The co-founder of Twitter has a story to tell, and he’ll need more than 140 characters. Biz Stone has a deal with Grand Central Publishing for Things a Little Bird Told Me, a book about creative thinking that will include personal anecdotes. Grand Central, a division of Hachette Book Group, announced Monday that Stone’s book is scheduled for April 2014. Stone, 38, has written two books about blogging: Blogging: Genius Strategies for Instant Web Content and Who Let The Blogs Out?
Tag: Twitter (1-10 of 12)
Jun 4
2012
01:29 PM ET
May 14
2012
10:44 AM ET
Q&A: Justin Halpern talks new book 'I Suck at Girls' and having to top 'S-t My Dad Says'
Justin Halpern may very well be the first successful example of a digital era writer. Halpern’s Twitter feed @s–tmydadsays brought the San Diego comedian unprecedented social media success, and most impressively a major CBS sitcom deal (which turned into the erstwhile William Shatner vehicle, $#*! My Dad Says). Now, Halpern is giving readers another taste of his father’s wisdom in I Suck At Girls, his new novel that’s part memoir, part romantic comedy and all side-splitting confessional.
EW caught up with Halpern before the May 15 release of his brave compendium of unfortunate interactions with girls (leading up to his eventual marriage) and pressed him about what it took to admit to the world: I Suck at Girls. READ FULL STORY »
Sep 11
2011
12:48 PM ET
Should comic books emulate the TV biz? Plus: More reviews of 'The New 52'
Image Credit: DC Comics
Pop culture in September. A month of beginnings and renewal. A time when a certain sector of entertainment expends much marketing energy to not just psyche up the public about its products but get them excited about the very medium that delivers those products. We’re talking TV, of course, and the “new fall season” that’s imminent. But this month, we’re talking about the comic book industry, too. Last week, DC Comics began rebooting its entire line of comics via an initiative called “The New 52.” Ongoing hits like Action Comics (home to Superman) and Detective Comics (abode to Batman) restarted with new creative approaches, storylines, and creative teams. Launching with them: A bevy of new series, many starring familiar characters, returning to prime time comics the way TV stars of the past return in new vehicles. (‘Tool Time’ Tim Allen/Last Man Standing = Construction worker Alec Holland/Swamp Thing. Grunt-grunt!)
Mar 22
2011
03:08 PM ET
On the Books Mar. 22: Exclusive info on 'The Gaggle,' new book deal for Elizabeth Kostova, and more
Image Credit: Em Gee Photography
Jess Massa and Rebecca Wiegand are not only poster-girls for modern day dating, but also for 21st century book publishing. These best friends came up with a theory on “dating in the post-dating world” called “the Gaggle.” In a nutshell, the idea is that in a time when traditional dating relationships can’t be expected, women now have a group of guys in their lives who fulfill different romantic roles. Massa and Wiegand turned their idea into an interactive blog (wtfisupwithmylovelife.com), YouTube series, popular Twitter feed, and they even have a movie currently in development with New Line (screenwriters Emily Cook and Kathy Greenberg are attached), which will most likely be reminiscent of recent rom-coms with large casts, such as He’s Just Not That into You and Valentine’s Day. With an already strong brand and film option behind them, Massa and Wiegand, with A-list literary agent Alex Glass, shopped their Gaggle idea for a book, with Massa as author and Wiegand as co-creator. Massa told me exclusively they made a “significant six-figure deal” after a hotly contested auction among six interested publishers, with editor Kerri Kolen at Simon & Schuster coming out on top. Slated for spring of 2012, Massa will pen the book, giving a whole picture of the current dating world and its changing values, and describing the types of guys a girl might find in her Gaggle. Also exclusive to the book will be a rundown of a guy’s Gaggle of girls. READ FULL STORY »
Sep 20
2010
12:02 PM ET
'The Hunger Games': Celebrities tweet their love
Image Credit: Bob Charlotte/PR Photos (2); Jason Kempin/Getty ImagesA few weeks ago, Kristen Bell professed her love for Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy on Twitter. But it seems she’s not the only celeb to give The Hunger Games love in 140 characters or less. Here’s a sample of other celebs who can’t get enough of the books:
Elizabeth Banks: (actress, most recently seen on 30 Rock as Avery Jessup)
- “MOCKINGJAY!!! Clearing three days of my life to devour this book. 3rd in Hunger Games trilogy. Read these!”
John Gallagher Jr.: (actor, Broadway star of American Idiot)
- I just finished The Hunger Games and must IMMEDIATELY get to a book store to procure the second entry! Now reading… http://twitpic.com/2cbf0s
- 1st copy fresh from a just opened shipment box. Thanks Book Court! http://twitpic.com/2ef1nf
- Finished Catching Fire of the Hunger Games trilogy. Don’t know how most fans of the series waited a whole year for 3rd book.
- It’s release day for Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins! Get your copy today! No I’m not working for the PR team. Just a really big fan/dork.
- Had to put down Janis Ian for this. 100 pages in. It’s a nail biter! http://twitpic.com/2ipxyz
- Just landed in LA. I spied several castmates reading The Hunger Games on the plane. It’s spreading!
Jodelle Ferland: (actress, most recently seen in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse as Bree)
- @ZoeyActress Have I read them? Like 5 times! haha Im totally obsessed with them they are AMAZING! Being Katniss would be a dream come true=)
- Hm….wonder where I could get a bow and arrows…I think I know who I wanna be for Halloween
- @JoMarie15 I was Gale before…but then I was converted to Peeta after Mockingjay! (gale was a bit of a jerk in it)
- I got the Mockingjay pin! =) http://twitpic.com/2nl5y4
- BTW I got my Mockingjay pin at Borders while I was at the airport (it’s US only store) & it’s actually a keychain, gonna turn it into a pin!
Melinda Doolittle:
- “@SpunkyC 3rd installment of The Hunger Games series!” and “@gavincreel If you like fiction, you should read The Hunger Games! “
“And if showing love via Twitter isn’t enough, CBS Style named the trilogy one of this fall’s must-haves to carry around. And at a recent trip to a bookstore, President Obama’s daughters Sasha and Malia picked up titles from the trilogy.
Have you read The Hunger Games? And do you know of other celebrities who enjoy the books? Let me know in the comments below.
Sep 16
2010
11:48 AM ET
Neil Gaiman auctions off Twitter follows and personal phone calls for charity
Image Credit: Eric Fougere/VIP Images/CorbisNeil Gaiman recently took to his Twitter to announce his participation in TwitChange, the first ever celebrity Twitter auction. Pegged as “changing the world one tweet at a time,” TwitChange allows fans to bid on receiving tweets, retweets, and Twitter follows from their favorite celebrities. All proceeds of this charity auction go to aHomeInHaiti.org, which builds permanent housing for Haitian orphans.
While receiving a simple Twitter follow may not seem like a huge prize, being the lone literary selection thus far, Neil Gaiman announced via Twitter that the winner of his “mega package” auction will also win a one-on-one phone call with him, where he will read either a poem or a “short-short story.” No word on whether these readings will be penned specifically for the winner or if they will have been previously published. For those not willing to spend the big bucks necessary to win the Neil Gaiman mega package, there are other auctions for Twitter mentions, Twitter follows, and retweets from Neil himself. Just a couple of hours into the auction, the current bid of the mega package is $455, and the auction doesn’t end until September 25.
Aug 26
2010
04:00 AM ET
Kristen Bell professes her love of the 'Hunger Games' trilogy on Twitter
Image Credit: Glenn Harris/PR PhotosKristen Bell is drooling and sweating (her words, not mine) over Mockingjay, the third and final installment of the Hunger Games trilogy.
Bell has taken to her verified Twitter account (@IMKristenBell) to profess her love for the novels. “not just ‘a’ hunger games fan. THE hunger games fan. read both books twice & am silently salivating for the 3rd” she tweeted last week. Well, Kristen, ask and you shall receive. Yesterday, she posted a picture of the book, saying “it’s here.”
Twitter isn’t the only outlet Bell is using to talk up the books. In the September issue of SHAPE she said, “It’s a wonderfully engaging story about a young female gladiator. I read the first one in a day — it’s that good.” And she’s even trying to convince her Twitter followers that the books is a must-read: ”believe it baby! 2nd time i read it aloud 2 friends & did different voices for each charachter. i am the king of the nerds!” But that’s not all. She shared her thoughts on characters Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark: “hmm its a hard one. peeta is so damn sweet but i wish he would stick up for himself when katniss is being a straight up biiiitch!” and “but i love katniss. shes a hardened criminal & the symbol of a rebellion. embarrassed to say i wish she would smoooch peeta more!”
What do you think? Is Bell’s love of the trilogy a bit too much or are you right there with her tweeting about how awesome the series is?
Apr 22
2010
04:21 PM ET
'The Office' star Mindy Kaling gets a book deal
Image Credit: Todd Williamson/WireImage.comThe Office fans have further reason to smile today. In addition to being a few hours away from the new episode “Secretary’s Day,” Random House’s Crown imprint has announced plans to release a book by Mindy Kaling in fall 2011. Kaling plays the boy crazy yet lovable Kelly Kapoor, who often steals scenes with her ridiculously inappropriate office behavior (lying about being pregnant, performing as a member of the diva duo “Subtle Sexuality”). She is also co-executive producer of The Office and has written 18 episodes of the show over the course of its six seasons.
Titled The Contents of My Purse, Kaling’s collection of comic essays will detail moments from a woman’s life, including everything from relationships to fashion. Crown describes Kaling’s collection as a mix between Kaling’s own blog Things I Bought That I Love and Nora Ephron’s popular Broadway play Love, Loss, and What I Wore. (Kaling appears to be a fan of Ephron’s, signing her blog posts “Mindy Ephron” and listing the writer-director’s You’ve Got Mail as her favorite film). Kaling took to her Twitter account earlier today to describe the book in her own words: “My book will be essays and personal anecdotes, pictures, fashion, and general opinionated bossiness about how women should live” and “My book will be about being over 30 and settling. ‘Find the Right in Mr. Wrong.’”
With a deal to write and star in a new NBC comedy, as well as being in the process of writing her first feature-length film, The Low Self-Esteem of Lizzie Gillespie, Kaling is poised to become a new version of Ephron for the ’10s. Her rabid fan base (which includes over 1 million Twitter followers) revels in her quirky thoughts and silly comments, as well as smart criticism on the portrayal of women in film and television (“NO MORE TYPE A PERSONALITY WOMEN IN ROMANTIC COMEDIES WHO HAVE TO LEARN TO PUT THEIR CAREER ASIDE TO FIND TRUE LOVE”).
The success of female comedic authors like Chelsea Handler, and the popularity of The Office and Kaling herself, leads me to believe that The Contents of My Purse will be a surefire hit, or at the very least an enjoyable read. I’m already planning on pre-ordering. What do you think, Shelf Lifers? Interested in reading Kaling’s book? Or are you holding out for Dwight Schrute’s Memoirs from a Beet Farm?
Dec 29
2009
09:00 AM ET
The classics get tweeted in 'Twitterature'
Tolstoy was a great novelist, but he wasn’t known for concision. That’s probably the reason why he didn’t use Twitter. Well, one of the reasons, at least.
Luckily for us, the compilers of the new book Twitterature have helped to condense into 140 characters what would have taken the Russian author 140 pages to describe. Each classic is squeezed into 20 tweets or fewer. For example, from Anna Karenina (SPOILER ALERT for those who haven’t had a chance to catch the nail-biting finale):
“Alright, twenty rubles says that I can toss my bag in the air, run across the tracks, and catch it before the train arriv–”
William Shakespeare, John Steinbeck, Thomas Pynchon, and even Dan Brown get the Twitter treatment in the book, to widely varying humorous effect. I like the premise of the whole thing, even if it’s sometimes a bit overcooked. Plus, the tweets actually cover the plot pretty well, so I can even imagine using this as a sort of jokey CliffsNotes. Here are a few more choice examples:
“SATAN HAS THREE HEADS, AND THEY ARE TOTALLY EATING PEOPLE” Dante’s The Inferno
“S—. ‘C-Section’ is not ‘of woman born’? What kind of king dies on a g–d— technicality?” Shakespeare’s Macbeth
“Robert Downey Jr. playing me in a film? Totally cool. Perfect.” A.C. Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes
What do you think? Are Twitter and classic lit like chocolate and peanut butter, two great things that go great together? Or is it more like chocolate and anchovy paste?
Nov 24
2009
12:15 PM ET
'Ice Storm' author Rick Moody Tweets a short story!
Why write another novel when novelty beckons? Rick Moody, the author of novels like Garden State and The Ice Storm, will be tweeting his newest short story in a series of 140-character bursts for the online zine Electric Literature. Beginning Monday, Nov. 30, Moody’s “Some Contemporary Characters” will be “published” over the course of 153 tweets, sent out over three days. (Moody fans and the curious can subscribe to Electric Lit‘s Twitter feed at its Twitter page.) “It really was like writing Haiku,” says Moody of the story, which follows the relationship of an older man and younger woman. Here are the first two tweets of “Some Contemporary Characters,” which Electric Lit shared with EW exclusively:
There are things in this taxable and careworn world that can only be said in a restrictive interface with a minimum of characters:
Saw him on OKCupid. Agreed to meet. In his bio he said he had a “different conception of time.” And guess what? He didn’t show.
How did Moody come to tweet a work of fiction? Credit the clever folks at Electric Literature, whom we’ve written about before (most recently for a Michael Cunningham story in the premiere issue). “We approached Rick Moody because we admire his writing, and knew he has an inventive side,” explains Electric Lit co-founder Andy Hunter via e-mail. “The Twitter story was his idea. In a lot of ways Rick is the perfect writer to take on the project of writing a story specifically for Twitter. He’s a great storyteller who has often set formal constraints for himself in the past, particularly in his short fiction. … Some of his other stories have eschewed certain important punctuation marks, like the period. In a way, the Twitter story helps to highlight the extreme attention to language a great short story writer is likely to pay.”
Are you curious enough to read more?
Photo credit: Thatcher Keats/Retna
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