Did you know that six of the nominated films were inspired by written works? Life of Pi and Les Misérables are well-known novels, but Silver Linings Playbook is also based on a book and three of the other nominees stem from a biography, a one-act play, and a magazine article. Lets take a look at the original words behind this year’s most critically acclaimed films!

Beast for the Southern Wild

The film starring Quvenzhané Wallis stems from Lucy Alibar’s one-act play Juicy and Delicious. Her play tells the story of a young child, Hushpuppy, who lives in the South with his dad and has to prepare himself for a life without grown-ups. Lucy cowrote the film version with the movie’s director, Benh Zeitlin, and the Beasts of the Southern Wild script expands on her original work.…

Nowhere is this more true than in the world of mainstream print media, where legacy organizations are collapsing much more quickly than many of us would have expected, raising the question of—what’s a writer to do? How can a writer make a living? Especially, how can a student with real writing talent, who aspires to be a non-fiction writer, fulfil the dream? It’s possible, but it requires clear and creative thinking.

Read more: Denyse O’ Leary, TheBestSchools.org Blog
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Read more: Frederic Filloux, The Guardian…

You’ve heard it before, but we’ll say it again: it’s a shame people don’t write letters anymore. Especially writers, whose missives are often so beautifully composed and simply inspiring that we hoard them in volume upon volume… We were inspired to dig a little further into the letters writers send their own children. After the jump, read loving, advice-filled, gentle parental love letters from some of our favorite authors to some of their favorite people — their kids.

From Sherwood Anderson to his 17-year-old son John, 1926:

The best thing, I dare say, is first to learn something well so you can always make a living. Bob seems to be catching on at the newspaper business and has had another raise. He is getting a good training by working in a smaller city. As for the scientific fields, any of them require a long schooling and intense application.…

(Source: Karen Ann Cullotta, The New York Times)

At the bustling public library in Arlington Heights, Ill., requests by three patrons to place any title on hold prompt a savvy computer tracking system to order an additional copy of the coveted item. That policy was intended to eliminate the frustration of long waits to check out best sellers and other popular books. But it has had some unintended consequences, too: the library’s shelves are now stocked with 36 copies of “Fifty Shades of Grey.”

Of course, librarians acknowledge that when patrons’ passion for the sexy series lacking in literary merit cools in a year or two, the majority of volumes in the “Fifty Shades” trilogy will probably be plucked from the shelves and sold at the Friends of the Library’s used-book sales, alongside other poorly circulated, donated and out-of-date materials.

“A library has limited shelf space, so you almost have to think of it as a store, and stock it with the things that people want,” said Jason Kuhl, the executive director of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library.…

Warren, you have been a part of the literary scene for nearly half a century. At the age of 84, you are one of the elder statesmen for the publishing industry. Where do you see the book industry heading? As I have been predicting ever since I first digitalized all my work more than a dozen years ago, and as I said when I introduced the SONY reader in 2007, as the first stand-alone reader at the Las Vegas Electronics Show, the publishing business will morph massively to cyberspace and considerably shrink the number of stores selling printed books, all of which has come true. What I did not foresee was the number of self-published books that would hit the marketplace and offer hard competition for traditionally published books.

What is coming long-term, in my view, is a massive number of fiction books available on the Net, where it will be a challenge for any writer of fiction to be discoverable.…

Publishing: The Road Ahead
Article by John Biggs, TechCrunch.com

With the closing of Spin Magazine’s print edition alongside the failure of the print edition of Newsweek (not to mention the shuttering of countless newspapers and magazines around the world) you’d be hard-pressed to say that publishing – particularly in the news space – is doing well.…

He is the founder of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference in Wyoming and has written more than 30 novels, short story collections and screenplays.

After being published by such houses as Viking, Putnam and Warner Books, Adler became a proponent of e-book publishing several years ago when he re-acquired his complete backlist to convert to digital formats published now by his company, Stonehouse Press.

What’s on your nightstand?

Ian McEwan’s latest book, Sweet Tooth. Ian is a terrific novelist. I enjoy reading Ian, along with Philip Roth.…

Enjoy! Video courtesy of The New York Times.

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By Elizabeth Blair, NPR.org

The centerpiece of the film Life of Pi is a boy adrift on a lifeboat with a tiger in the middle of the ocean. That’s easy enough for Yann Martel to describe in his novel — but hard to make happen on the set of a movie. As it happens, Pi is in theaters with another movie based on an “unfilmable” novel: Cloud Atlas, with six different plots in six different time periods.

Some books are challenging to film because they’re challenging to read. Take Ulysses, James Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness masterpiece, published in 1922.

“Ulysses was for a very long time considered unfilmable both because of the complexity of the plot and the point of view of the characters,” says Maria Konnikova, a freelance writer who recently explored unfilmable books for The Atlantic.

She points out that Ulysses has actually been filmed — not once but twice.…

Genre: From ghost to graphic to gran. Illustration: Damien Poulain

The development of the literary marketplace in the past 30-something years has been echoed by a new, and acute, sensitivity to the place of genre within the trade. In a market-savvy creative economy, you could say that genre has become everything. I have been able to identify 15 contemporary shades of “literature”. No doubt, readers will think of others, but here are some obvious first nominations.

(Read more: Robert McCrum, Guardian.co.uk)

1. Lit lit
Two versions here.
a) Poetry. No higher form – a straight line from Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth, Hardy and Hughes.
b) Fiction. Also known as “literary fiction”; a genre whose contemporary exemplars include Julian Barnes, Philip Hensher and Zadie Smith.

2. Ghost lit
A surprising number of successful books (bestselling memoirs especially) are written by ghost writers. But there are also ghosted novels, too. By definition these wraith-like creatures have no names and are known only to their fellow spooks – and the publishers who depend on them.

“…If you wrote a great book and your agent tried to sell it but failed, take heart: the rejection was by no means a statement about your talent, likely even your book. Rather than put your book in a drawer, why not try what so many successful authors have already done: publish it yourself!”

Read more: Terri Guilianno Long, The Art and Craft of Writing Creatively

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Great Adaptations Film Festival: Mondays and Wednesdays in November, TCM Channel

Read more: Roger Fristoe, TCM…

Hurricane Sandy touched millions of lives last week, including many in the children’s book community. Here a few authors and publishers tell their storm stories.

Dinah Stevenson, Clarion Books

Not a lot of drama, just a foot of water on the ground floor of my Hoboken brownstone, where the kitchen is. No power, no heat or hot water, no phone. I was sitting in the dark with a friend on Thursday evening, and our conversation was interrupted by a kind of rattling roar. “Oh, that’s just the fridge,” I said reassuringly. “Just the fridge?” she repeated. That’s when the penny dropped and I realized the electricity was on. Casualties: dishwasher, wall oven, and possibly the floor—it’s oak, the whole ground floor, and may have gotten wet beyond its ability to dry out. I’m aware every minute of how fortunate I was.…

“So who was Bram Stoker, exactly? Only the progenitor of the modern vampire craze. Long before there was “True Blood,” “Vampire Diaries,” or “Twilight” – with its sophisticated “vegetarian vampires” – there was Stoker and his most famous creation: a long-toothed, blood-thirsty Transylvanian transplant.”

Read more: Matthew Shaer, Christian Science Monitor…

“NPR Books dug into the archives for new ways to look at the election story. Here you’ll find accounts of past campaigns gone wrong, an examination of the science and art of prediction and an idea of what happens when the pre-presidential storyline gets a dose of sci fi, fantasy and puberty, respectively.” (Read more: NPR Books)

“Washington insider Jeff Gillenkirk mixes politics and the supernatural in an election novel that imagines a world in which vampires have controlled American politics for more than 200 years. Despite its fantastical facade, Pursuit of Darkness presents a picture of Washington that feels frighteningly familiar. (Book Review, April 3, 2012)”

“In an election year, with numerous polls being taken on a daily basis, it’s impossible to avoid predictions, but statistical analyst Nate Silver says humility is key to making those predictions accurate.…

If you could pick a small selection of books to represent you, what would they be? Over 100 creative types, including chefs, writers, architects and filmmakers, answered the question for “My Ideal Bookshelf,” edited by Thessaly La Force (Little, Brown, $24.99). James Joyce and Marcel Proust make expected appearances—as do “Harriet the Spy” and “The Complete Far Side.” Sherlock Holmes shows up on the shelves of both writer Michael Chabon and doctor/author Atul Gawande. Each interview is accompanied by a hand-painted illustration of the selected books by Jane Mount, whose paintings of bookshelves inspired the collection, due out Nov. 13. Here is a sampling: