Buzz Worthy News: October 26, 2015

Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome and not at all well-written. Need your YA industry news? Never fear, Kate Copeseeley is here to give it to you straight.

In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: The Cursed Child Is Harry’s Kid, GOT Coloring Book, The Royal We Movie, Dear Author Settlement, and Joanne Harris Says Things.

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.

Harry Potter and The Cursed Child

Harry Potter fans who live everywhere except England are crying into their butterbeers today as news has broken as to the real plot of Rowling’s long anticipated play:

So now you know it really isn't a prequel: Harry Potter & the #CursedChild starts #19yearslater! Go to @HPPlayLDN for more information.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) October 23, 2015

Instead, as we find out in the various news releases (and fans) talking about play, it is the eighth story.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is one play presented in two Parts, which are intended to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings.

The problem that immediately arise to my mind, as a HP fan living in California… HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO SEE THIS PLAY??? IT’S IN LONDON!!! Answer: sell all my belongings and get my butt over there, is the only obvious option.  Seriously, though.  This better end up being a movie, otherwise my goodwill toward Rowling will be on a downward spiral, the speed of which will be dictated by how long it takes to get here to the US.

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Another Pride & Prejudice With Zombies Trailer

This movie looks so kickass!  Really, really can’t wait to see it!!!

Fortunately, The Milk Gets Adapted

The adorable and hilarious short story, Fortunately, The Milk is finally getting the film adaption is deserves.  And by such an interesting team, too!

Edgar Wright and Johnny Depp are teaming up to adapt Fortunately, the Milk, based on a Neil Gaiman story, in a hot package that is in early negotiations to be acquired by Fox.

Wright would helm the film, which is intended to be a live-action/animation hybrid which will have a script by Bret McKenzie, the writer known as being one half of the musical comedy duo Flight of the Conchords.

Depp will star in and produce along with animation house Animal Logic Entertainment (The Lego Movie), which acquired the book out of pocket and packaged it.

OMG, I LOVE Johnny Depp and I LOVE Flight of the Conchords!!  I really can’t wait!

Gaiman’s children’s book is described as “a story of time travel and breakfast cereal.” It starts out with a father who goes to the store to buy some milk and returns with wild tales of aliens, space-time travel, pirates and more.

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CBS Films Adapts The Royal We

If you think the story of Will and Kate is super romantic or you’ve read the book The Royal We there is exciting news for you!!

Lauren Graham and Mae Whitman, who worked together on TV’s long-running drama Parenthood, are teaming up to adapt the The Royal We, the book by Jessica Morgan and Heather Cocks, for CBS Films.

Graham will write the script for the project, which is being eyed as an acting vehicle for Whitman. The duo will also produce.

Published earlier this year by Grand Central Publishing, We takes its cues from the real-life courtship of Kate Middleton and Prince William. The story is of an American girl-next-door who moves to England to study at Oxford and falls in love with a fellow student, who happens to be the future King of England. There’s even a red-headed troublemaking brother on one side and a sister on the other. And there’s his need for secrecy, her sudden tabloid fame and the royal family’s many requirements.

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This Ain’t Your Kid’s Coloring Book

Ever since last year’s smash hit, Secret Garden, coloring books for adults have seen a meteoric rise.  I predict that after October 27th, we’ll see another big purchasing jump, because that is the day that both Outlander and Game Of Thrones coloring book are released.  Get a gander at these glorious pages:

And just imagine, either of these could be yours for the low price of $11.  (I don’t buy a lot of kid’s coloring books these days, but that’s cheap, right?)

Entertainment Weekly got an early look at some of the 96 pages of intricate black and white illustrations in the new A Game of Thrones coloring book from artists like Yvonne Gilbert, John Howe, Tomislav Tomić, Adam Stower, and Levi Pinfold. Ladies and gentlemen, start your pencil sharpeners.

No seriously, people.  Sharpen your pencils and get going!

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Author Calls For ‘Mutual Respect’ Between Authors/Readers

Joanne Harris, author of the bestselling Chocolat, is probably wishing she’d put some of that deliciousness in her mouth instead of letting words come out of it, because the only thing she’ll be eating now is her foot.

In an interview with The Guardian, she let slip that she’ll be presenting a 12 pt ‘Writer’s Manifesto’ at the Manchester Literature Festival.  What is the contents of such a manifesto, you might ask?  Here you go:

Entitled A Writer’s Manifesto, it will argue that the internet has “blurred the line between readers and writers almost to invisibility”. Harris herself is an active Twitter user with more than 25,000 followers, and blogs regularly, taking on issues from the gendered packaging of children’s books to authors’ income.

“This breaking down of barriers has … created a false sense of entitlement, giving some readers the impression that artists and writers not only inhabit a privileged world, in which there are no bills to pay and in which time is infinitely flexible, but that they also exist primarily to serve the public, to be available night and day, and to cater for the personal needs of everyone who contacts them,” Harris will say.

Entitlement.  Privilege. Those are interesting choices of words you have there, Harris.

But fiction, she will assert, “is not democratic”, and while “without readers, writers would have no context; no audience; no voice … that doesn’t mean we’re employees, writing books to order”.

Harris’s speech, which includes a 12-point manifesto, is part of a series of nationwide discussions set up by the Writers’ Centre Norwich for its series of National Conversation events. Intended to explore “the state of the literary ecology today”, they have included Kerry Hudson’s call for diversity in publishing, and Kamila Shamsie’s proposal of A Year of Publishing Women to address gender imbalances in the books world. “She’s putting forward a really interesting question about boundaries,” said Writers’ Centre Norwich chief executive Chris Gribble, “and about what we expect of writers … and what the limits are of being a reader.”

I could literally quote the entire piece, or you could go HERE and read it for yourself.

Ellora’s Cave and Dear Author Settle

There’s not much news on this one, but it seems as thought Ellora’s Cave and Dear Author’s Jane Litte have reached a settlement agreement.

According to documents filed in the case, a private settlement has apparently been reached, although terms remain confidential.

The two parties became locked in litigation after Dear Author published a September, 2014 post 14 called The Curious Case of Ellora’s Cave, which detailed the house’s financial troubles, prompting Ellora’s Cave owner Tina Engler to file suit for defamation.

Despite the fact that it didn’t seem as though Ellora’s Cave had much of a case, it must have been enough for Litte to settle.  I would have more commentary here, but EC has accomplished their goal of making me afraid to talk about them.

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Hey Look, More Plagiarism

So, it looks like M/M fiction is selling well.  So well, in fact, that author Laura Harner is pumping them out lightning quick.  The problem is that her novels are completely plagiarized (except for the main characters).

From Jenny Trout’s blog:

If you’re an author of paranormal, cowboy, SEAL, firefighter, highlander or motorcycle club romances, I urge you strongly to look through the extensive backlist of one Laura Harner, an unusually prolific author of M/M (male/male) romance. So prolific, in fact, that her GoodReads author page lists seventy-five releases since 2010.

Author Becky McGraw was one of the first to learn of the plagiarism, when a reader tipped her off.

HOLY CRAP — do people have no morals about STEALING these days? I was just notified by a reader that she started reading M/M romance recently and read a book by another author that is almost VERBATIM my book My Kind of Trouble with the exception it’s a m/m book!! I need a recommendation for a good literary attorney fast!!

Here are pics of the text in question.  The original (My Kind Of Trouble):

And here is text from the plagiarizer’s book (Coming Home Texas):

As you can see, there are some changes, but the gist (and MANY of the words) are the same.

Since McGraw’s Facebook post, Harner has pulled ten of her titles from retailers, including Coming Home Texas. This seems to indicate that other titles have been plagiarized. I urge anyone who writes in any of the genres I listed at the top of this post to review Harner’s catalog before she pulls the rest in her desperate attempt to sweep her theft under the rug.

Thank goodness for the internet!  Things like this would have been much harder to prove in the past.  Now all it takes is a clever reader who is into M/M and M/F eBooks and the culprit is caught.

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Interesting Links:

How Long Would You Survive In A Michael Crichton Book?

EBook Non-fiction Authors Use Fake Credentials On Amazon

7 Movies That Have Gone From Self-Published To The Silver Screen

Map From LOTR Annotated By Tolkien