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…

Mrs. Dickstein, age seventy-five, sat on her favorite bench in Central Park overlooking the lake on a lavishly sunny May day reading Stendhal’s The Red and the Black, which she had read three times over the course of her life.

A widow, she loved this exercise in delicious tranquility, and in the spring, when the weather was perfect, she would revel in this particular spot with the special view of the lake and the trees in bloom around her. Weekdays were best, for the crowds were sparse and most children were in their strollers pushed by chatting moms or nannies.

Looking up from her book, she would observe the rowboats quietly cutting through the slate-colored lake waters and people reclining on the grassy knolls, lovers embracing and oblivious, a lone man or woman, lying supine or sitting cross-legged Indian style, perhaps like her, enjoying the optimism and glory of spring.…

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.…

The most famous talked-about couple in Washington needs serious therapy. No, not Michelle and Barack – I’m talking about the  President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner.

Watching those two guide the country through difficult times is like witnessing “The War of the Roses” – the film variety. 

Unfortunately, instead of the relatively trivial matter of managing household finances, our elected leaders need to come together on solving our country’s dire fiscal problems. Most immediately, they need to raise the nation’s debt ceiling.

Read more: Liz Peek, Fox News…

(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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