On Sunday evening, my partner and I attended the Neil Gaiman event as part of Manchester Literature Festival.

First there was a reading and talk about his new children’s novel, Fortunately, the Milk. Then there was a Q&A with the audience, which touched on many of his other titles and was interesting, funny and incredibly inspiring.

Next was the signing, which I wasn’t expecting. With any event, signing or not, I put a book in my bag just in case. And as Coraline is one of my favourite books of all time, that’s the one I chose to take.

I have the paperback, but in 2012 the 10th anniversary edition was released in hardcover, illustrated by Chris Riddell. I bought the book at the time because Coraline is so special to me and I wanted the special edition!

So I took that with me. And now it’s signed.

I had an amazing night, made even better by the chance to meet the author. He was so nice and I do feel very, very lucky.