Atwood’s children series to get TV treatment

Yesterday, McArthur & Company announced that it has sold TV rights to Margaret Atwood’s Wandering Wenda and Friends children’s books to Breakthrough Entertainment. The deal comprises rights to the series’ previously published picture books — Wandering Wenda, Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda, Princess Prunella, and Rude Ramsay — as well as a forthcoming fifth fable, Silent Sam (all illustrated by Dušan Petričić).

Breakthrough, the Toronto TV production and distribution company behind HBO Canada’s Less Than Kind, and kids’ shows such as Crash Canyon and The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon, has confirmed that it’s developing the books into an animated series for preschoolers.

The news comes on the heels of another recent Atwood adaptation. Earlier this month, Payback, a documentary based on the author’s 2008 Massey lectures, came out to positive reviews. 

Author to spend six days in bookstore window

Isabel Losada has just wrapped another day sitting in the window of a Parisian bookstore. That’s four down and two to go for the U.K. author, who’s in town to promote the release of the French-language translation of her 2001 book, The Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment/Mes Tribulations sur le chemin de l’éveil (Presses du Châtelet).

It isn’t the first time Losada has been “author in residence in window” (as she refers to the experience on her website). Last year, the author — who also wrote the 2004 bestseller For Tibet, with Love — set up shop for a week in the window of a London Waterstones to mark the SW11 Literary Festival. This time around, she’s parked her publicity/merchandising stunt from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. in the window of W.H. Smith, the largest English-language bookshop in Paris. If a recent status update on Losada’s Facebook page is any indication, the setting hasn’t been ideal for selling a French-language title:

Twitter fuels rumours of American Psycho sequel

It appears that anything Bret Easton Ellis does is bound to provoke fascination and chatter. That includes posting to his Twitter feed.

On Saturday, Book Riot posted a series of Tweets from the author’s late-night “rave session” on the popular social media site, during which he mused publicly about the possibility of penning a sequel to his controversial 1991 novel American Psycho.

The first tweet appeared at 1 a.m. PST on March 10, and read, “1:00 AM in L.A. and sitting at my desk finishing a script and suddenly I’m making notes on where Patrick Bateman’s now and maybe he could …” There followed a flurry of tweets musing about what American Psycho’s protagonist would be doing in 2012. These included thoughts on his favourite movie (The Help), his new favourite song (“Fix You” by Coldplay), and his relationship with new technology (“Patrick’s iPad would start speaking to him … Telling him Adele’s cover of The Cure drove him to killing, well, just about everybody …”)

The Sidney Morning Herald picked up on the Book Riot post, asking a question Quillblog is sure others have asked in the past: “Is everything OK with Bret Easton Ellis?”

From the SMH:

By the time Ellis signed off he said he had created 14 pages of notes, and was receiving ideas from his followers.

”Keeping what might be the new book under wraps for now after last night’s inspiration. But am still interested in suggestions and advice … Please keep sending me ideas. You won’t get credit. But they help.”

Q&A with New Brunswick poet Sue Sinclair

New Brunswick poet Sue Sinclair is the author of four books of poetry: Secrets of Weather & Hope (Brick Books, 2001), Mortal Arguments (Brick, 2003), The Drunken Lovely Bird (Goose Lane Editions, 2004), and Breaker (Brick, 2008). In 2005, she received the International Independent Publisher’s Award for Poetry, and has been shortlisted for the Gerald Lampert Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and an Atlantic Poetry Prize.

Sinclair is currently writer-in-residence at the University of New Brunswick. On March 12, she will read from Breaker at UNB’s Lorenzo Reading Series in Saint John.

What are the responsibilities of a writer-in-residence at UNB?
The job is split in two: part of my time is devoted to working on my own literary projects and the other part is for supporting the development of the literary community around me.

Why is the Lorenzo Reading Series important to New Brunswick?
The series is of national calibre and gives New Brunswickers the chance to hear some of the most accomplished writers in Canada read their work.

Why poetry?
The poem may respond to a moment or event that is clearly marked as occasional: the new year, say, or the death of a father. Or the poem may notice what is less obviously an occasion: an apple at rest on a table, a plane exhaling exhaust across the afternoon sky. The poem can be a kind of ceremony that draws one’s attention to a moment or constellation of moments worth pausing to consider.

What are you currently working on?
I’m working on a series of poems called “Exercises in Beauty” that springs from the work I’ve been doing in philosophy. Each poem asks readers to imagine something beautiful, then poses questions about what we might take the beauty of such a thing to be, and how this beauty may, or may not, fit into other aspects of our lives and world.

Andrew Pyper sells manuscript to Universal Pictures, Simon & Schuster

The film rights to Andrew Pyper’s forthcoming novel, The Demonologist, have been optioned to Universal Pictures.

The book follows a Columbia University professor and demonology expert who uses Milton’s Paradise Lost as a guide to the underworld, where he plans to rescue his daughter who killed herself while seemingly under demonic possession. The big screen adaptation will be produced by ImageMovers, the company behind Cast Away, Polar Express, and Beowulf and co-owned by director Robert Zemeckis (Romancing the Stone, Back to the Future, Forrest Gump).

Along with the movie deal, Pyper has recently secured a North American home for the book with Simon & Schuster. (Orion had already picked up U.K. rights before the North American deal was made.) S&S acquired the book at auction in a six-figure deal arranged by Anne McDermid of Anne McDermid & Associates and Stephanie Cabot of the Gernert Company in New York. (McDermid arranged the film deal along with Howie Sanders at United Talent Agency in Beverly Hills.)

Pyper’s last book, 2011′s The Guardians, was published by Doubleday Canada, which also released The Killing Circle in 2008. He’s also previously published with HarperCollins Canada and The Porcupine’s Quill.

On his website, Pyper writes the forthcoming book is “something of a creative departure for me – or perhaps more an escalation – and so it feels right for it to have a new home. I’m inspired by the brainstorms I’ve already had with my editor at S&S, Sarah Knight, and hope this is the beginning of a long, happy marriage.”

S&S will publish The Demonologist early in 2013. In the U.K., Orion will publish the book in October of this year.

Children’s author and illustrator Jan Berenstain dead at 88

Pennsylvania’s Jan Berenstain, co-author and illustrator of the beloved Berenstain Bears book series, has died. Berenstain suffered a stroke on Thursday and died on Friday at the age of 88.

With over 300 titles published in 23 languages, the stories of Mama Bear, Papa Bear, Brother Bear, and Sister Bear have sold 260 million copies worldwide. The first book, The Big Honey Hunt, was published in 1962.

From The Washington Post:

The books in recent years have tackled modern subjects such as online safety and childhood obesity, and the bears (or their human helpers) answer children’s emails and letters, but the goal is to tell enduring, universal stories. Perennial favourites cover challenges of getting kids to doing chores, defuse fears of the first day of school and teach values of kindness and generosity.

“It’s wonderful to do something you love for so many years,” Jane Berenstain told the Associated Press in 2011. “Not everyone has that.”

Stan and Jan Berenstain created hundreds of books together until his death in 2005 at the age of 82. She continued to work from her home in Buck County, the inspiration for the books’ setting, until the day before she died.

For the past few years, the Berenstains’ son Mike has collaborated with his mother and plans to continue to write and illustrate the series, while his older brother, Leo, holds up the business end of the family publishing franchise.

J.K. Rowling signs deal for an adult novel; Twitter goes hog wild

Five years after finishing life at Hogwarts, J.K. Rowling is back with a new publisher and a book deal for her first adult novel. Little, Brown will publish the untitled novel in the U.S. and in the U.K., and Hachette Book Group Canada will handle Canadian sales and marketing.

Rowling’s best-selling Harry Potter series, published by Bloomsbury in the U.K. and Scholastic in the U.S., was initially published in Canada by Raincoast Books, which enjoyed record-breaking sales until 2010. Canadian editions are now available through Penguin Canada.

In a statement Rowling said:

Although I’ve enjoyed writing it every bit as much, my next book will be very different to the Harry Potter series, which has been published so brilliantly by Bloomsbury and my other publishers around the world. The freedom to explore new territory is a gift that Harry’s success has brought me, and with that new territory it seemed a logical progression to have a new publisher. I am delighted to have a second publishing home in Little, Brown, and a publishing team that will be a great partner in this new phase of my writing life.

Although the release date and details for the new book are unknown, Rowling, who does not have a social media presence, is trending worldwide on Twitter. Here are a few entertaining tweets out of the thousands already posted:

Best publicity stunt of the day: Lemony Snicket and Seth collaborate on new series

Quill & Quire is not in the habit of publishing emails, but this one demands sharing.

This afternoon, Q&Q was blind-copied on a correspondence between Vikki VanSickle, marketing and publicity coordinator at HarperCollins Canada, and the curmudgeonly children’s author Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snicket. The email revealed the “confidential” news that HarperCollins Canada is publishing a four-book series by Snicket, with illustrations by Canadian artist Seth.

From Lemony Snicket:

From: LemonySnicket
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 11:43 AM
To: Vansickle, Vikki
Subject: RE: Lemony Snicket Announcement – CONFIDENTIAL

My Dear Ms. VanSickle,

As I have already explained at length to you and others in this publishing conspiracy: no.

Take this press release back, please. I have attached it here. I have sympathy for anyone wanting to promote my work, but none of this information can be released.

In particular, I do not want to see this press release distributed to the list of people I’ve taken care to blind copy above. May they remain forever blind to any information about myself or my work.

These books are questionable and contain questions. I, for one, question why anyone would be interested in reading them.

And have the decency to leave Seth out of it. He has enough trouble as a celebrated artist imprisoned in a basement studio in some wretched university town, not to mention the fact that he’s Canadian.

I would appreciate it if you didn’t contact me again. I’ll be in my office until 4.

With all due respect,

Lemony Snicket

The email was accompanied by a “press release” with a placeholder for a quote from Seth (“if and when he recovers from the trauma of your last encounter”), and a marked-up version of the cover.

The official press release, which arrived 15 minutes later, confirmed that the first book in Snicket’s series, Who Could That Be at This Hour?, will be available in ebook and print formats on Oct. 23.

Robert Lepage’s creative alchemy

This feature by Sarah Greene appeared in the November 2011 issue of Q&Q.

Robert Lepage’s impressive artistic career spans theatre, film, and opera, and includes stints as designer and director for Cirque du Soleil and a Peter Gabriel world tour. The prolific Quebec actor, writer, and director has now added graphic novelist to his list of achievements. The Blue Dragon, first published in French earlier this year by Quebec’s Éditions Alto, appears this month from House of Anansi Press.

Adapted from the play of the same name, the book reunites co-writers Lepage and Marie Michaud, both of whom performed in the original 2008 production. The idea for the graphic novel, first suggested by Lepage’s sister and assistant Lynda Beaulieu, seemed natural given the influence on the play of Hergé’s The Blue Lotus, about TinTin’s adventures in Shanghai; the use of Chinese calligraphy, video, and comic panel-like squares in the set design; and the fact that the central character, Pierre Lamontagne, is a graphic artist and calligrapher.

“We thought a graphic novel would be more faithful, do more justice to the piece,” says Lepage. “We saw it as an opportunity to extend the themes of The Blue Dragon.”

A follow-up to the mid-1980s production The Dragons’ Trilogy, the story is set in modern-­day China and revolves around three characters in a love triangle: Lamontagne, a middle-aged Quebecois artist who lives in Shanghai and runs a contemporary art gallery; his ex-wife, a Montreal-based ­advertising executive hoping to adopt a baby; and Lamontagne’s younger Chinese lover. Just as there are three characters interacting in three languages (French, English, and Mandarin), there are three possible endings to the play and the book. Éditions Alto played on the number by printing a first run of 3,333 copies.

To adapt the highly visual play into print, Lepage and his production company, Ex Machina, imagined how they would present the story as a film. They auditioned a number of Quebecois artists for the project, eventually choosing Fred Jourdain, a young illustrator known for his portraits of rock stars and celebrities. Jourdain’s fluid, vivid illustrations of a rainy Shanghai are conveyed by mixing comic-book art with more painterly images. “He was very strong at expressing emotions on his characters’ faces,” says Lepage.

Anansi publisher Sarah MacLachlan fell in love with this combination of graphica and fine art. “I thought that was an extraordinary thing,” she says. The Blue Dragon is Anansi’s first graphic novel for the adult market (its children’s imprint, Groundwood Books, published the YA title Skim by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki in 2009). Canadian fiction editor Melanie Little met Éditions Alto president Antoine Tanguay last January, at the Canada Council for the Arts’ inaugural translation rights fair in Ottawa, and presented an offer within days.

The graphic novel has also had an effect on the theatrical version of The Blue Dragon, which will be remounted by Toronto’s Mirvish Productions in January. “Our work with Fred had a big influence on the piece,” Lepage says. “Both to make it stronger by simplifying some of the storylines, but also by complexifying some things that needed to be more [complex]. A lot of that came from some of the very rich, effervescent exchanges we had with Fred.”

Lepage says the adaptation was so successful it’s changed his approach to publishing: “Whatever play we come up with we should try to find a format – not necessarily another graphic novel – that is as faithful to our visual approach to the stage as it is [to] the written word.”

Éditions Alto and Ex Machina have continued their partnership, producing a limited-­run souvenir book for Lepage’s production of Stravinsky’s opera The Nightingale and Other Short Fables and collaborating on a nine-volume box set for his epic nine-hour opera Lipsynch.

“[Lepage] is a central cultural figure in Quebec right now,” says Tanguay. “Everything he does turns to gold.”

Illustrations by Fred Jourdain, courtesy of Anansi

Jim C. Hines strikes a pose for women on fantasy book covers

U.S. fantasy writer Jim C. Hines is a brave man.

The author recently posed as the sword-wielding heroine from his novel The Stepsister Scheme. Inspired by the result, Hines posed for several more photos modelled after the covers of best-selling urban fantasy novels. The results – and Hines’ point – speak for themselves (warning: shirtless man).

For a comical take on gender stereotypes and superheros, also check out Kate Beaton’s Sexy Batman and her surly Wonder Woman.