Fusenews: Because Nothing Says “Sexy” Better Than the Words “TV Makeover”

Inspired by an old New Yorker article entitled Lives of Others, author Marc Tyler Nobleman has come up with a smart two-part piece on the very morality of writing about other people.  "So are biographers vampires, feeding not on the blood but on the feats and flaws of others? When I first read what Secrest wrote about ‘others’ misfortunes,’ I was startled by how uneasy it made me feel—I get paid to write about people who will not get paid."  Very worthwhile reading, particularly the part where it is revealed that readers enjoy the notion that becoming famous consists of being lucky.  "One day, you’re riding along on your donkey or in your Honda Civic or whatever, a voice speaks to you, and suddenly you are on the way to being St. Paul or Leonard Bernstein."

• Since when did Scholastic Media get into the movie business?  From Cynopsis Kids :

Scholastic Media will launch several new live-action and animated series at Mipcom and MipJunior this October:

• The Wedding Planner’s Daughter , based on the book series by Coleen Murtagh Paratore, which follows Willa (17) on her mission to find love for herself and her commitment phobic mother.

Congrats to Coleen.  Quite "the get" if you know what I mean.

• Here’s a piece I’d love to see replicated in our own sphere at some point.  The Print site has written a piece called Kill Your Darlings that discusses book jackets that the designers wanted to go one way, and instead went another.  The piece shows the before and after of various jackets.  More often than not we hear authors discuss jackets and their various disappointments with them.  It’s nice to get a slight change of pace and to hear from the designers and the ones that got away.  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

• We’ve all heard about the fear conjured up by the sight of a blank page.  Not so much the blank blog post page, but it happens.  Copyblogger suggests overcoming this fear by writing The Most Horrible Blog Post Ever.  Something I know all about.  Trust me .  Thanks to The Happy Accident for the link.

• Editor Cheryl Klein was the continuity editor on the Harry Potter books.  She also edits a plethora of fine n’ fancy children’s and YA material, and happens to be one darned brilliant speaker.  Logical that she would write a book then, yes yes?  Well a book she has written and she’s using Kickstarter to get funding to produce Leaf and Tree: A Book About Writing, Editing and Publishing.  And you can help.  The money you give translates into the number of books she’ll be able to crank out.  Cool idea, eh?  I would read that book.

• Inside the Audiobook Studio has an interview up with Mo Willems and Trixie about the newest Knuffle Bunny recording. Witty. Urbane. Profound.  Profane.  Wait… scratch that last note.  And thanks to Mary Burkey for the link.

• And SPEAKING of Mo Willems . . . my roving reporter in the field Dan McCoy (all bloggers should have roving reporters at their beck and call, says I) found this amazing little tidbit in his travels.  Here is a segment of the recent David Wain (of The State) interview at The AV Club:

  "DW: Well, I wasn’t in the original original group. The short story is that, when I got to NYU in the fall of ’87, I got very quickly involved with a sketch-comedy troupe run by a guy named Mo Willems who’s gone on to become one of the top children’s book writers in the world right now. But at the time, he was a sophomore at NYU and a self-styled comedy guru. He put together this sketch group, and I’d seen a show they had done, and I was so excited. It was the same kind of thing that The State turned out to be."

Mo = The State.  You heard it here first.  A million thanks to Dan for the link.

• It really kind of puts it into perspective.  As a children’s librarian I’ll sometimes whine and moan when small adorable children take huge clusters of books and force them bodily into shelves where they do not belong.  But at least my books have nice plastic covers to protect them from rips and tears.  Consider then the plight of your average bookseller.  No more complaints from me.  Just mildly stifled sighs from here on in.

• The Sci-Fi channel changed the spelling of its name to SyFy which, to my mind, should be pronounced "siffy".  As such, that’s how I will now refer to them.  Siffy has recently announced in the Telegraph, Alice in Wonderland gets ‘sexy’ TV makeover.  Uh-oh.  That can’t be good.  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

• Daily Image:

This one’s going out to those of you who have to collect multiple paper towel and toilet paper tubes for your craft programs.

By Marc Johns.  Thanks to Swiss-Miss for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews