Tyler Perry slammed by fans after admitting he has no writer’s room
pagesix.com – Thursday January 9, 2020
It ain’t easy being Madea.
Tyler Perry admitted this week that he’s written several of his plays, films and television shows solo, apparently hoping to inspire others with his work ethic. Many fans missed that sentiment, however, and called out the studio owner for not hiring writers.
“So, I don’t know if you know, this but all shows on television have a writer’s room,” Perry, 50, said in an Instagram clip Monday. “Most of the time, they’re 10 people, 12, whatever, that write on these television shows. Well, I have no writer’s room. Nobody writes any of my work. I write it all. Why am I telling [you] this? I wrote all of these scripts by myself in 2019. What’s my point? Work ethic!”
But rather than be inspired, many of Perry’s followers took issue with what they saw as his refusal to employ writers who could bring fresh perspectives to his work.
Brown and Morris promoted to agents at Curtis Brown
thebookseller.com – Wednesday January 8, 2020
Becky Brown and Lucy Morris have both been promoted to agents at Curtis Brown's books department.
Brown becomes an agent at the firm's heritage division, having taken up the role of associate agent in September last year, joining Norah Perkins to expand the agency’s list of literary estates. Curits Brown said she had been instrumental in bringing in a raft of new ones, including Nancy Spain and Pamela Frankau.
She first joined in 2017 to support Jonny Geller’s office, having previously worked at A M Heath and publishers Macmillan and Bloomsbury.
Morris, who joined in 2014 as assistant to Karolina Sutton and became an associate agent last year, is promoted to agent in the books department.
'Authenticity is the key' - budding crime writers on getting the science right
bbc.co.uk – Sunday January 5, 2020
Whether it is Ian Rankin's world-weary Inspector Rebus or the windswept murder mysteries of BBC Scotland's Shetland, home-grown crime fiction is big business.
But with fans more clued-up than ever, is getting the forensic science right in novels and television series important?
Dundee University seems to think so.
The university launched its MLitt in Crime Writing and Forensic Investigation in 2017, the first course of its kind in the UK.
With Scottish crime writers more popular than ever and the continued success of literary festivals like Stirling's Bloody Scotland and Aberdeen's Granite Noir, many fans are not just content to know "whodunnit", but how it was done, too.
Mango Publishing Acquires Yellow Pear Press
publishersweekly.com – Friday January 3, 2020
Mango Publishing, a Miami-based independent house focused on a diverse list of voices and topics, has acquired Yellow Pear Press, which also includes Bonhomie Press, a fiction and memoir imprint.
Founded in 2015 in San Francisco, Yellow Pear Press specializes in lifestyle and regional titles as well as notecards and journals. The YPP list works well with that of Mango Publishing, which publishes across an eclectic range of topics including LGBTQ issues, feminism, health and self-help, fiction, and children’s and young adult books.
The kindness of strangers has saved our publishers
standard.co.uk – Friday December 20, 2019
One of the reasons my husband Sam Jordison and I set up Galley Beggar Press, our small independent publishing company, in 2012 was that it would allow us to take risks on publishing the books we loved.
I’m happy to say that it worked. We haven’t put out many books in the past seven years, but the ones we have, have had a big effect. They’ve won prestigious literary prizes, been translated into dozens of languages and sold around the world. And they’ve also, luckily for us, sold enough copies here in the UK to help keep our little company going.
This year was an especially fortunate one. Our title Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann was shortlisted for The Booker Prize. It’s a big deal — and it meant that Lucy’s masterpiece, which we loved so much, was going to find more readers.
End of an era for book publisher Penguin
news.sky.com – Wednesday December 18, 2019
It is the end of an era for one of the most famous names in book publishing.
Penguin is being sold by Pearson, its owner for the last half-century, as the company focuses its activities exclusively on education.
Pearson today announced that it was selling its remaining stake in Penguin Random House, the book publishing joint venture it formed six years ago with Bertelsmann, the German media group.
The company originally owned 47% of Penguin Random House when the joint venture was set up in 2013.
It sold a 22% stake in the business to Bertelsmann, its joint venture partner, for $1bn in July 2017.
The Choose Your Own Adventure publishers are trying to get the phrase banned from Itch.io
theverge.com – Tuesday December 10, 2019
Chooseco, which publishes the famous Choose Your Own Adventure series, is apparently trying to stop indie game developers from using the phrase “choose your own adventure.” It’s sending trademark infringement notices to the Itch.io gaming storefront, and so far, they’ve resulted in four game pages being suspended.
Itch.io founder Leaf Corcoran told developers about the takedowns this afternoon. “Warning to any devs using the phrase ‘choose your own adventure’ to describe their games, Chooseco is issuing takedown notices,” he wrote on Twitter. Corcoran tells The Verge that the games include Purrfect Apawcalypse, an “apocalyptic dog dating choose your own adventure game”; a “choose your own dating sim text adventure” game called It’s a Date; an unofficial GameBoy game called Choose Your Own Adventure GB; and New Yorker writer Luke Burns’ A Series of Choose Your Own Adventure Stories Where No Matter What You Choose You Are Immediately Killed by a Werewolf, whose plot is self-explanatory.
Major Talent Agencies Step Up Global Expansion As WGA Standoff Continues
deadline.com – Saturday December 7, 2019
The television business is becoming increasingly global, fueled by the rapid expansion of the major streaming platforms. That also goes for the major Hollywood talent agencies.
Reps have always looked for opportunities beyond the U.S. But now, because of the increased demand for locally produced international content, they have stepped up their efforts. Also factoring into the acceleration is the ongoing impasse (and legal battle) between the Big 4 talent agencies and the Writers Guild of America which in April ordered its members to fire their agents if they hadn’t signed the guild’s new Code of Conduct.
Call for Names, Editors, and Contributors: Journal/Magazine of Fiction by Academics #CFP
patheos.com – Thursday December 5, 2019
I really shouldn’t start new projects. But I’ve had so many conversations recently with academics in my field about writing fiction that I think the time has come to do something about it. And so I’m going to be announcing soon the launch of a new periodical dedicated to fiction written by academics. This post aims mainly at gauging interest (and more specifically the kinds of interest there may be both from potential contributors and from potentially readers) and tackling a few initial questions that it is better to crowd source now.
Curtis Brown Creative launches TV serial writing course
thebookseller.com – Wednesday December 4, 2019
The Curtis Brown Creative writing school is launching a new course in writing an original TV drama serial.
Run in collaboration with Curtis Brown’ TV, film and theatre agents it promises expert teaching and masterclasses from TV directors, producers and showrunners at the firm’s central London offices.
The 18-week course, led by TV writer, playwright and former Birkbeck Professor Colin Teevan, starts in March.
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