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Newsroom (Index)
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 Writerswrite.com's Writer's Blog
• Melissa Rosenberg Talks New Moon Screenplay
17 Nov 2009 at 3:00pm
Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, who has adapted Stephenie Meyer's bestselling novels Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse into screenplays,
talked to The L.A. Times about working with author Stephenie Meyer so closely to make sure the author's vision was translated into film, while still having her own stamp on the script.
In the first book, with "Twilight," I don't think I even met her until I was well into a draft and I was worried about meeting her because she was the 500-pound gorilla, she was the heavyweight. I was really protective of my process. I was afraid. I didn't know her from Adam, and I was afraid of getting run over and of not being able to create what I wanted to create or in some way have my voice stifled. When I met her, I realized, "Oh, that's not going to happen at all." But she was cautious too. She was looking at me going, "Are you going to butcher my child?" By the time I finished "Twilight," her reaction to it, it was still one of the great moments of my career, having the author say such wonderful things about the script. From that moment she relaxed about can I deliver and I relaxed about inviting her into my process.
I didn't have... ( cont'd )
• Biopic Shows Enid Blyton as Cruel, Vindictive and a Terrible Mother
16 Nov 2009 at 3:00pm
A new British television biopic of Enid Blyton stars Helena Bonham Carter. Helena studied the life of the famous author, whose children's books have sold 600 million copies around the world. She discovered that everyone agreed that Enid was not a very nice person, to say the least. Her last living child said she was a selfish bully and a terrible parent who was mean and spiteful, like a teenager who never grew up. She also was an adultress many times over.
Blyton lived at her cottage, Old Thatch, near the Thames at Bourne End, then at Green Hedges, a mock-Tudor house in Beaconsfield. Bonham Carter told a UK tabloid, "Enid's self-awareness was brilliant and she was incredibly controlling, too. I was attracted to the role because she was bonkers. She was an emotional mess and quite barking mad. What I found extraordinary, bordering on insane, was the way that Enid reinvented her own life. She was allergic to reality -- if there was something she didn't like then she either ignored it or re-wrote her life."
"She didn't like her mother, so let her colleagues assume she was dead. When her mother died, she refused to attend the funeral. Then the first husb... ( cont'd )
• Comedy Writer David Lloyd Dead at 75
13 Nov 2009 at 3:00pm
Emmy winning comedy writer David Lloyd has died. He was 75. Lloyd wrote the classic "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
Lloyd died of prostate cancer Tuesday at his home in Beverly Hills, said his son, writer-producer Christopher Lloyd.
"I do think he was the preeminent writer of television comedy," said Les Charles, co-creator of "Cheers," for which Lloyd wrote numerous episodes.
"If you consider how long his career was and how much he wrote for such really popular shows, he's got to have been responsible for a record number of laughs in this world," Charles said.
His four-decade comedy career began with writing jokes for Jack Paar on "The Tonight Show" in 1962 and included writing for "The Bob Newhart Show," "Phyllis," "Rhoda," "Lou Grant," "Taxi," "Frasier" and many other shows.
"He was a remarkable writer," said Allan Burns, who created "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" with James L. Brooks and began working with Lloyd when he moved to Hollywood from New York in 1974 to write for the series.
"The word 'wit' doesn't come up an awful lot when you're talking about television comedy, but that's what David was: a genuine wit," sa... ( cont'd )
• U.S. Media Running Afoul of British Libel Laws
12 Nov 2009 at 3:00pm
Libel laws are much stricter in Great Britain than they are in the U.S. and there no constitutional right to free speech. This puts U.S. newspapers in legal jeopardy when they sell U.S. publications, such as The New York Times, in Britain. Many expatriates read major U.S. newspapers, which are readily available in London. But now the newspapers are getting ready to pull out of Great Britain, saying that the hassle and lawsuit threats aren't worth the readership. They are also going to block access to their websites by the British in order to comply with the libel laws.
A memorandum submitted to a Commons select committee, ahead of a meeting with US publishers, states: "Leading US newspapers are actively considering abandoning the supply of the 200-odd copies they make available for sale in London -- mainly to Americans who want full details of their local news and sport. They do not make profits out of these minimal and casual sales and they can no longer risk losing millions of dollars in a libel action which they would never face under US law. Does the UK really want to be seen as the only country in Europe -- indeed in the world -- where important U... ( cont'd )
• Lemony Snicket Moves to Little, Brown
11 Nov 2009 at 1:00pm
Daniel Handler, who writes the bestselling Lemony Snicket books, has moved from HarperCollins to Little, Brown. He signed a deal to write four new Lemony Snicket books and one stand alone young adult title.
In August, Egmont U.K. bought British rights to the four-book series; no U.S. publisher was announced at that time.
The Handler/Snicket team will work with longtime editor Susan Rich who has joined LBYR in the newly created position of editor-at-large. Rich was formerly at HarperCollins Children's Books, first in the New York office and then in Toronto.
A Series of Unfortunate Events was a blockbuster for HarperCollins, selling 60 million copies. We loved the series and can't wait to see Mr. Snicket has in store for us this time.
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• Study Finds Texting Lingo Doesn't Harm Spelling
10 Nov 2009 at 11:00am
The Washington Post reports that a University of Alberta study found that texting probably does not mean students will become bad spellers. They also found that text lingo or "chatspeak" has its own set of emerging rules and that young people already seem to know the correct way to spell words in text language.
The study was proposed by a group of third-year psychology students who surveyed roughly 40 students ages 12 to 17. The participants were asked to save their instant messages for a week. At the end of the study, the participants completed a standardized spelling test.
Varnhagen said the researchers were pleasantly surprised by the results. The young people surveyed seem to know, without any sort of instruction, that there are "correct" ways of spelling in chatspeak. For instance, "probably" is abbreviated as "prolly," but never "proly"; "want to" becomes "wanna," never "wana" or "wanta"; "should've" is always "shoulda" and never "shuda."
"Kids who are good spellers [academically] are good spellers in instant messaging," she said. "And kids who are poor spellers in English class are poor spellers in instant messaging."
It is good that texting ... ( cont'd )
• British Book Sales: Nonfiction Slumps, Fiction Sells
6 Nov 2009 at 6:00pm
The Bookseller reports that sales of nonfiction in Britain are slumping while sales of fiction are up 90%.
Sales of this year's top 10 non-fiction books in October were down 52% year on year, while sales of hardback fiction titles have soared by 90%.
Figures for the most recent week to 31st October showed non-fiction continuing to underperform. Only Guinness World Records and Delia Smith's Delia's Happy Christmas (Ebury) sold more than 10,000 copies last week. Last year 10 hardback non-fiction titles passed this threshold during the same period.
*****
Cookery titles have in the past been a Christmas staple, with celebrity chefs whipping up high sales. However, sales of Jamie's America (Michael Joseph) have been well behind Jamie's Ministry of Food (Michael Joseph) from last year. Sally Hughes of Books for Cooks said: "Jamie did well when he was on TV but has fallen off quickly. River Cafe is not moving as well as we thought it might-it is selling but it seems a bit slow."
However, retailers hailed the success of Guinness World Records, which knocked Dan Brown off this week's top spot with sales of 31,812.
*****
In spite of non-fiction's woes, sales of... ( cont'd )
• Publisher's Weekly Under Fire for All Male Best Books List
5 Nov 2009 at 2:00pm
Publisher's Weekly is under fire for putting out list of the ten best books of the year that includes no female authors.
"The absence made me nearly speechless." said poet and creative writing professor Cate Marvin, co-founder of new US literary organisation Women in Letters and Literary Arts (WILLA). WILLA has gathered more than 5,500 members since it launched in August with the aim of bringing "increased attention to women's literary accomplishments and [questioning] the American literary establishment's historical slow-footedness in recognising and rewarding women writers' achievements".
The group pointed to new books published this year by Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Rita Dove, Heather McHugh and Alicia Ostriker. "It continues to surprise me that literary editors are so comfortable with their bias toward male writing, despite the great and obvious contributions that women authors make to our contemporary literary culture," said Marvin.
Announcing the list, novelist and journalist Louisa Ermelino said that PW "wanted [it] to reflect what we thought were the top 10 books of the year with no other consideration". "We i... ( cont'd )
• Stephen King Pens Poem for Playboy Magazine
4 Nov 2009 at 12:00pm
Stephen King has written a new poem for Playboy magazine called "The Bone Church." The Guardian
reminds us that Playboy actually has a long literary history, publishing such authors as
As a young, miserable, unpublished author Stephen King says he used to fantasize about being interviewed in Playboy. But he knew the magazine only interviewed successful, serious authors.
Playboy has a perhaps surprisingly strong literary background, publishing works by authors including John Irving, John Updike, Vladimir Nabokov and Margaret Atwood. This summer, literary editor Amy Grace Loyd acquired first serial rights in Vladimir Nabokov's final, unfinished novel The
Original of Laura for its December issue. It has also enjoyed a lengthy relationship with King, interviewing the author back in 1983.
"The protagonist of Salem's Lot, a struggling young author with a resemblance to his creator, confesses at one point, 'Sometimes when I'm lying in bed at night, I make up a Playboy Interview about me. Waste of time. They only do authors if their books are big on campus.' Ten novels and several million dollars in the bank later, your books are big on campus and everywhere ... ( cont'd )
• New York Public Library Acquires E. Annie Proulx Archive
3 Nov 2009 at 7:00pm
The New York Public Library just acquired treasure trove of research notes, book drafts and other materials belonging to novelist E. Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News.
The trove, housed in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, includes:
* 200 pages of short stories, essays, poems and screenplays
* 145 pages of preparatory notes and research
* 10,200+ pages of typescript
* 2100 galley proofs
* 4500+ pages of correspondence
"To me there is an odd sense of balance that material dealing with some of the most rural landscapes in North America will reside in our major city," Proulx commented.
The author noted that she wanted to donate the archive for several reasons. There is insight into the creative process, to be sure. But she says that the letters, emails, and financial reports will help shed light on this era of American publishing and literature to future historians. She also said that
"We are currently undergoing major changes in the way we regard intellectual property and literary work; some of anxieties of that metamorphosis are reflected in my archive."
Permalink | Recent Hea... ( cont'd )
• Washinton Post Newsroom Erupts With Fistfight
2 Nov 2009 at 3:25pm
Things are tough in the newspaper industry. Falling circulation, layoffs, drops in ad revenue have taken their toll as tempers fray. And now the newsroom at The Washington Post has erupted into fisticuffs.
Politico reports:
Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli found himself in the middle of an altercation Friday evening between Style reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia and editor Henry Allen, but will not say whether the two have been reprimanded by the paper.
"We take this incident seriously and will address it appropriately," Brauchli told POLITICO, declining to comment further.
Reports that Allen punched Roig-Franzia surfaced Monday morning on FishbowlDC, Washingtonian and City Paper (which reported Brauchli was traveling).
Multiple Post sources independently confirmed to POLITICO that Roig-Franzia got hit while defending colleague Monica Hesse from harsh criticism leveled by her editor, Allen.
Allen, according to the Washingtonian, had told Hesse that a piece she had written was "the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years."
Roig-Franzia, also working a story with Hesse that ran Saturday, told Allen not to be such a "c-sucker."
A... ( cont'd )
• Cuba Giving Copies of Hemingway Documents to Kennedy Library
30 Oct 2009 at 12:37pm
The Kennedy Library in Boston will be getting copies of a number of Ernest Hemingway's papers from the government of Cuba.
The Boston Globe reported that Cuba's Ministry of Culture had given the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum copies of 3,000 letters and documents Hemingway amassed during his years in Cuba, from 1939 to 1960. Among the documents are corrected proofs of "The Old Man and the Sea" and an alternate ending to "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (The Globe report did not say what that ending was), as well as correspondence with Robert Capa, Marlene Dietrich, Sinclair Lewis, Lillian Ross, Ingrid Bergman and various members of his family. The library is already home to the Hemingway Archive and the Hemingway Room, which was dedicated in 1980, and includes relics like a lion-skin throw rug, journals of his fishing trips and shrapnel from wounds he suffered during World War I.
Copies are better than nothing at all, but you just know they wish they could get their hands on the originals. But those aren't leaving Cuba anytime soon.
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Newsroom (Index)
1. Working Writers, 2. Fast Cash Freelance, 3. Screenwriting News, 4. Writers Write, 5. Writers in the Sky, 6. Study Student News,7. Freelance Blogging News, 8. Photography News, 9. Graphic Design News, 10. E-Media Tidbits, 11. Bloggers Blog,
12. Creative Freelancing, 13. Copyright Law, 14. Book Deals,
15. Book Publishing News,16. Readers Read, 17. Literacy News,
18. Write Better, 19. Horror Fiction News |
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