Writerswrite.com's Writer's Blog

Melissa Rosenberg Talks New Moon Screenplay

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST

Screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, who has adapted Stephenie Meyer's bestselling novels Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse into screenplays, talked to The L.A. Times about working with author Stephenie Meyer so closely to make sure the author's vision was translated into film, while still having her own stamp on the script.

In the first book, with "Twilight," I don't think I even met her until I was well into a draft and I was worried about meeting her because she was the 500-pound gorilla, she was the heavyweight. I was really protective of my process. I was afraid. I didn't know her from Adam, and I was afraid of getting run over and of not being able to create what I wanted to create or in some way have my voice stifled. When I met her, I realized, "Oh, that's not going to happen at all." But she was cautious too. She was looking at me going, "Are you going to butcher my child?" By the time I finished "Twilight," her reaction to it, it was still one of the great moments of my career, having the author say such wonderful things about the script. From that moment she relaxed about can I deliver and I relaxed about inviting her into my process.

I didn't have a director of "New Moon" until I was finished, so on "New Moon" I became much more involved with her, and with "Eclipse" I was getting her notes on the outline. With "Eclipse," because I was taking some liberties with the storytelling, it was really important to me that I stay true to her mythology, her voice. She gave me notes as far back as the outline and on every draft since. We're very tight and very much in each other's world.

In case you've been hiding in a cave somewhere, New Moon will be released in every theater on the planet on Friday, November 20.

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Biopic Shows Enid Blyton as Cruel, Vindictive and a Terrible Mother

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST

A new British television biopic of Enid Blyton stars Helena Bonham Carter. Helena studied the life of the famous author, whose children's books have sold 600 million copies around the world. She discovered that everyone agreed that Enid was not a very nice person, to say the least. Her last living child said she was a selfish bully and a terrible parent who was mean and spiteful, like a teenager who never grew up. She also was an adultress many times over.

Blyton lived at her cottage, Old Thatch, near the Thames at Bourne End, then at Green Hedges, a mock-Tudor house in Beaconsfield. Bonham Carter told a UK tabloid, "Enid's self-awareness was brilliant and she was incredibly controlling, too. I was attracted to the role because she was bonkers. She was an emotional mess and quite barking mad. What I found extraordinary, bordering on insane, was the way that Enid reinvented her own life. She was allergic to reality -- if there was something she didn't like then she either ignored it or re-wrote her life."

"She didn't like her mother, so let her colleagues assume she was dead. When her mother died, she refused to attend the funeral. Then the first husband didn't work out, so she scrubbed him out. There's also a scene in the film where her dog dies, but she carries on pretending he's still alive because she can't bear the truth."

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However, she was unable to relate as a normal mother with her two daughters Gillian and Imogen, with her first husband, Hugh Pollock. She is said to be distant and unkind to her younger daughter Imogen. Imogen Smallwood, 74, told the tabloid: "My mother was arrogant, insecure and without a trace of maternal instinct. Her approach to life was childlike, and she could be spiteful, like a teenager."

Imogen visited the set and told Helena that -- in addition to being cruel -- her mother always did everything very fast, so that she could get back to her writing and her fantasy worlds.

It sounds like it's going to be quite a biopic. It certainly won't be boring. Enid's books still sell 8 million copies a year.

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Comedy Writer David Lloyd Dead at 75

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST

Emmy winning comedy writer David Lloyd has died. He was 75. Lloyd wrote the classic "Chuckles Bites the Dust" episode of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

Lloyd died of prostate cancer Tuesday at his home in Beverly Hills, said his son, writer-producer Christopher Lloyd. "I do think he was the preeminent writer of television comedy," said Les Charles, co-creator of "Cheers," for which Lloyd wrote numerous episodes. "If you consider how long his career was and how much he wrote for such really popular shows, he's got to have been responsible for a record number of laughs in this world," Charles said.

His four-decade comedy career began with writing jokes for Jack Paar on "The Tonight Show" in 1962 and included writing for "The Bob Newhart Show," "Phyllis," "Rhoda," "Lou Grant," "Taxi," "Frasier" and many other shows. "He was a remarkable writer," said Allan Burns, who created "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" with James L. Brooks and began working with Lloyd when he moved to Hollywood from New York in 1974 to write for the series.

"The word 'wit' doesn't come up an awful lot when you're talking about television comedy, but that's what David was: a genuine wit," said Burns. "And he was just remarkable in his ability to write wonderful stuff very quickly. "I would sit at my desk and laugh out loud, which I don't do often. His drafts always made me laugh out loud and with such unexpected, off-the-wall humor."

Our condolences to his family and friends.

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U.S. Media Running Afoul of British Libel Laws

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 18:00:00 EST

Libel laws are much stricter in Great Britain than they are in the U.S. and there no constitutional right to free speech. This puts U.S. newspapers in legal jeopardy when they sell U.S. publications, such as The New York Times, in Britain. Many expatriates read major U.S. newspapers, which are readily available in London. But now the newspapers are getting ready to pull out of Great Britain, saying that the hassle and lawsuit threats aren't worth the readership. They are also going to block access to their websites by the British in order to comply with the libel laws.

A memorandum submitted to a Commons select committee, ahead of a meeting with US publishers, states: "Leading US newspapers are actively considering abandoning the supply of the 200-odd copies they make available for sale in London -- mainly to Americans who want full details of their local news and sport. They do not make profits out of these minimal and casual sales and they can no longer risk losing millions of dollars in a libel action which they would never face under US law. Does the UK really want to be seen as the only country in Europe -- indeed in the world -- where important US papers cannot be obtained in print form?"

The submission, on behalf of a number of US media outlets, including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and MacMillan (US), as well as Human Rights Watch, Global Witness US and Greenpeace International, added: "The consequences of making media organisations liable for putting articles -- perfectly lawful by the law of their own domicile -- on websites which are occasionally accessed in England should be obvious. The cost of fighting libel actions may lead internet publishers to build 'fire walls' against access from the UK, in order to avoid such actions."

This is yet another instance of globalization leading to difficult legal issues. Articles that regularly appear in The Washington Post would get the newspaper sued if it were published by a British newspaper. But blocking British access to American newspaper sites seems an absurd outcome of these laws. But legally we don't see any way around it without fundamentally changing British libel laws. When there is no constitutional right to freedom of speech, it does make thinks difficult for journalists, authors and publishers.

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Lemony Snicket Moves to Little, Brown

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:00:00 EST

Daniel Handler, who writes the bestselling Lemony Snicket books, has moved from HarperCollins to Little, Brown. He signed a deal to write four new Lemony Snicket books and one stand alone young adult title.

In August, Egmont U.K. bought British rights to the four-book series; no U.S. publisher was announced at that time.

The Handler/Snicket team will work with longtime editor Susan Rich who has joined LBYR in the newly created position of editor-at-large. Rich was formerly at HarperCollins Children's Books, first in the New York office and then in Toronto.

A Series of Unfortunate Events was a blockbuster for HarperCollins, selling 60 million copies. We loved the series and can't wait to see Mr. Snicket has in store for us this time.

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Study Finds Texting Lingo Doesn't Harm Spelling

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:00:00 EST

The Washington Post reports that a University of Alberta study found that texting probably does not mean students will become bad spellers. They also found that text lingo or "chatspeak" has its own set of emerging rules and that young people already seem to know the correct way to spell words in text language.

The study was proposed by a group of third-year psychology students who surveyed roughly 40 students ages 12 to 17. The participants were asked to save their instant messages for a week. At the end of the study, the participants completed a standardized spelling test.

Varnhagen said the researchers were pleasantly surprised by the results. The young people surveyed seem to know, without any sort of instruction, that there are "correct" ways of spelling in chatspeak. For instance, "probably" is abbreviated as "prolly," but never "proly"; "want to" becomes "wanna," never "wana" or "wanta"; "should've" is always "shoulda" and never "shuda."

"Kids who are good spellers [academically] are good spellers in instant messaging," she said. "And kids who are poor spellers in English class are poor spellers in instant messaging."

It is good that texting does not appear to be harmful to spelling but it does seem possible that we will end up with a bunch of new words being used and that eventually the original spelling of the word could be forgotten.

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British Book Sales: Nonfiction Slumps, Fiction Sells

Fri, 6 Nov 2009 21:00:00 EST

The Bookseller reports that sales of nonfiction in Britain are slumping while sales of fiction are up 90%.

Sales of this year's top 10 non-fiction books in October were down 52% year on year, while sales of hardback fiction titles have soared by 90%. Figures for the most recent week to 31st October showed non-fiction continuing to underperform. Only Guinness World Records and Delia Smith's Delia's Happy Christmas (Ebury) sold more than 10,000 copies last week. Last year 10 hardback non-fiction titles passed this threshold during the same period.

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Cookery titles have in the past been a Christmas staple, with celebrity chefs whipping up high sales. However, sales of Jamie's America (Michael Joseph) have been well behind Jamie's Ministry of Food (Michael Joseph) from last year. Sally Hughes of Books for Cooks said: "Jamie did well when he was on TV but has fallen off quickly. River Cafe is not moving as well as we thought it might-it is selling but it seems a bit slow." However, retailers hailed the success of Guinness World Records, which knocked Dan Brown off this week's top spot with sales of 31,812.

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In spite of non-fiction's woes, sales of fiction are thriving in early autumn. Hardback fiction was up almost double (90.2%) in October year on year. Books by Dan Brown, Martina Cole and Terry Pratchett have been enjoying healthy sales figures despite the recession. Rachel Russell, business unit director for books at W H Smith, said: "Fiction is doing very well and seems to be muscling into the non-fiction market. I expect gifting to come later in non-fiction because Christmas falls on a Friday."

So why is fiction suddenly outselling nonfiction like crazy? Perhaps the terrible economy has something to do with it. Fiction is an escape. When times are bad, it's quite relaxing to dip into a fictional world. Other than cook books and lifestyle titles, most of the nonfiction is a tad depressing. Just dip into any of the finance/fall of Wall Street titles, for example, and prepare to be horrified.

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Publisher's Weekly Under Fire for All Male Best Books List

Thu, 5 Nov 2009 17:00:00 EST

Publisher's Weekly is under fire for putting out list of the ten best books of the year that includes no female authors.

"The absence made me nearly speechless." said poet and creative writing professor Cate Marvin, co-founder of new US literary organisation Women in Letters and Literary Arts (WILLA). WILLA has gathered more than 5,500 members since it launched in August with the aim of bringing "increased attention to women's literary accomplishments and [questioning] the American literary establishment's historical slow-footedness in recognising and rewarding women writers' achievements".

The group pointed to new books published this year by Lorrie Moore, Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant, Rita Dove, Heather McHugh and Alicia Ostriker. "It continues to surprise me that literary editors are so comfortable with their bias toward male writing, despite the great and obvious contributions that women authors make to our contemporary literary culture," said Marvin.

Announcing the list, novelist and journalist Louisa Ermelino said that PW "wanted [it] to reflect what we thought were the top 10 books of the year with no other consideration". "We ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz. We gave fair chance to the 'big' books of the year, but made them stand on their own two feet," she said, adding that "it disturbed us when we were done that our list was all male".

Poet Erin Belieu, WILLA's other co-founder and director of the creative writing programme at Florida State University, said that "when PW's editors tell us they're not worried about 'political correctness', that's code for 'your concerns as a feminist aren't legitimate'". "They know they're being blatantly sexist, but it looks like they feel good about that," said Belieu. "I, on the other hand, have heard from a whole lot of people -- writers and readers -- who don't feel good about it at all."

You can see Publisher's Weekly's controversial list here.

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Stephen King Pens Poem for Playboy Magazine

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 15:00:00 EST

Stephen King has written a new poem for Playboy magazine called "The Bone Church." The Guardian reminds us that Playboy actually has a long literary history, publishing such authors as As a young, miserable, unpublished author Stephen King says he used to fantasize about being interviewed in Playboy. But he knew the magazine only interviewed successful, serious authors.

Playboy has a perhaps surprisingly strong literary background, publishing works by authors including John Irving, John Updike, Vladimir Nabokov and Margaret Atwood. This summer, literary editor Amy Grace Loyd acquired first serial rights in Vladimir Nabokov's final, unfinished novel The Original of Laura for its December issue. It has also enjoyed a lengthy relationship with King, interviewing the author back in 1983.

"The protagonist of Salem's Lot, a struggling young author with a resemblance to his creator, confesses at one point, 'Sometimes when I'm lying in bed at night, I make up a Playboy Interview about me. Waste of time. They only do authors if their books are big on campus.' Ten novels and several million dollars in the bank later, your books are big on campus and everywhere else," the interviewer said to King.

The author replied that the passage reflected his state of mind in the days before he sold his first book, Carrie, when nothing seemed to be going right. "When I couldn't sleep, in that black hole of the night when all your doubts and fears and insecurities surge in at you, snarling, from the dark -- what the Scandinavians call the wolf hour -- I used to lie in bed alternately wondering if I shouldn't throw in the creative towel and spinning out masturbatory wish fulfilment fantasies in which I was a successful and respected author. And that's where my imaginary Playboy interview came in," he said.

"The Bone Church" is the story of an ill-fated jungle expedition told by a man in a bar. "There were thirty-two of us went into that greensore/ and only three who rose above it./ It doesn't have a happy ending, so you've been warned. You can read the poem for free here.

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New York Public Library Acquires E. Annie Proulx Archive

Tue, 3 Nov 2009 22:00:00 EST

The New York Public Library just acquired treasure trove of research notes, book drafts and other materials belonging to novelist E. Annie Proulx, author of The Shipping News.

The trove, housed in the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection of English and American Literature, includes:

* 200 pages of short stories, essays, poems and screenplays
* 145 pages of preparatory notes and research
* 10,200+ pages of typescript
* 2100 galley proofs
* 4500+ pages of correspondence

"To me there is an odd sense of balance that material dealing with some of the most rural landscapes in North America will reside in our major city," Proulx commented.

The author noted that she wanted to donate the archive for several reasons. There is insight into the creative process, to be sure. But she says that the letters, emails, and financial reports will help shed light on this era of American publishing and literature to future historians. She also said that "We are currently undergoing major changes in the way we regard intellectual property and literary work; some of anxieties of that metamorphosis are reflected in my archive."

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Washinton Post Newsroom Erupts With Fistfight

Mon, 2 Nov 2009 18:25:00 EST

Things are tough in the newspaper industry. Falling circulation, layoffs, drops in ad revenue have taken their toll as tempers fray. And now the newsroom at The Washington Post has erupted into fisticuffs. Politico reports:

Washington Post executive editor Marcus Brauchli found himself in the middle of an altercation Friday evening between Style reporter Manuel Roig-Franzia and editor Henry Allen, but will not say whether the two have been reprimanded by the paper. "We take this incident seriously and will address it appropriately," Brauchli told POLITICO, declining to comment further.

Reports that Allen punched Roig-Franzia surfaced Monday morning on FishbowlDC, Washingtonian and City Paper (which reported Brauchli was traveling). Multiple Post sources independently confirmed to POLITICO that Roig-Franzia got hit while defending colleague Monica Hesse from harsh criticism leveled by her editor, Allen. Allen, according to the Washingtonian, had told Hesse that a piece she had written was "the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years." Roig-Franzia, also working a story with Hesse that ran Saturday, told Allen not to be such a "c-sucker."

Allen swung twice, with one punch hitting Roig-Franzi, according to sources. Next, staffers on the 4th floor -- including Brauchli, whose office is temporarily across from the Style section -- jumped in to break up the altercation. Allen, a Pulitzer Prize-winning editor who already took a buyout, has just three weeks left on his contract, and was not in the office Monday. Roig-Franzia is in the office.

Allen, who is 68, commented that he was shocked at the media attention the scuffle engendered. He said that in the old days, expletive-filled newsroom scuffles were everyday occurrences. Ah, the good old days.

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Cuba Giving Copies of Hemingway Documents to Kennedy Library

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:37:00 EST

The Kennedy Library in Boston will be getting copies of a number of Ernest Hemingway's papers from the government of Cuba.

The Boston Globe reported that Cuba's Ministry of Culture had given the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum copies of 3,000 letters and documents Hemingway amassed during his years in Cuba, from 1939 to 1960. Among the documents are corrected proofs of "The Old Man and the Sea" and an alternate ending to "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (The Globe report did not say what that ending was), as well as correspondence with Robert Capa, Marlene Dietrich, Sinclair Lewis, Lillian Ross, Ingrid Bergman and various members of his family. The library is already home to the Hemingway Archive and the Hemingway Room, which was dedicated in 1980, and includes relics like a lion-skin throw rug, journals of his fishing trips and shrapnel from wounds he suffered during World War I.

Copies are better than nothing at all, but you just know they wish they could get their hands on the originals. But those aren't leaving Cuba anytime soon.

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Ang Lee to Direct Film Version of Life of Pi

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:00:00 EST

Director Ang Lee says that he has finally gotten a first draft of the screenplay for the film version of Yann Martel's 2002 Man Booker prize-winning novel Life of Pi. The film rights were sold almost a decade ago, but no one could figure out how to film a book about a boy and a tiger adrift at sea. But it's really happening this time, and Ang Lee is ready to roll.

Martel's acclaimed novel chronicles the travails of a shipwrecked teenage boy stuck on a life raft with only a female orangutan, injured zebra, hungry hyena and brooding Bengal tiger for company. In recent years the likes of M. Night Shyamalan, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Alfonso Cuaron have all been attached at one time or another to the project, but none has managed to get a movie into production.

Lee told the Digital Spy website his version was still at the scripting stage and he had not yet begun to think about casting. "I'm delivering the first draft," he said. "I think I've cracked the structure of the movie and I'll figure out how to do it later. "How exactly I'm going to do it, I don't know - A little boy adrift at sea with a tiger. It's a hard one to crack!"

Lee said the film would most likely be out in two years' time. The Taiwan-born director's next movie in UK cinemas will be Taking Woodstock, his comedy-drama about the 1969 music festival, which premiered in May to lukewarm reviews at Cannes. It screens at the London film festival today and opens nationwide on 13 November.

We can't wait to see what he comes up with. Many directors have passed on the project, saying that it's un-filmable. But Ang Lee clearly loves a challenge.

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Alice Munro Reveals Cancer Battle

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 21:00:00 EST

At a literary event in Toronto, Man Booker Prize-winning Canadian author Alice Munro revealed that she has been battling cancer. She also has had heart bypass surgery. But she says she feels she's been lucky with her health, because of the availability of treatments she has had access to.

Munro, 78, who earlier this year was named the third recipient of the prestigious Man Booker International Prize, honouring her life's work, briefly alluded to her health Wednesday night at a sold-out literary event in Toronto. In an on-stage conversation with fellow author Diana Athill, Munro said she's had heart bypass surgery and "just had cancer."

Still, Munro said she's "been lucky with her health," unlike her mother, who was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease at a relatively young age and died in her late 50s. "I think some of us are much luckier than others in life," she said. "I think we are lucky now in the kind of medical intervention that keeps us going."

Alice said that things had changed quite a bit for Canadian authors. She said that when she started writing she was told that no one wanted to hear Canadian authors talk in their own voices. She noted that "When I started to write there was a feeling you couldn't write about Canada - nobody would be interested - and there was an extraordinary, I don't know, shyness or a feeling that somehow you had to go to Europe in order to bring out your creativity."

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Chinese Authors Oppose Google Digitzation Plan

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:13:00 EST

A group of Chinese authors are angry and accusing Google of digitizing their books without permission or payment. The authors' right group says that Google has violated their copyrights, which Google denies. Google says it has complied with international law.

The China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) believes Google scanned thousands of books, by over 500 Chinese authors, into its digital library without their permission or compensation, said spokesman Chen Qirong. "Whether you are a small company or big company you still need to respect the copyright of the authors," Chen said.

Google countered by saying it had received permission from over 50 Chinese publishers who allowed the U.S. search giant to digitize more than 30,000 books to be found through Internet searches and for preview. "We believe the book search complies with international copyright law," said Google spokeswoman Courtney Hohne.

Google.com, Gmail and other Google services are not currently available in much of China because the government says Google spreads obscene content over the Internet. Meanwhile, the Chinese government does virtually nothing to stop the theft of non-Chinese authors' works which are republished in China without payment or permission. Remember all the bizarre incarnations of the Harry Potter series that were sold all over China?

As for the Chinese authors, well, they're having a tough time. The Chinese government still actively censors their work and it is dangerous to write about things of which the government does not approve.

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Mexico's Secret Service: Gabriel Garcia Marquez Was a Cuban Spy

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:24:00 EST

Uncovered records reveal that Columbian author and Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez was spied on for decades by the Mexican intelligence agency DFS, which is now defunct. The DFS, which was roughly equivalent to the CIA, considered Garcia Marquez to be a Cuban agent.

The defunct DFS agency bugged the Nobel laureate's phone and monitored his movements from 1967 after he moved to Mexico with his family. The authorities suspected the Colombian author of One Hundred Years of Solitude because of his leftist sympathies and friendship with Fidel Castro. Declassified documents published in the newspaper El Universal revealed the DSF kept a bulging file at least up until 1985, after which documents remain secret. It was era of the "dirty war" waged by rightwing Latin American governments against suspected subversives.

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The agency closely monitored the author's mediation between leftist movements and the French president, Francois Miterrand. It also kept tabs on Mexican writers such as Octavio Paz, who won the Nobel prize in 1990, and Salvador Novo.

The declassified information contains a wiretapped conversation between Garcia Marquez and Jorge Timossi, the director of Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency. It reveals the Garcia Marquez gave the rights to his book Chronicle of a Death Foretold to the Cuban government. The DFS report noted that "The above proves that Gabriel Garcia Marquez, besides being pro-Cuban and pro-Soviet, is a propaganda agent at the service of the intelligence agency of that country."

Garcia Marquez is now 82 and divides his time between Cartagena and Mexico City. He still loves to visit Cuba and has maintained his friendship with Castro.

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Patricia Cornwell Suing Financial Advisors Over $40 Million Loss

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:00:00 EST

Bestselling author Patricia Cornwell is suing her financial advisors and accountants for negligence. She has lost $40 million during the time her financial affairs were handled by the New York financial management firm, Anchin, Block & Anchin LLP which also represents such celebrities as Robert DeNiro. Patricia made the fatal error of allowing someone else access to her checkbook. Lloyd Grove of The Daily Beast reports:

"Ms. Cornwell is a bestselling crime novelist whose ability to write is dependent upon the ability to avoid distractions," the lawsuit contends. "A quiet, uninterrupted environment, free of the distractions of managing her business and her assets, was essential to her ability to write and to meet her deadlines. Further, Ms. Cornwell openly acknowledges her diagnosis with a mood disorder known as bipolar disorder, which, although controlled without medication, has contributed to her belief that it is prudent for her to employ others to manage her business affairs."

Cornwell's lawyer told me she ruefully recalls a conversation she had several years ago with Oprah Winfrey, when both found themselves sitting together on a dais. "They were chatting about various things, and Patricia was inquiring about Oprah's business practices. And Oprah said to Patricia, 'I have one guiding principle: Always sign your own checks.' Patricia says she wished she had lived by that advice. She will from now on."

Lloyd says that Anchin is accused of mishandling rental properties, making poor investments and taking actions without her permission. Anchin reportedly even wrote a check from Patricia to his own daughter (who Patricia has never met) for $5,000 as a bat mitzvah gift.

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Furious Row at Frankfort Book Fair May Lead to EU Being Dropped From Google Book Settlement

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 21:00:00 EST

Due to massive resistance to the Google Book Settlement in Europe, all European Union books might be entirely left out from the deal, according to The Bookseller. The whole thing came to a head at the Frankfurt Book Fair last week when a furious fight arose over the the Settlement.

According to various reports Professor Roland Reuss, a literature professor from Germany's Heidelberg University, struck out at Google and the Settlement, negotiated in the US by the Association of American Publishers, and the US Authors Guild with Google. He described Google's lofty ideals as "just a whole garbage of hysterical propaganda", and warned of a threat to traditional publishing, saying "you revolutionize the market but the cost is that the producers of goods in this market will be demolished".

Reuss then rounded on Bertelsmann's Richard Sarnoff, who negotiated the deal as chair of the AAP, calling him "naive" and arguing that the deal disregarded the Berne Convention, and the rights of copyright holders to determine how their work was used. According to Publishers Weekly, Sarnoff said the parties to the deal did not anticipate the backlash in Europe. And he added that European works may indeed have to be removed from the settlement.

From all accounts, the dispute was quite heated as Professor Reuss blasted the deal and all those involved. The Federation of European Publishers (FEP) definitely wants out of the deal and is furious that the AAP and the American Author's Guild is arrogant enough to thing that they have the right to negotiate on their behalf. The FEP represents publishers associations from 27 countries.

Passions are running very high in the European book community right now.

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Win an Emmy, Then Get Fired

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:44:00 EST

Kater Gordon, the writer's assistant turned writer, won an Emmy for the last episode of last season's Mad Men. She was like the show's own Peggy Olson, the girl who rose through the ranks to win an Emmy. So then why was she fired by Matt Weiner the show's creator and the man who was forced to share an Emmy with her? Nikki Finke had some nonsense about how Matt liked to encourage young writers and that he felt she had gone as far as she could and it was time for new writers. Others told her Kater quit before she could be fired.

I've learned that writer's assistant-turned-staff writer, Robin Veith, quit Mad Men before she could be let go by Matthew Weiner. A source tells me: "It was at the very worst mutual. She needed to move on and see how she would do after leaving the nest. Matt is a genius, and he gave lots of people an opportunity, but never let's anyone forget it. I'm sure he'd never tell anyone she quit, because that is a rejection of him. Anyway, they are friends and made a mutual decision."

A show insider replies, "There are staffing changes every season. It is the nature of television shows to fine tune. Why is it news this season?" Because the show won two best drama Emmy's in a row, and with success comes attention. Deal with it.

What a load of nonsense. No one fires a screenwriter who just penned an Emmy-winning episode unless there is something else going on. Of course, they shared the writing credit so there's no way to know how much of that episode she really wrote. But it's still most peculiar.

We hope she finds a new show quickly, because she clearly has the talent.

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