Brian Jacques in Portland

[Klowd19]

Yesterday, October 6th, Brian Jaques was here in Portland, Oregon to promote his latest books: High Rhulain and the Redwall Cookbook.  For the promotion he's touring the Northwestern US, Washington, Oregon, and I believe a little of Northern California... Most of these visits landed him here in the Portland area. 

MY fianc? and I, both being huge fans, went out to see him at a location not too far from our home.  Nice and convenient.  The bookstore presenting this particular appearance was there, with all of his books available for sale.  We got ourselves the cookbook (we had Shrimp 'n' Hotroot Soup for dinner last night.  It's just as wonderful as those otters make it out to be.) and took seats to watch the show.  He came in from the back, dressed all in black, and mingled around the book table for a brief moment before going up to be introduced to the crowd.

He talked for a good forty minutes.  Let me tell you, this man is hilarious.  Picture if you will, this great author dancing about, curtsying, and all around just goofing off for a bunch of kids.  He said nothing about the new Redwall book, and only spoke briefly about the cookbook (mostly to say why he had it made and why food is so large a part of his books).  He used our copy of the cookbook to show off to the crowd.

Most of his talk was on why he writes, how he got started with Redwall, and what it was like for him growing up.  He took a few questions from the kids, simple things such as why he uses such a select set of animals, what exactly 'boi okee' means, etc.  When a question arose about the animated series it became somewhat apparent that he didn't care much for it.  He wants you to use your imagination for his stories, not see it on a screen.  He avoided the topic as best he could and moved on.  He also explained where the ideas for the mole and hare-speech came from (which led into him speaking in said voices).

We took some pictures, but had to use our camera phones as the room was too dimly lit for the digital camera we had on us to work very well.  They're rather grainy, but it's the best I could do.














(That's our cookbook he's holding.)

[wolf bite]

Very cool.


Wolf Bite

[Nohcnonk]

Hehe, front seats are a plus.  Very cool indeed.

[Blood Wake]

I wish he had come to Utah

[Holby]

Wow! Excellent stuff, I'm envious!