Buzz Worthy News 22 October 2012

22 October, 2012 Buzz Worthy News 19 comments

Buzz Worthy News

Wel­come to this week’s Buzz Wor­thy News! Twitter’s hosting a fiction event, J.K. Rowling’s still awesome (as if you didn’t know that), Andrew Goldman gets called out, and Warner Bros battling over Superman!  All this and much, much more.  Read on to find out everything that’s been hap­pen­ing in the book world this week.

Buzz Wor­thy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly Mon­day news post.  Bring­ing you all the most inter­est­ing, rel­e­vant and fun news from the pub­lish­ing and book blog­ging world.

 

Buzz Worthy News 22 October 2012

Twitter hosting fiction event – still won’t budge 140 character limit

So Twitter is hosting a literary event because pushing the boundaries or expression is totally what twitter is known for.

“Tweeting can be thought of as a new literary practice.”

*Weeps for the future*

At the end of November, we’ll host a five-day Twitter Fiction Festival — a virtual storytelling celebration held entirely on Twitter. The Twitter Fiction Festival (#twitterfiction) will feature creative experiments in storytelling from authors around the world.

Twitter has hosted great experiments in fiction already, from Jennifer Egan’s “Black Box” to Teju Cole’s “Small Fates” to Dan Sinker’s @mayoremanuel. And Twitter has even inspired some literary criticism.

You can go here for further details and to join up.

SOURCE

JK Rowling still on top!

And you doubters had your…doubts.  A million copies of A Casual Vacancy sold, my friends!

Even though Stephanie and I haven’t read A Casual Vacancy yet – we’re sure it’s great and will not take dissenters to our queen’s good name!

Since its September release, The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling has sold one million copies in all formats.

Her publisher issued a brief statement today with the news: “Little, Brown Book Group UK and Hachette Book Group US have sold in excess of a million copies of The Casual Vacancy in the English language (all formats, across all territories) in the first three weeks of it going on sale.  The book is number one in the UK, US, Australia, Canada and Ireland for the third week running. ” SOURCE

Also, additionally, Rowling says her MacBook Air is magical.

SOURCE

Andrew Goldman – So not funny and so suspended

So something happened last week.  Andrew Goldman was being his usual misogynistic self and Jennifer Weiner totally called him out on it on Twitter.

“Saturday am. Iced coffee. NYT mag. See which actress Andrew Goldman has accused of sleeping her way to the top. #traditionsicoulddowithout”

So Goldman, to prove beyond all doubt that he wasn’t a misogynist, responded with:

“Sensing pattern. Little Freud in me thinks you would have liked at least to have had opportunity to sleep way to top.”

Great response there!  Who’s the man? Goldman!  You totes put that woman in her place!  Never again will she question your prowess and right to ask douchey questions again.  Of course, to appease those rabid, annoying feminists who insist on people not regularly shitting all over women, he added a disclaimer: he wrote it in the style of Andrew Dice Clay!

Yes!  It all makes sense now.

WHAT?!  Goldman, dude, bearer of a penis – you mean those nonpenised entities didn’t think that was cool?  Too bad, bro. We here at Cuddlebuggery have all the feels for you.  ALL the feels.

“In light of his recent comments on Twitter, Andrew will not be contributing the Talk column to the Magazine for four weeks, beginning Oct. 28. He’ll be back with the column after that.”

Hey, look, there’s a bright side.  Use those four weeks to come up with interview questions that don’t revolve around whether or not an actress slept her way to the top!  Problem solved.

SOURCE

Way to be AWESOME, Hilary Mantel!

This year’s Man Booker prize winner has been named and it’s Hilary Mantel for her novel, Bringing up the Bodies.

This is actually the second time Mantel has won – making her twice the badass!

Mantel spoke in a Guardian article about what it’s like writing historical fiction:

“It’s the place of obsession – a dangerous obsession.” Mantel is talking about the risks to a writer’s mental health of indulging in historical fiction, of ventriloquising the dead. Or, as she puts it: “What if you visited the 18th century and never came back?” SOURCE

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Booker Prize without controversy!   Peeps be saying that Mantel didn’t NEED to win a second time.   Share some of that Booker love with others that could have used the publicity and recognition Stockhard *cough*strokehard*cough*!

It WOULD have been nice for one of the less known authors to win.  However, last time I checked (which was five minutes ago because I wikied that shit) the Booker prize was to award for the best, original, full-length novel written in the English language – not a Give Publicity to an Underdog Award.

SOURCE

Johnny Depp Launching an Imprint

Apparently Depp doesn’t have anything better to do than just go around and launch a book imprint.  The imprint, which will focus on sensitive oddball characters with funny accents, wearing funny hats and being generally weird.

Ha!  Jokes! HarperCollins was all like, “Hey Depp, wanna launch an imprint ’bout stuff?”

And Depp was like, “Sure, I ain’t got nothing better to do but be ridiculously handsome!  What’s it for?”

And then HarperCollins was like, “To publish obscure, off-beat Hipster crap.”

So, of course, Depp said yes and made the following announcement:

“I pledge, on behalf of Infinitum Nihil, that we will do our best to deliver publications worthy of peoples’ time, of peoples’ concern, publications that might ordinarily never have breached the parapet,” said Depp in a statement. “For this dream realized, we would like to salute HarperCollins for their faith in us and look forward to a long and fruitful relationship together.”

No word yet on whether Tim Burton and Helena Bohem Carter will be joining him on this project.

SOURCE

Just when I think it can’t get worse

It does. Unlike Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, who have both featured their biographies on the big screen, Ke$ha is breaking from the trend and instead opting for infiltrating the publishing industry. The memoir titled My Crazy Beautiful Life is slated to be published next month. Don’t rush out to your book stores all at once now!

“In less than three years I’ve gone from being the worst waitress in LA to living out my childhood dreams of singing my songs to people all over the world. Sometimes, it feels as if the last few years have encompassed a few decades. You might have heard my voice on the radio, seen me onstage and on the red carpet, or in a music video, but that’s only a part of the story. In these pages, I’m revealing a more complete picture of what my life is really like. It’s not all glamorous and it s not all pretty, but it’s all real.”

First Ke$ha then it’ll be… wait for it… One Direction. We can only go downhill from there.

SOURCE

 

Peter Damien Testifies for FanFiction

Peter Damien, a Book Riot contributor, took a stand on the FanFiction argument, giving background on info on how he began writing. In the article, he says how he originally drew on both Star Wars, Star Trek and other SF novels, but how it later developed into something entirely different and original.

 “My next work was a long serial, entirely original, set in its own universe. If it bore resemblance to Star Trek and Star Wars, to the SF novels, well so what? I was young. It was original, though. When I eventually stopped writing that serial, it was because it couldn’t quite contain me any more, and away I went into the world of short stories and varied works which has carried me to the career as a writer I have today.”

With an intense war raging between authors calling fanfiction illegal and possibly infringing on their copywrite, he concludes with this:

“Writers becoming snotty, or hostile, or even actively aggressive against fan-fiction is, to my mind, the equivalent of a big rock band showing up in a tiny town bar with a SWAT team to stop a group of teenagers from playing an off-key cover of one of their songs. It’s not only stupid and pointless, it’s petty, mean, and probably more harmful to the major rock band than to the bar band.

What I’m saying is, the kids are all right. I’m saying, leave fan-fiction alone. There are surely bigger fish to fry.”

SOURCE

 

Warner Bros calls “no take backsies” on Man of Steel

We aren’t the biggest Superman fans, but even we can admit that what Warner Bros is doing with the Siegal family is pretty shitty. Jerry Siegal, the original creator of Superman, had a dying wish for his family to regain the rightful share to Superman and it’s being met with an incredible uphill battle.

“Siegel and Joe Shuster came up with the concept of Superman in 1933, selling their first story to National Allied Publications – which became DC Comics, now a subsidiary of Time Warner – in 1938 for $130. They made little from their creation, however, with ownership of the character under dispute on-and-off ever since.”

His wife and original model for Lois Lane continued to fight for this right until her dying day with no success. Really, Warner?!

Now, the job is left to their daughter, Laura Siegal Larson, who wrote a letter to “Superman Fans Everywhere” saying:

“I refuse to be bullied or deterred from enforcing my family’s rights,” she wrote. “What Warner Bros apparently doesn’t realise is that despite their tremendous power, I will never give up on my parents’ dream of rightfully restoring my father’s rights to his family. Would Superman, the embodiment of ‘truth, justice and the American way’, let Warner Bros, DC Comics, and their gang of attorneys get away with this? Not for an instant!”

SOURCE

 

19 Responses to “Buzz Worthy News 22 October 2012”

  1. Fangs4Fantasy

    Wow someone needs to tell Goldman how to stop digging when he’s in a hole. I do so appreciate when arseholes make it abundantly clear that they are, in fact, arseholes and I can treat their speech with all the same respect and attention as I normally do the air that emits from them.
     
    One Direction boys are writing a memoir? How can you write a memoir when you’re not old enough to have memories?! I always thought the point of biographies and their like was to be published at the end of a long and interesting life (or at least interesting), not to be an annual commentary

  2. cynicalsapphire

    *weeps with you at the idea that literature can be packed into 140 characters* No wonder people have such short attention spans. We shouldn’t cater to that. I have a hard time fitting any thoughts into 140 characters.
     
    Okay, your confidence makes me sort of hope you don’t like A Casual Vacancy and then have to feel all awkward about it. The smart thing might be just not to read it. The only person I know who’s read it so far DNFed.
     
    OH HELL TO THE NO. What a d-bag. What will he ask lady women/baby makers/vajayjays if he can’t ask about how they used their wiles (not talent – women don’t have that) to get to the top? The interview would just be dead air!
     
    I just bought Wolf Hall this weekend and was trying to remember in my book haul post whether she’d won again. I said I thought she had and I was right. I am VINDICATED!
     
    Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter will be there, I have no doubt. Hipster imprint. All books will be out of print as soon as they are released and sold only in super secret stores. All of the covers will be plaid and the books will come with complimentary cans of PBR.
     
    I’ve never heard One Direction. Nor do I know why anyone would want to read about any of these people. Also, that album cover is awful. That must be what an acid trip is like. Johnny Depp’s imprint would know!

  3. Fangs for the Fantasy

    I tbhink we’re missing the good side of the whole “tweeting literature”

    Imagine, if you will, the Fallen series. 4 books that we couldn’t make prisoners of war read without breaking Geneva Concentions. Imagine a world where those 4 books are reduced to 4 tweets, 4 little tweets. Save the Pearls just on deeply offensive 140 characters, 50 shades of Grey reduced to just a few naughty words on Twitter (with space made for *quiet whisper* DOWN THERE)

    Sing it with me now, “What a wonderful woooooorld…”

      • Juli @ The Reviews News

        I agree with Exp. Totally.

        Also, just gotta say that the whole Andrew Goldman thing reminds me of this line in a sonnet I wrote Freshman year of High School: “TOTES FEMINIST!”

        I don’t know, man. People are weird.

  4. Kate C.

    I love fan fiction, but I guess I could see where some authors would get pissed about it.  I don’t think sweet Mormon Stephanie Meyers is happy about 50 Shades of Disgusting.  And then on top of it for James to make so much dang money from something that is so the opposite of everything she probably believes in.  
    That is just one example off the top of my head.

  5. Senator

    Oh sweet baby cheeses, you guys get the best news and I always laugh. 
     
    I do have one request, however. Can the scary troll face jpegs stop? They’re, well, scary…. Two in a week is certainly my fill. Also, thanks for bringing back livefyre! Yippie!

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