Category Archives: Stacey

September 14, 2011   Stacey   advice, inspiration, Stacey, writing  
2

Looking for inspiration (in some unusual places)

Yesterday I was talking to author David Hewson, who I know since he’s collaborating with one of my clients on a project, and he told me about a book he has coming out next Spring from Bloomsbury called Writing: A User’s Manual. He told me the idea for it began when some of his blog posts on the subject started generating attention, so I went to check out what advice he has to offer on his website, davidhewson.com.

I looked up the 135 entries that pertain to writing and found a treasure trove of interesting, informative, useful, and very specific advice here, with a strong focus on software tools for writers. He even released an e-book on writing with Scrivener. It’s also more than a peek into the author’s process, one which is very interesting, especially since much of his work is historical and based on extensive research (think multiple computers and screens).

I found this post particularly fun. In it, David shares his favorite (unexpected) writing devices, including a dog and a lawnmower, and it makes me want to ask all of you authors out there where you go and what you do to find your best inspiration?

September 07, 2011   Stacey   food, opinion, Stacey  
4

Books to eat by

Helen Zoe Veit wrote an op-ed in Tuesday’s New York Times that seems to be getting some traction. The Atlantic’s blog picked it up as a top column of the day and she was on NPR talking about it, too.

The premise seems so simple, it’s almost hard to imagine it being newsworthy, and yet its message is one that could potentially have widespread effects on future generations. Teach kids to cook in school. Bring back home ec (or a modern day version of it). In a culture filled with obesity and processed foods, going back to basics seems like a solution worth paying attention to.

As far as books go, there are crusaders out there doing good work on this subject, like Michael Pollan, whose Omnivore’s Dilemma, published in 2007 opened up the conversation about what we eat and where it comes from. Nutritionist and food historian Marion Nestle’s books, including What to Eat, take decades of research and distill them into digestible sound bytes that are accessible to the general public. More recently, celebrity chef and cookbook author Jamie Oliver got out there pitching a book and reality show, Jamie’s Food Revolution, trying to make a difference and teach kids, their parents, and their schools how to cook simple, healthy meals from scratch. And many of my own clients work tirelessly to extend that message of from scratch cooking, like Jennie Perillo of injennieskitchen.com.

Here’s a link to a New Yorker piece I found that talks about some of the books published on obesity, overeating, American’s obsession with fast food, and a myriad of other depressing topics that talk about the way we eat now and how we got here.

I think these authors are making a real impact, even though my house and diet are, like many, full of contradictions. Despite good intentions, the bad habits are so deep rooted (I grew up eating Devil Dogs, McDonald’s, Chef Boyardee, and Kraft mac & cheese every day after school, and I still love all that junk!), and so ingrained in our psyches that it’s going to take a generation to move away from where we’ve been and on to greener and healthier pastures.

Books like Pollan’s,  Oliver’s, and Nestle’s, and op-eds like Ms. Veit’s, are a good conversation starter and reminder of how some basic but widespread changes can really make a difference in the way we eat now and what that means for future generations.

What do you think? Are there any great books on the subject of food culture in America that you can recommend? Any you’d like to see that haven’t yet been written?

August 31, 2011   Stacey   advice, reading, Stacey, writing  
8

Advice from the top

I’m just back from a lovely week in Maine, followed by a not-so-lovely weekend of cleaning up a flooded basement. It should be a quiet catch-up week, but instead I seem to be closing one deal and negotiating another, a good thing, but it doesn’t feel like the end of August at all!

In my hustle and bustle, there was something I saw this week that caught my eye. Ann Patchett, whose work I’m a big fan of, and who I’ve blogged about before, has written a short electronic book (it’s really more like a long article) with advice to writers that she is selling through Amazon, who was advertising it through an e-mail to its customers (or at least to me since I recently downloaded State of Wonder on my Kindle).
From the description, it sounds like a memoir about Patchett’s writing life, beginning in childhood, and offers a glimpse into the path of a talented and ultimately bestselling novelist. It’s only 45 pages, but I suspect for the aspiring writer, there is a lot of great advice to be found here. I found this brief and charming excerpt from the book(let?) at Byliner.com. Judging from the reviews on Amazon, the insight she shares is very valuable. I’m curious to know if it will be successful, and if we’ll be seeing a lot more of this kind of thing. I think it’s pretty cool that writers are expanding their oeuvre in unique ways that make their work in different formats more accessible to a wider audience.

I’d love to know what you think. Is this the kind of thing you’d be interested in reading, and do you think $2.99 is a fair price for it? And if anyone out there has downloaded it already and read it, please share your thoughts. Is it worth it? Is it too short? Should she consider expanding it into a full-length memoir? Maybe this is a way to test the market and see what the reaction is before she embarks on a much longer journey. Personally, I’d be happy to read anything she writes.

August 17, 2011   Stacey   adaptation, book to film, fun, opinion, Stacey  
1

Kizmet in the Land of Hollywood

I guess summer is a good time for movies, which might explain why we’ve recently been posting about them. I got a good response to my post, so I thought I’d follow it up with a look at the inner workings of a bestselling book-to-film adaptation. This piece from National Post is really cool because it talks about how a relatively unknown director got the job for this huge Hollywood movie through some very strong personal connections to the book author. Here’s another piece that talks about how they’ve been friends since kindergarten!

Turns out Tate Taylor actually optioned the book long before it sold to a publisher, envisioning it as a low-budget movie that might actually help get it sold as a book after having been rejected by over 50 literary agents.

Having worked on the outskirts of Hollywood for a number of years, I know this kind of back road to getting a movie made without big Hollywood names attached is practically unheard of, for a few reasons. First, Hollywood likes to reward success with money, in the form of job offers, and they don’t like risk, which is why there are barely more than a handful of A-list Hollywood writers out there. The same writers get all the big jobs. Also, they like to separate the writing and directing process, leaving the best of each to do their jobs (there are exceptions to this, like Clint Eastwood and Woody Allen). Another reason, and the reason I love this story that much more, is that the book writer is often essentially left out of the adaptation process completely since they rarely have screenplay experience and therefore create a higher risk for the project. Not always, but often, the screenwriters come in and do the adaptation, and the process unfolds with very little and sometimes no involvement from the creator of the book that the movie is based on.

Talk about a Hollywood success story that breaks all the rules (and in the book author’s favor!). This kind of synergy is practically unheard of today. Seems so easy that childhood friends should work together to create a blockbuster film from a bestselling book, yet in Hollywood this is a really rare occurrence. What do you think about this insider track for the movie version of The Help? I haven’t seen it yet, but from what I’ve heard and read, it’s quite good. Maybe Hollywood will take notice and start listening to the writers of the film’s source material more often. Hope so!

August 10, 2011   Stacey   in memoriam, reading, Stacey  
8

Writers on Goodbye

I had plans to blog today about a book-to-film article I read that I wanted to share following up on my post from last week. But then, on Monday, I heard the terrible news that my client, Jennifer Perillo’s, husband died suddenly at just 51 leaving behind Jennie and their two daughters, ages 8 and 3. I was so shocked and saddened by this news that it’s really taken over all my thoughts since. And just yesterday I learned that my 79-year-old cousin passed away after a long battle with cancer, so I’m thinking a lot about death and its effects on those left behind.

Many members of the food and blogging community have come together to support Jennie, who is loved by everyone who knows her. I initially met Jennie through another client, Shauna James Ahern of glutenfreegirl.com, who wrote such a beautiful piece about Jennie, her husband, writing, and community, that I felt compelled to share it with you all.

All of this made me wonder about writers and what motivates them during times of sadness. Writers who write personally, through blogging or memoirs, in particular. When something wonderful happens, they generally want to write about it. And when something tragic happens, same. Writers write. It’s what they do, and it’s to our benefit when someone with the uncanny ability to articulate in just the right ways what a painful situation feels like, looks like, and sounds like shares with us those feelings and experiences, and in a way that makes it relatable to the reader. Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking comes to mind. It’s about the sudden death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and the simultaneous severe illness of their only daughter. And Elizabeth McCracken’s An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination is another great example. This is also a memoir, about the loss of a pregnancy in its ninth month, a reflective and poignant look at a different, but no less painful, sort of grief.

I wonder if you have any favorite memoirs about loss. I’m not sure I actually want to read them right now given my state of mind, but I do appreciate the comfort that other people’s experiences can have on our own.

August 03, 2011   Stacey   literacy, optimism, Stacey, writing  
1

Writers Giving Back

I’m such a sap when it comes to people doing good for others. So of course I loved seeing this piece about an organization called Bronx Write Bus, which takes kids from the Bronx on cultural trips outside of the borough accompanied by volunteer writers related to the day’s cultural event. The writer works with the kids on the bus to help them take notes on their experiences. A recent example was a visit to the Anne Frank Center in Soho. Liz Welch, author of THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, went with the kids and distributed to each a notebook, a pen, and a sandwich. How cute is that? A 12 year-old in attendance had never even heard of the Holocaust, but I’m sure came away with new understanding of the world outside of the Bronx.

I think it’s so wonderful to see writers giving back in this way, and helping communities where resources are limited and there is so little focus on books and literacy. Some of these kids just might wind up being writers someday, and their love of words and writing could start from an experience like this that opens up their world beyond their close quarters.

I’d like to know if you have any ideas of cultural destination spots in New York or elsewhere around the country that a group like this might visit. And appropriate writers that might accompany them there. For fun, here is a book that is full of literary destination ideas!

July 27, 2011   Stacey   adaptation, book to film, opinion, Stacey, subsidiary rights  
11

A few words on film adaptations

Before I became a book agent, I worked in film and tv development for 7 years in New York, first for PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and then for Hearst Entertainment. My job was to be the middle man (or woman, in this case) between the film companies in LA and London (when I worked for PolyGram, they had international companies like Working Title on board) and the book publishers. The idea was to scout for book projects that could be adapted into film or television properties. It was fun work back then because Hollywood was still paying big dollars for the right project, and there existed a cottage industry in New York of film scouts like myself who were funded by the studios and whose job was to get their hands on as much material as possible. Perks included expense accounts, movie screenings, and first looks at books in manuscript form. The hope was that a book wouldn’t be missed and snatched up by someone else, even one that might not ever become a blockbuster franchise, which is mostly what Hollywood looks for today. Thinking back, it makes me wonder if a book like The English Patient would have even been made as a film today. I like to think yes, and I suppose it’s possible, especially since the book won The Booker Prize, but I’m really not so sure.

One of my most memorable book-to-film projects back then was Lorenzo Carcaterra’s Sleepers. It was a big deal book that had been kept secret until the film agent was ready to submit it wide to producers. When they did, it was literally a race to get to the agent’s east and west coast offices to read the book immediately. All of us wildly locked ourselves in our offices and read into the night. The next day there was a heated auction, and at the end of it, one of our producers at PolyGram nabbed the rights. There was controversy later about the believability of the book (this was long before A Million Little Pieces, but a lot of the same questions applied), the movie wound up being good but not great, and from what I remember, a commercial disappointment compared to the book’s success, but the process to get it to screen was exciting.   I’ve been thinking about this lately because of the recent success of Captain America, not based on a book, but 70 years worth of comics. This piece from the Writer’s Guild of America about the writers who adapted the film version is worth reading if you’re into this stuff. It’s amazing to think these two talented guys, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, were able to extract the elements from so many years of history and turn them into a modern day commercial blockbuster film. Good writing is good writing, and it’s impressive when it’s done in book form, or for film.   The general consensus is that the book is always better than the movie, and I think that’s usually true. But there are some wonderful screen adaptations that stand on their own, like The Wizard of Oz, or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (based on Road Dah’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), or Gone With the Wind. I’m curious to know what your favorite book-to-film adaptations are. Please share!

July 20, 2011   Stacey   bestsellers, book to film, children's books, Stacey  
8

Harry Potter to the Rescue

Like most, I’m a Harry Potter fan. More than what the books offer readers, which is a lot, I’m amazed by how the series changed the way kids read. This has been discussed for years already, and I can’t believe the last film has just been released!

I found this recent Wall Street Journal piece entertaining, and illuminating. The writer, Norman Lebrecht, shares some insider information about HP that I wasn’t aware of. For example, the first book was published on June 30, my wedding anniversary. And the first print run of the first edition was 500 copies, most of which went into libraries. 500 copies, of Harry Potter! And the book has been printed in more languages than any other book in history apart from the Bible. These are some staggering stats.

I knew Rowling got a small advance from the UK, and that Scholastic and Arthur Levine, whose middle name might as well be “Harry Potter” in book publishing circles, paid a hefty sum for the rights in the US. But I didn’t realize they paid $105,000, which he describes as a record advance for a children’s book. It’s funny to think that back then that was a record advance. In today’s market, there are authors writing for children who can generate seven figure advances, usually for a series, but still. The stakes have gone way higher, and much of it has to do with the unprecedented success of Harry Potter.

But beyond all the business-side stuff, which I love, the piece compares Harry’s escapades to other classic characters in literature, like Tom Sawyer and Oliver Twist, and it speaks to the public’s wide embrace of this fictionalized boy and his amazing adventures. In all our cynicism over the book industry and its woes, articles like this always remind me why I love what I do. Especially now that I have 4 little girls at home, girls who I hope will grow up to be big readers, and of course, big fans of books like Harry Potter.

Just curious, at what age do you think it’s appropriate to start reading HP? My oldest is 6, middle 4, and twins are 2. Judging from their active and sometimes fearful imaginations, I think we’ll need to wait a couple of years before we get started down that road. Somehow, I think they’ll still be in print by then.
July 14, 2011   Stacey   opinion, punctuation, Stacey  
3

The Apostrophe, or Lack Thereof

Some of us have recently weighed in on grammatical changes that have us thinking about the English language and its many quirks (I think about this often while watching my two-year-old identical twins learn new words and meanings, and explaining to my older girls the different meanings of words like trip or lie).

I found this piece on the disappearing apostrophe kind of fun and a bit confusing from a practical perspective. What I get out of it is you can basically pick and choose when to use an apostrophe depending on context and syntax. That’s a stretch, but not a far one. The rules have changed over time, and if you comply with the most current, you’ll wind up with a lot of words that are misleading, or even wrong if you follow them. Like her example of using the word “dos” to refer to something to do versus what it implies or can be construed as, the old software operating system. There is even a silly blog that attempts to abolish the apostrophe completely which I’d disagree with because reading anything without apostrophes (or apostrophe’s!) is a really annoying exercise.

Those of you who indulge in lengthy discussions about grammar will remember the bestseller EATS, SHOOTS, AND LEAVES from 2005. I found an excerpt from the book, which is funny and charming, as well as educational.

There are examples of the misuse of the apostrophe everywhere we look, or maybe they’re just new, trendy ways of using an old grammatical tool. What’s your favorite use, or misuse, of the apostrophe?

June 30, 2011   Stacey   fun, lists, reading, Stacey  
1

Top 10 list, in June!?!

I thought I’d get ready for the barrage of end-of-year best-of lists early this year. I mean, why not use the half year point as an excuse to come up with a list of the 10 best books of the year…so far? It’s pretty silly, but Amazon has created this list, and while it’s subjective as all these kinds of lists are, it is an interesting peek into a mix of titles published this year that are incredibly diverse. And not all of them have been big bestsellers, or even very talked about, which is also worth noting. PW had their take on the list mentioning the emphasis on historical in both fiction and nonfiction.

I’m sure all of the authors and publishers are thrilled that Amazon is promoting the books so heavily on their home page. Free publicity seen by millions of eyes is not so easy to find these days, and this is sort of like mass hand-selling. Like those shelves in bookstores where you have Employee Picks. I always go there first.

Personally, I’m really happy to see a food memoir on there: Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones, & Butter, which garnered a large advance from Random House and seems to be making its money back based on how long it’s been living on the bestseller lists. As well as The Tiger’s Wife, which I blogged about before. I’m still amazed this young woman has created what many feel is a masterpiece at the ripe old age of 25. And only one celebrity book—Tina Fey’s Bossypants, which has been pretty much universally praised, and the millions Reagan Arthur paid for it probably feels like a worthy investment for the publisher.

So check it out and see what you think. I wonder how many of these will make their way onto the best-of lists at the end of the year, and how many more great books will be released over the next 6 months. Are there other books you’ve read this year that you think should be on the list? Let us know, and we’ll take a look. Maybe we’ll even use Amazon’s list combined with your ideas for our next book club picks (there are 10 of us now so we need a lot of titles, and fiction only please for book club!).

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