“I’m a rabid Jim Henson fan—his brilliant ideas spawned shows that entertained and educated millions, myself included. Jim Henson vibrantly delves into the magnificent man and his Muppet methods. It’s an absolute must read!”—Neil Patrick Harris

Thank you, Neil.  Sincerely.

Anyway, one of the quirks  that’s evolved around here over the last half-century or so is that because so many of us face two-lane blacktop, no one uses their front doors. Instead, driveways stretch to the back of each house, and when you step out of the car, you take a quick trip up the back steps or through a patio or up across a raised deck and you knock at the back door.  When we expect company, we turn on the back porch lights. Our mailbox sits at the back gate, too. Life revolves around the back door.

But when packages get delivered by UPS or FedEx  . . . well, for some reason both deliverymen tend to back up their trucks off the state highway, leave the engine running, sprint from the truck across the rock path leading to the front porch, drop their packages at the front door—usually in the space between the storm door and the big wooden main door–then dash back to the delivery truck and escape without us ever knowing they were there. Sometimes a package has even been known to sit a day or two before one of us finally opened the front door and stumbled upon it.

That didn’t happen today, but only because this morning, my editor sent me a cryptic e-mail reading, “Says it’s delivered and at front door. It arrive?” I opened the heavy front door, and sure enough there was a package. And inside that package? The galley proofs for Jim Henson, suitable for proofreading and final copyediting:

As it’s been typeset and laid out, it now runs just a hair over 570 pages–and I’ve got a little more than twenty days (fewer than that, actually, since I’ll be at the BIO conference for four of them) to re-read, review, edit and proof all of them.

Off I go, then — and we’re still on track for you to have it in your hands on September 24, Jim’s 77th birthday.

Jane Henson in 2009 (photo by Richard Termine)

Over the past five years, I had the great privilege of getting to know Jane Henson — at least a little. She was brassy, brilliant, outspoken, and opinionated — and, frankly, the first time I met her, she intimidated the hell out of me. But the more I got to know her, the more I came to find that she was also incredibly warm and sweet, and completely and utterly devoted to her family and friends. She was also just as funny as you might imagine, edgy with a slight whiff of mischief. (And yeah, she was a terrific puppeteer, too — there’s a reason young Jim Henson asked her to be his first performing partner back in 1954: Jim knew sheer talent when he saw it.)

For the five years I knew her, Jane was fighting cancer. And yet, she was always generous with her time, giving me several hours (on several occasions!) in New York, and a few more when she happened to be in Washington, DC. I never called our sessions together “interviews”; instead, I called them conversations – because I think that’s how we both came to regard them. There were times I was worried I might be tiring her out — one session ran nearly five hours — but Jane seemed to have a nearly endless enthusiasm; the one time I suggested that we start wrapping things up because she might be tired, she simply looked at her watch, raised an eyebrow at me, and shrugged, “If you say so.”

Yeah, I came to adore her.

The last time I saw her was late summer 2012.  She was a bit tired, but still as punchy as ever and we talked for several hours in the conference room of the Jim Henson Legacy, an organization she founded in 1993 to preserve and perpetuate Jim’s life and work. When I got up to leave that afternoon, I took her right hand in mine and shook it. “Thank you for sharing Jim with me,” I told her, “and thanks for sharing you.” She patted the back of my hand warmly with her left hand and smiled.

Jane Henson died Tuesday morning at the age of 78. And I’ll miss her.

Jim Henson: The Biography is now available for pre-order.  There’s no cover for it yet — everyone’s still working on that part — but the listing is up on various bookseller websites, as well as on Goodreads. You can pre-order it from your favorite bookseller right here, and see it on Goodreads here.

I went up to New York for a few days last week to sit in on a few discussions about marketing and promotion — and while I can’t tell you just yet what the crack team at Random House has in mind, I can say I’m very excited about pretty much all of it. I also had the chance to hold in my hands a bound version of the manuscript, complete with a mock-up title page (and yeah, it looks like we’ve arrived at an Official Name for it — more on that once it’s Officially Official) that gets circulated in-house and will be going out for blurbs shortly.

I’m still going through photographs and running down clearances — a labor-intensive process which involves putting together long lists of extended quotes, lyrics, quotes from TV shows and movies, and bits of correspondence that I’ll need permission to use. But in the meantime, as vice president of Biographers International Organization, I’m working hard with our president, board, and team of volunteers to put together what looks like a fantastic conference in New York City this coming May. But don’t take my word for it; check out the conference website right here. Better yet, once you’ve checked it out, sign up to attend. This promises to be our largest and most informative — and entertaining — conference yet.

When I last left you, the first full draft was sitting on my desk in hard copy while an electronic copy had been whisked away over the emailz to my editor. Since that time, it’s been read and re-read and edited and redrafted two more times. As of November 30, it now looks like this (I knew you were coming, so I posed it among a photo montage just for fun):

The first draft came in at about 730 pages; this draft is a bit shorter — around 680 pages — but one of the really great things about working with a really great editor is that things not only get shorter, but they get tighter and better. (Editors are the great unsung heroes of most of the books you’ve read — and if you wanna know what else mine is up to, you can follow him over on Twitter at @RyanDoh). While it needs just a bit of fine tuning, it’s very nearly complete, and should be done before Christmas.

There.  That catches you up on that part.

Next up, we’ll start deciding on the photos that’ll be used inside. I’ve already spent days poring over countless images from the Jim Henson Company and Sesame Workshop, trying to decide which ones might make the cut — a tough call, given that nearly every image is a keeper, and I haven’t even started going through the collection of  images now owned by Disney. That should happen sometime in January — and we’re still right on track to have Jim’s story in your hands on his 77th birthday: September 24, 2013.

I’m on the road at the moment — perhaps fittingly, I spent the morning in the Sesame Workshop archives — but I’ll post a bit more about Jerry on my return.  Until then, here’s Jerry performing with Jim Henson in one of my very favorite bits: the yip-yipping Martians, as they make first contact with an Earth telephone.  (Jerry  is the pink Martian…)

The first draft of Jim Henson sits in all its 700-page glory, to the likely approval of the Jim Henson action figure (as well as the photobombing Jim and Kermit bookmark).

I delivered the first draft of Jim Henson (as I’m currently calling it) to my editor earlier this week. (Actually, I delivered an electronic version to him — this 700-page monster is the one that gets filed away, with all the other first drafts.)

I’m taking a bit of a break for a moment — I’m headed to New York later this afternoon, in fact, to talk about Washington Irving — and then the next round of fun begins.  Stay tuned.

Until then, head for the lobby!