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     From 2005 to 2007, Philip Pullman wrote regularly to his readers on his website to discuss the books he was writing, the stageplay from the National Theater, the Golden Compass movie, or any topic of interest to him at a time when social networks were hardly existing. For non-English readers, Cittàgazze translated back in these days Sir Pullman's letters.
     Here you can access - again - to the original content of these letters...
     Enjoy!

March

  Greetings for March!

  As I promised last month, I'm attaching the text of the lecture I gave last week at the University of East Anglia. Click here to read it.

  I found myself, in the end, making a defence of what we might call liberal humane reading against various forces that might bear down on it from this direction or that. And I didn't, as I thought I would, talk very much about 'faith' schools. I'll have to save that for another time. Anyway, it was nice to be welcomed to the University and to have an hour or so in my native city the following morning, in the snow that had fallen. I drove home with a journalist from the New Yorker, Laura Miller, who is going to write a profile of me, apparently. I'll let you know when it's due to be published. Her questions were searching. But she'll have to search hard to find anything that I haven't already said many times before.

  I've also been involved in the fight to save a boatyard on the Oxford Canal, in that part of the city called Jericho. The people involved asked me to help because of the gyptians in His Dark Materials. There's been a boatyard on that site for over a hundred years, but the site itself belongs to a body called British Waterways. They sold it to a developer who wants to put up houses on it. Oxford City Council refused planning permission for this development, because (among other things) they recognised the need for the boatyard to continue; and the developer, Bellway Homes, appealed against their decision. So this week there's been an inquiry at Oxford Town Hall, with high-powered lawyers for both the City Council and Bellway Homes putting their case and cross-examining witnesses.

  It seemed to me and some others that the case for the boatyard itself was being lost along all the other arguments, so I wanted to help. The point is simple: this boatyard is the only place for many miles around where narrow boats can be lifted out of the water for repairs and maintenance. They need to have this done every four years or so in order to be certified as fit for use. In Oxford there are 120 or so residential boats, so there's more than enough work to keep the boatyard in business. British Waterways and Bellway Homes deny that this lifting-out facility is needed, and say that if they provide a few limited amenities on the site, it will be enough - but it won't. The 120 people and their families who currently live on the water will either have to sell their boats and find somewhere ashore, or move somewhere else; so for the sake of 46 new homes, the planned scheme will destroy 120. It doesn't make any kind of sense.

  Besides, the boatyard is a good place (www.portmeadow.org). What makes it especially attractive to me is that the operator, Dr Steve Goodlad, named his business Alchemy Boats - and I didn't know that when I wrote about the alchemist, Sebastian Makepeace, whose house in Juxon Street is only a few yards along the canal from the boatyard. Clearly this place has got to survive. I made a statement to the inquiry in the hope of persuading the inspector that it isn't just a matter of economics. We shall see. <& href="http://www.philip-pullman.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=112">Click here to read my statement.

  But back in the real world, there's still no news about the film. No news is still not bad news.

  Here are some events I'll be doing in the next few weeks:

  On Wednesday 23 March, I'll be doing a talk at the National Theatre with Nicholas Wright, the person adapted the trilogy for the stage. Nick Wright is a very good speaker and he has a lot of interesting things to say about stagecraft. The event will be chaired by Joan Bakewell, and it begins at 6 p.m.

  In the week beginning Sunday 10 April, the Oxford Literary Festival is on. There are lots of very good events and I'll certainly be hanging around, as well as taking part in some myself. On Tuesday 12 April at 2 p.m. I'll be talking about 'The Scarecrow and His Servant' at the Holywell Music Room; and then at 8 p.m. in the Oxford Union I'll be on a panel with Nicholas Evans ('The Horse Whisperer'), Robert Harris ('Pompeii'), and David Mitchell ('Cloud Atlas') to talk about how we begin our novels. It will be chaired by Peter Kemp of the Sunday Times.

  On Saturday 16 April at 12 p.m. (I suppose that means 12 noon) I'll be on a panel with Professor John Carey, Professor Valentine Cunningham, and the novelist Joanne Harris ('Chocolat') to talk about stories. A big topic... The starting point for this panel was the new book by Christopher Booker called 'The Seven Basic Plots of Literature', but I'm not sure that we'll stay on that for very long. we shall see.

  In between those events I'll be doing yet another panel - in London this time - on the evening of Wednesday 13 April. This is for the Royal Society of Literature, and it's on the subject of education and the English curriculum. I don't know the exact time or venue, I'm afraid, but the website of the RSL is www.rslit.org.

  Next time, I'll tell you about a visit I'm going to make soon to the dark matter research laboratory near Oxford. I hope to bump into Mary Malone. Enough for now. The most important thing is that at last I'm beginning to find time to sit down and work at THE BOOK OF DUST. In order to have a clear run at that, I'm having to turn down all kinds to requests. Please understand if I say 'No' to something you'd like me to help with. I have to write this book, and I can't do it on a stop-start basis. When I've cleared the next few engagements out of the way, there will be no more saying yes.

  Ten thousand blessings!