father. It’s a very powerful piece and well worth watching.

The BBC ‘With Great Pleasure’ event is apparently sold out and there is nothing we can do about it. We don’t have our own allocation and I don’t want to offend anyone by saying that this office is in enough perpetual turmoil not to include Box Office Services as part of our workload :o)

Those of you who were kind enough to subscribe to the ‘Trees for Terry’ drive around my birthday this year might be interested to hear that we have acquired a derelict woodland nearby that this winter will be replanted mostly with hazel and cob. Many thanks to all. We don’t expect to be able to photograph the green shoots until around the spring.

Finally, right now I feel fine. This is largely due to the fact that we are more or less out from under the massive amounts of commitments we have taken on this year, although I do have to deliver a large petition to Number 10 Downing Street on 26th November. Another reason is that I seem to be working around the problems successfully. Typing is still a bugger, but in most respects you would have to know me very well to know that anything was wrong. I also noticed recently that the Daily Mail, gods bless them, announced that I can’t dress myself. This must have come as a huge surprise, not least to me, since I dressed myself this morning. It is true that if you handed me a shirt with one sleeve inside out it would take me a little while to work out the topography, but I do seem to be getting better at that.

In the past two days we have written more than 2,500 words on Unseen Academicals.

Finally, I am delighted to be receiving an honorary Doctorate of Literature (LittD) from Dublin University (Trinity College Dublin) on 12th December. I'm sure that there will be photos.

Terry Pratchett

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More Books For Hogswatch Giving

Two new books are coming to the UK and Canada (but not the US) at the end of November: The 25th Anniversary Illustrated Edition of The Colour of Magic/The Light Fantastic (with illustrations by Stephen Player), and The Colour of Magic: The Illustrated Screenplay by Vadim Jean, mucked about with by Terry Pratchett (yes, that’s really how it’s credited on the cover). You can order these books and other recent releases signed by Terry at http://www.pjsmprints.com . If you aren't that concerned about having them scribbled upon, you might try Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.ca. Of course, Nation and the Illustrated Wee Free Men are still available at most bookstores in the US, usually in the children's section.

Terry also has a fun introduction in the new book Prince of Stories: The Many Worlds of Neil Gaiman. This is a very thorough reference guide to the works of Neil Gaiman, including an extensive interview with Neil and a lot of neat additional features. FYI, on his recent US book tour for The Graveyard Book, Neil read a chapter per night; video of which is available at http://www.mousecircus.com .

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Rhianna Pratchett In the News

Terry's daughter, Rhianna Pratchett, is making the news with the release of the new first person computer game Mirror's Edge published by Electronic Arts. She's also scripting a comic book prequel to the game for Wildstorm Comics, the first issue of which came out earlier in the month. Comic Book Resources recently did an interview talking with her about the game and comic prequel. You can read it at http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=18743

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North American Discworld Convention News

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Convention Promotion Update

We've continued to send flyers to just about every SF/F convention in North America over the last couple of months. In October, convention Vice-Chair Emily made it to Capclave, a Washington, D.C. area convention, where Lawrence Watt-Evans signed the copies of The Turtle Moves that BenBella Books had donated to us. This is good news for one of the winners in our most recent book giveaway, detailed later in this newsletter.

Earlier in the month, some of the committee were at the annual TusCon convention in Tucson, Arizona (Nov. 7-9; http://home.earthlink.net/~basfa ), while our volunteer coordinator, Rowan, was in charge of the Phoenix Faerie Festival held Saturday, Nov 15th in Goodyear, Arizona (http://westerngatesfaerierealms.com/PhoenixFaerieFestival.htm ). To end the convention year on a high note, we'll be hosting a room party on Friday night, November 28th, at LosCon 35 at the LAX Marriott in Los Angeles, California (http://www.loscon.org/35 ). Stop by the party for a new badge ribbon, a selection of Discworld-themed foods, and a prize raffle for donations to Alzheimer's Research. Note: If anyone is in the Los Angeles area and would like to help out at the party, please let me know via email at nadwcon@gmail.com . I may be able to arrange for a guest membership.

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OFFICIAL COMMUNIQUE FROM THE ANKH-MORPORK CONSULATE - WINCANTON It is noted that the weather in the land of the phoenix and red indian is inclined toward the somewhat sunny. More so than the damp hills of Somerset in olde England. Therefore we propose that the Cricket Match between the Consulate Cricket Club XII and the home team is played indoors to Col Crowther's Rules under sec 2: inclement weather & hostile natives.

Message Ends

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Convention Surveys

Here’s the first of a series of surveys designed to tell us what you would like to see, do, and buy at the convention. The SurveyMonkey service allows us 100 free responses for each survey, so we've set up three identical surveys that should be enough to handle everyone. If necessary, however, we can always make another copy and post that link on our livejournal community. Please take a moment to click on one of the links below – your feedback is very important to us!

First 100 - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=4oKUYGHH_2fzT44FuqdQtP0w_3d_3d

Second 100 - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=djEeqHFhxw16q1ioVv193w_3d_3d

Third 100 - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=mTZat1JqAkNYNEsoIlArQA_3d_3d

To sweeten the pot, a special codeword will be encoded in the surveys that you can use to enter our next book giveaway. Details below...

We've passed the 350 member mark and are getting close to 400 pre-registered members, while rooms at the Tempe Mission Palms hotel keep filling up at a steady rate. We're currently setting up a programming team to brainstorm panels and activities beyond the main events. Once we make it through the holidays, things will start moving pretty quickly. We'll be working with the hotel to finalize the banquet details and begin the ticketing process. We also plan to provide more information about other major convention events, and hope to announce some additional guests.  We're working on an updated online membership list and hope to have that online soon.   

Thanks to HarperCollins and BenBella, we were able to give away some books with the last newsletter. We've shipped out most of the books to the winners, but not all of them. Once again, HarperCollins has come through for us with some additional books to give away. So, for this contest, we will have a special codeword listed in the above mentioned survey. To enter the contest, send an email to nadwcon.contest@gmail.com with the codeword and your top three preferences of the book you would like. Available books include the US Hardback of Nation, US Hardback of The Illustrated Wee Free Men, US Hardback of The Wit and Wisdom of Discworld, US Hardback of Making Money, US Paperback of The Art of Discworld, or a signed paperback of The Turtle Moves by Lawrence Watt-Evans.

Lee Whiteside

2009 North American Discworld Convention Chair

nadwcon@gmail.com, chair@nadwcon.org

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