Warren Adler's Blog, page 47

Whatever Happened to ‘Books’?

We are going through a period where such books are getting lost in the crowded corridors of our commercial enterprises. Despite this, such books will continue to be written by those who must tell these stories, and read by those who hunger to read them.

Take Your Choice, Your Privacy or Your Privates

More than ever, we are an open book, an easy target, a bloodless check mark. Our individuality has been compromised. Technology has destroyed our privacy and revealed our preferences, desires, fantasies, biases and prejudices.

Iconic Book-Turned-Film The War of the Roses, Will Debut as Stage Play Across the United States After ‘Sold-Out’ Runs in a Dozen Nations

The War of the Roses stage play, based on Warren Adler's iconic novel that was turned into the blockbuster hit starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito, will debut across the North-American theatre circuit and other English-speaking territories worldwide starting in 2013, following house-full runs and spectacular reviews throughout Italy, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Poland, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, the Czech Republic. It will soon be premiering in Mexico City, as well.

The Contest Ploy for Literary Credibility

The Warren Adler Short Story Contest, which started online in 2006 and continued until 2011, was an outgrowth of my three brief years running a short story contest for the Wyoming Arts Council when I lived in Jackson Hole.

When ‘Unfilmable’ Books Make Memorable Movies

 

By Elizabeth Blair, NPR.org

The centerpiece of the film Life of Pi is a boy adrift on a lifeboat with a tiger in the middle of the ocean. That’s easy enough for Yann Martel to describe in his novel — but hard to make happen on the set of a movie. As it happens, Pi is in theaters with another movie based on an “unfilmable” novel: Cloud Atlas, with six different plots in six different time periods.

Some books are challenging to film because they’re challenging to read. Take Ulysses, James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness masterpiece, published in 1922.

“Ulysses was for a very long time considered unfilmable both because of the complexity of the plot and the point of view of the characters,” says Maria Konnikova, a freelance writer who recently explored unfilmable books for The Atlantic.

She points out that Ulysses has actually been filmed — not once but twice.…

The Rise of the Literary Genres

Genre: From ghost to graphic to gran. Illustration: Damien Poulain

By Robert McCrum, Guardian.co.uk

A week ago, writing about 62-year old Hilary Boyd’s Thursdays in the Park (Quercus), I coined the term “gran lit”. Hardly original, you will say, (no dispute there), but it caught on. Subsequently, variations on “gran lit” appeared in the Times, the Telegraph and the Independent, as well as getting recognition in Australia’s Herald-Sun.

The gran in question (Mrs Boyd) also popped up on both the ITV News at Ten and the Today Show, challenging the conventional wisdom: just because you’re over 60, you’re not interested in having a fling. I’m wondering how long it will be before gran lit joins chick lit, and the rest, as a term of art. That’s to say, as a shorthand for a now-booming genre of fiction for the “grey market”.

The development of the literary marketplace in the past 30-something years has been echoed by a new, and acute, sensitivity to the place of genre within the trade.

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The 4 Big Reasons Great Books Are Rejected

“The point is, publishers sometimes reject good books, for reasons other than that the book stinks or has no literary merit. Before you dash off a comment about the irrelevance of sales, please remember this: publishers are in business to make money. If they thought the book had a bat’s chance of selling 500,000 copies, they’d have inked the deal on the spot. Unfortunately, none of us has ESP. I can assure you of this: good books, very good books, books editors love and agents believe in deeply, are routinely rejected…”

“…If you wrote a great book and your agent tried to sell it but failed, take heart: the rejection was by no means a statement about your talent, likely even your book. Rather than put your book in a drawer, why not try what so many successful authors have already done: publish it yourself!”

Read more: Terri Guilianno Long, The Art and Craft of Writing Creatively

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Sex-Crazed Washington

The fact is that Washington has always been a sex-crazed town. Sex is the one entitlement that no matter how many powerful men, and now women, get outed and put in the stocks to be hooted or reviled by their fellow adulterers in the media and the hallowed halls of Government, the lure of the hormonal urge continues on its merry way.

GREAT ADAPTATIONS: Novel to Film

“Among the greatest satisfactions for movie fans is seeing a beloved novel successfully transferred to the screen, or reading a book that provided the basis for a favorite film. With this blockbuster of a festival, Turner Classic Movies puts a spotlight on cinematic treatments of great novels in a wide array of genres, encompassing 92 movies and a huge number and variety of subjects.”

Great Adaptations Film Festival: Mondays and Wednesdays in November, TCM Channel

Read more: Roger Fristoe, TCM…

Surviving Sandy: Stories from the Publishing World

(Article originally published in Publishers Weekly, Diane Roback)

Hurricane Sandy touched millions of lives last week, including many in the children’s book community. Here a few authors and publishers tell their storm stories.

Dinah Stevenson, Clarion Books

Not a lot of drama, just a foot of water on the ground floor of my Hoboken brownstone, where the kitchen is. No power, no heat or hot water, no phone. I was sitting in the dark with a friend on Thursday evening, and our conversation was interrupted by a kind of rattling roar. “Oh, that’s just the fridge,” I said reassuringly. “Just the fridge?” she repeated. That’s when the penny dropped and I realized the electricity was on. Casualties: dishwasher, wall oven, and possibly the floor—it’s oak, the whole ground floor, and may have gotten wet beyond its ability to dry out. I’m aware every minute of how fortunate I was.…