"It's very well-written and the love story appeals to a lot of people -- young adults and adults as well," said Sarah Harkins, district marketing manager for Borders, Inc. Much like Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling's rags-to-riches story, Meyer's life took a fairy tale turn. Four years ago, she was a stay-at-home mother of three with no writing experience. Then one night, she had a fateful dream about a vampire's confession of love to a girl.We just love these author rags to riches stories. We can read them all day. This series (which we haven't gotten around to reading yet, alas) sounds like it would really appeal to fans of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
"It was a sweet, kind of tender moment," said Meyer, recounting the dream. "But there was this dark side to it because he was also admitting how much he had wanted to kill her from the first day he met her." That dream would eventually become chapter 13 in her first bestseller, "Twilight." A sequel, "New Moon," would follow. Meyer's themes are admittedly dark, but she says her books are about life, not death -- love, not lust.
In fact, this devout Mormon is a self-described "chicken," too squeamish to sit through gory vampire movies or even read Bram Stoker's "Dracula." "My books are all completely coward-proof. If you're frightened, you can still read them," she said. Meyer has sold more than a million-and-a-half copies of her three books and is writing at least two more novels. But she downplays the obvious Harry Potter comparisons.
Ebert, who is negotiating a new contract with the syndicated TV show's distributor, Disney-ABC Domestic Television, is a copyright holder on the signature "thumbs up-thumbs down" judgment that's part of each film review. He has "exercised his right to withhold use of the 'thumbs' until a new contract is signed," the Walt Disney Co.-owned company said in a statement released Friday to The Associated Press. Health problems have kept Ebert from appearing on the show for more than a year, with guest hosts filling in. In the new season starting this weekend, co-host Richard Roeper will be joined for the first few months by movie critic Robert Wilonsky of the Dallas Observer.Hang tough, Roger! No contract, no thumbs!
Two episodes have been filmed so far without the catchy thumb assessment, which has become a staple of movie marketing and, in turn, a big part of the show's influence. Major releases including "Superbad" and "The Bourne Ultimatum" boast in newspaper ads published Friday of receiving "two big thumbs up" from the show, and at least five other films cite their favorable thumb treatment.
Ebert, 65, holds the copyright to the critique with the estate of Gene Siskel, his original co-host. Ebert, a film critic at the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and Siskel, who was at the rival Chicago Tribune, launched the show in 1975. Siskel died in 1999.
World renown beer critic Michael Jackson passed away
yesterday in London, England at the age of 65. While he often referred to
himself as "not that Michael Jackson," he was known by fans
and fellow critics as "The Beer Hunter" due to his globetrotting
pursuit of exceptional beer.
Throughout his career, Jackson went beyond the barley to illustrate the
cultural significances of beer throughout the world. His works have been
translated in 18 languages, and his most famous title, World Guide to Beer, is still
seen as a definitive text among beer aficionados.
"He was simply the best beer writer we've ever known," said Tim
Hampson, chairman of the British Guild of Beer Writers. "He told wonderful
stories about beer, breweries and far away places. He told the story of beer
through people, and he was humorous and erudite at the same time."
You will be missed, Beer Hunter.
--Dave
Apparently, I'm not alone. The latest Children's Bookshelf e-mail from Publishers Weekly reported yesterday that John Deere children's books--ten titles with sunny names like Busy Days in Deerfield Valley and Danny Dozer Hits a Home Run--have sold more than half a million copies since they were first introduced in 2005.
And what an anthology it is, published by Tachyon Publications, edited by current Asimov's editor Sheila Williams, and featuring classic stories from Asimov, Lucius Shepard, Connie Willis, Robert Silverberg, Kim Stanley Robinson, Kelly Link, Michael Swanwick, and many more.
Writing and publishing are businesses. Literature still has to sell. And when you're working on a book that is in competition with the other 170,000 tomes published each year, clawing for Amazon.com rankings, review coverage, and the hilariously impossible lottery of Oprah's Book Club, things can get ugly. Which is why it helps if the author you're marketing is, well, pretty.Fine, then. It's time to fax the accountant a copy of this article to keep as backup when the IRS audits you for attempting to deduct the cost of Botox, Restylane and gym memberships. Someone needs to alert the Writers Guild and tell them to get their lobbyist hats on. After all, if writers now have to look like actors then we need to start lobbying for the deductibility of the costs of being beautiful as necessary business expenses.
The publishing industry is a lot like Hollywood: cruel, unpredictable, and rife with disillusionment. That doesn't stop thousands of hopefuls from wanting to carve out their own stake in it. Youth and aesthetics have always been a major marketing currency - that's why coming-of-age novels will be reinvented with every new generation. Nearly all of the books by the Hot Young Authors are of this variety. Everyone needs to write the book only they can write about what it's like to be a postmodern adolescent in a postmodern world dealing with the sorts of postmodern problems that, inevitably, sound poetic instead of horrifyingly awkward.
"It's easier in life to be attractive. That's reductive but true," says HarperCollins editor Gail Winston. "On the other hand, a brilliant book by an author who is not young and not attractive isn't going to fail. It's just, I think that those other books - for those reasons, those authors maybe get a little bit of an advantage."
Best-selling youth author R.L. Stine told SCI FI Wire that he will write a dozen more titles in his popular Goosebumps series, which last appeared in 2000 with the 87th book, "Ghost in the Mirror." In the novellas, which blend humor, horror and sometimes SF, teenage heroes and heroines battle and ultimately triumph over a wide array of creepy creatures.If R.L. Stine writes it, it will sell. Why stop when the fans want more?
"I took a break from scaring kids, but now I'm getting back into that," Stine said in an interview while promoting the Sept. 4 release of the direct-to-DVD title R.L. Stine's Haunting Hour: Don't Think About It. "I've just signed a contract to write 12 new Goosebumps books for Scholastic."
The new series, revealed the author, will be called Goosebumps: HorrorLand. "It's a theme park," Stine said. "I'm thrilled. I love doing Goosebumps. It's been a long time. It's my favorite series. So I'm really looking forward to it." The first Goosebumps: HorrorLand title, "Revenge of the Living Dummy," will be released in April 2008.
Daniel was still in a group home when his father's memoir, Timebends, was published, in 1987. In his account of 1966, Miller wrote that he felt "uplifted by what was clearly a new life being born around me"—referring not to the birth of his son that year but to the expansion of PEN. There are hints in Timebends that Miller was struggling with his guilt about Daniel. He wrote at length about his own father's abandonment by his parents, and said that Marilyn Monroe, who was raised in a foster home, taught him to spot an orphan in a crowded room, to recognize in his or her eyes "the bottomless loneliness that no parented person can really know." He repeatedly addressed the subject of denial. "Man is what man is," he wrote, "nature's denial machine." There were those who read his memoir and sensed that he was trying to tell the truth, without saying it out loud. It was "as if he wanted to be outed," says one friend.
Historian Will Durant once said that "To say nothing, especially when speaking, is half the art of diplomacy." An upcoming book by Richard Woolcott supports this claim by chronicling what happens when diplomats say too much.
Undiplomatic Activities is a collection of linguistic foul-ups from orators attempting to convey their thoughts in foreign languages. As a former head of Australia's foreign service, Woolcott has seen (and heard) it all--from confused translators to painfully mispronounced words resulting in stifled audience laughter
My personal favorite:
Woolcott said the best interpretations sometimes involved no translation at all, such as the unnamed Asian minister who told a long joke at a banquet in Seoul.
"The Korean interpreter was lost, but did not show it. He uttered a few sentences and the audience laughed and applauded," Woolcott wrote.
After later being complimented on his translating skills, the interpreter confessed to the real reason for the laughter.
"Frankly, minister, I did not understand your joke so I said in Korean that the minister has told his obligatory joke, would you all please laugh heartily and applaud."
An official release date has yet to be announced for Woolcott's book.
--Dave