Eat, Pray, Adapt: Making a book into a film

Source:cnn.com

(CNN) — Screenwriter Jennifer Salt knows fans will be watching her work very closely.

Salt adapted the memoir “Eat, Pray, Love” for the screen and is keenly aware that there is a lot riding on the film based on the beloved book. After all, she too found herself pulled into the pages of the best-seller written by Elizabeth Gilbert.

“There were things in the book that I loved, things that Ryan [Murphy, the director] loved and the sense from the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, of things that the audience of the book really loved,” Salt said. “I think we felt a responsibility to try and include them all, but at a certain point, you can’t accommodate them all.”

It’s a fine balance for any screenplay writer adapting a work already in existence, but especially with a book such as “Eat, Pray, Love” which documented Gilbert’s yearlong odyssey abroad with stops in Rome, India and Bali after a painful divorce. Fans have had an immensely personal connection with Gilbert’s memoir and have eagerly awaited its translation to screen.

READ MORE HERE

Cover story: Open up to the reading and writing revolution

Source: thisisbrandx.com

Emma Teitgen, 12, thought the chemistry book her teacher recommended would make perfect bedside reading. Perfect because it might help her fall asleep. Then she downloaded “The Elements: A Visual Exploration” to her iPad. Instead of making her drowsy, it blossomed in her hands. The 118 chemical elements came alive in vivid images that could be rotated with a swipe of the finger.

Tapping on links, Teitgen was soon engrossed in atomic weights and crystal structures. Three hours later, she looked up to see that it was way past her bedtime.

More than 550 years after Johannes Gutenberg printed 180 copies of the Bible on paper and vellum, new technologies as revolutionary as the printing press are changing the concept of a book and what it means to be literate. Sound, animation and the ability to connect to the Internet have created the notion of a living book that can establish an entirely new kind of relationship with readers. Continue reading after the jump…

As electronic reading devices evolve and proliferate, books are increasingly able to talk to readers, quiz them on their grasp of the material, play videos to illustrate a point or connect them with a community of fellow readers. The same technology allows readers to reach out to authors, provide instant reaction and even become creative collaborators, influencing plot developments and the writer’s use of dramatic devices.

READ MORE HERE

Must be the season of the ‘Witch’

Source:Bill Castanier lansingcitypulse.com

Kelley Armstrong has been writing urban fantasy for only 12 years, but even so she was at the cusp of the genre’s development.

“I can’t tell you why I am attracted to the writing,” she said. “I have been writing some form of this genre all my life.”

Part of the attraction, she claims, may be growing up in Canada and listening to folk tales spiced with the supernatural. “I wanted to tell my own stories and they always had some element of the supernatural in them.”

However, her taste for the supernatural did not always draw positive reinforcement from teachers or other kids.

“Growing up, horror was something for guys,” she said. “I read Dean Koontz, Peter Straub, Stephen King.’’ When she was very young, she said, Grimm’s Fairy Tales and alternate versions of Cinderella — including the version in which would-be princesses cut off their toes in the hopes of fitting their feet into the glass slipper — caught her eye.

READ MORE HERE

What did you think of today’s book news?

Join us in the forum to discuss!