Buzz Worthy News: February 6, 2014

6 February, 2015 Buzz Worthy News 21 comments

BWN-bee-graphicBuzz Worthy News 6th February 2014

Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome and not at all well-written. Need your YA industry news? Never fear, Kat and Kate are here to give it all to you. Just, ya know, not in any kinda sophisticated sense or nothing.

In this week’s Buzz Worthy News Book to movie trailers are out, The Most Awkward 50 Shades of Grey Interview, MyOzObituary Hashtag and more!

Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly news post bringing you all the best information about the book and blogging world, particularly for the venn diagram of people who overlap between the two. For new releases and cover reveals of all the best Young Adult fiction, check out our Tuesday post: Hot New Titles.

First Casual Vacancy Trailer

The first of our trailer offerings today is a rather chilling one.  JK Rowling’s adult mystery novel adaption is about to be released.  (if you’ll recall, BBC and HBO worked on this one together)  This is the first trailer, which does a fine job of highlighting the secrets of one small town.

Season Five Game of Thrones Trailer

Oh man oh man oh man.  This season is going to be AMAZING (and hopefully less rapey).  This reminds me, though, I really need to finish book five.

The Most Awkward Interview EVER

Oh, look, Steph, it’s another Fifty Shades movie reference, brought to you by the cast that had no chemistry and obviously don’t like each other that much.  Enjoy!

(Go HERE to read the article that ran with this video for endless amusement)

Romero Adaption On the Way

Perhaps because of the sagging ratings (and ENDLESS plot meanderings) of some of their other shows, and the continuing critical success of The 100 (see that, Meg?  Did you see how I did that?) CW has apparently adapt Tales From The Darkside—an anthology of horror stories.

The CW originally envisioned the Tales From the Darkside reboot as a half-hour series for this coming summer. The project, from producers Alex Kurtzman and Bob Orci and writer Joe Hill, is now being piloted as an hourlong project for next season.

Hill wrote the adaptation of George A. Romero’s half-hour anthology series. Hill, Kurtzman and Orci executive produce with Heather Kadin, Mitch Galin and Jerry Golod for CBS TV Studios, where Kurtzman and Orci’s K/O Paper Products is based. The project reunites Kurtzman and Orci with Hill, son of horror master Stephen King.

The three previously worked together on Locke & Key, a drama adaptation of Hill’s  graphic novel, which went to pilot at Fox. Tales From The Darkside, which is in the vein of other genre anthology series like Amazing Stories, The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and Tales From The Crypt, had a four-year syndicated run and is owned by CBS TV Studios sibling CBS TV Distribution.

I’m definitely interested in this one, but we’ll have to see what they do with it.

Source

Colleen McCullough and the Disgraceful Obituary

I was on the twitter last week and noticed an odd little retweet that made me stand up and take notice:

https://twitter.com/MsAnnAguirre/status/561029599417487360

Then I saw another, with the hashtag #myozobituary.  And that, was how I first learned that Colleen McCullough had passed away.

What had happened, exactly?  Why was my first hint of McCullough’s death a weird hashtag?  They say a picture is worth a thousand words:

Yeah, I was as surprised as you are.  I mean, they called her a “National Treasure” and then the first thing they did was highlight what she looked like, and how well she attracted men???? (I feel like there aren’t enough question marks in the world to highlight my puzzlement.)

In Friday’s edition of the Australian, the bestselling author of The Thorn Birds –which sold 30m copies worldwide – is remembered as “plain of feature, and certainly overweight, [but] nevertheless a woman of wit and warmth” in the first paragraph.

McCullough wrote 25 novels throughout her career, with her last book Bittersweet published in 2013.

Before becoming a bestselling author, she established the neurophysiology department at the Royal North Shore hospital in Sydney. She also spent a decade as a researcher at Yale medical school in the US.

Certainly ANY of the aforementioned achievements is more worthy of mention in the VERY FIRST PARAGRAPH than what she looked like. ESPECIALLY SINCE THERE WAS A FREAKING PICTURE RIGHT NEXT TO THE STUPID DESCRIPTION.  (and it IS stupid.  It’s so stupid.)

Thankfully, McCullough has enough supporters to champion her post death dignity that they could fill a whole Twitter feed.  Here are a few of the best:

But this one pretty much sums the whole thing up:

https://twitter.com/RuthViragoMedia/status/560977199864369152

Source

 

Sequel to To Kill A Mockingbird 

When I first heard about a sequel for Harper Lee’s amazing book, I was excited.  For about 15 seconds.  Then I heard a lot of things that concerned me very much.  But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

For more than half a century, “To Kill a Mockingbird” has stood apart as a singular American literary masterpiece, a perennial best seller that has provoked countless classroom discussions about racial and social injustice. It brought instant and overwhelming fame to its enigmatic author, Harper Lee, who soon retreated from the spotlight to her native Monroeville, Ala. She never published another book, leaving her millions of fans yearning for more.

Now, at age 88, Ms. Lee has revealed that she wrote another novel after all — a sequel of sorts to “To Kill a Mockingbird,” featuring an aging Atticus Finch and his grown daughter, Scout.

The book’s publisher, Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins, plans to print two million copies of the new book and release it on July 14. The deal was negotiated by Michael Morrison, president and publisher of HarperCollins U.S. General Books Group and Canada, and Ms. Carter. Harper declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.

But the tale does not end there.  Many have been criticizing why, after all these years, has she NOW decided to release the novel.

Sadly, this news is not without controversy or complications. Harper Lee’s sister Alice Lee, who ferociously protected Harper Lee’s estate (and person) from unwanted outside attention as a lawyer and advocate for decades, passed away late last year, leaving the intensely private author (who herself is reportedly in ill health) vulnerable to people who may not have her best interests at heart.

Tonja Carter, Harper Lee’s attorney since Alice Lee retired at the age of 100, acknowledges that the author—who was left forgetful and nearly blind and deaf after a stroke in 2007—often doesn’t understand the contracts that she signs. “Lee has a history of signing whatever’s put in front of her, apparently sometimes with Carter’s advice,” Gawker’s Michelle Dean reported last July.

So what is the real story?  Unfortunately, it’s not easy to tell.

“After much thought and hesitation I shared it with a handful of people I trust and was pleased to hear that they considered it worthy of publication,” Lee said in a statement of her own. “I am humbled and amazed that this will now be published after all these years.”

That might seem like confirmation of Lee’s willing involvement in Go Set a Watchman‘s publication, except for the fact that we know about Lee’s messy relationship with her attorney (who, again, often gets her to sign things that she doesn’t understand) and Lee’s own publicity-shy character.

Let’s hope that Lee is indeed thrilled about the release and won’t get screwed over in this deal.

Sources HERE and HERE

 

Interesting Links:

Amazon Prime Members Infographic

Why We Need Unlikeable Heroines

SFWA Allows Self-Published Authors

21 Responses to “Buzz Worthy News: February 6, 2014”

  3. Beth W

    I swear to Amazon, if this book screws Harper Lee over in any way I will bludgeon her lawyer and all of members of her publication team with hardbound copies of To Kill A Mockingbird. I’d like to do that to that obit writer, but sadly, his attitude is an (insulting, inflammatory) symptom of the worldwide “she’s ok….for a girl” problem.

    • Kate Copeseeley

      Poor Harper Lee, she was already royally screwed by her publishers once. If it is happening again, there really is no justice in the world.
      You don’t have to do anything to the obit writer. He’s dead and gone and hopefully rotting away in you know where.

  4. Brigid

    Was that Dumbledore I just saw? IT. WAS. I actually never read the book because I get really freaked out when a fav author of mine writes something completely different. It’s one of my weird quirks.

    I could only get 5 seconds into that interview: but dear god the AWKWARD!

  5. Katherine

    I’m really hoping that Harper Lee was on board with publishing her second book, but it does sound really iffy considering the timing of all of these events. Personally, although I loved her first book, don’t think I will be reading the new one because of this. If the author didn’t want it to be a series, then I think I should just leave it there until I get further proof that Lee does want this to be published.

    • Kate Copeseeley

      I loved To Kill a Mockingbird so much… I’m not sure I want to read a book that her publishers told her she should change into something else. It sounds to me like they should have just let sleeping books lie.

  6. Natalie M.

    The Fifty Shades of Gray article made my day. I’m really hoping it bombs, so I won’t have to face two more years of hype.

  7. Kari

    The GoT trailer looks epic! I’m excited but also sad that it’s over 2 months away. And that Q&A with 50 Shades people? Why did they even release that? It should be on the cutting room floor. It wasn’t even awkwardly entertaining.

    • Kate Copeseeley

      It was fascinating the way Michael Scott making a speech about sexism or racism on The Office was fascinating. Most of the time I just cringed and waited for it to be over.

  8. Shannelle

    I’m worried for Harper Lee, and I hope people would respect her wishes. I mean, it does all look suspicious. Too suspicious. And oh my god, I checked out the 50 Shades thing and I LOLed so hard. I hope it tanks.

    • Kate Copeseeley

      Did they hate it? I had no idea! I stuck through those movies until New Moon, but I always lose interest when she goes back to Edward.

  10. Mawa Mahima

    All the buzz about Go Set a Watchman has me stressing. That Tonja Carter sounds so suspicious. But hey, the media does tend to hype things up a bit so I’d take everything with a grain of salt. And that just confuses me some more. Sigh.

  12. Lyn Kaye

    Every time I read about that obit for Colleen McCullough, I seriously want to start spitting up blood. There was no fucking reason for it. It makes me just so damn angry that she accomplished so much, and the first thing that they wanted to jump on was her LOOKS.