Writer Unboxed

Kath is going to chime in tomorrow with an industry report, so today I’m going to focus on contests, adaptations and rejections, oh, my!

First off, if you’re still scrambling for gift ideas for writer-types, you must check out Inkygirl Debbie Ohi’s fabu list HERE. I’d like one of everything.

C. Hope Clark recently reported on several interesting contests, including the American Kennel Club Fiction Contest (fiction about a dog, no fee, good prize), the Debut Dagger Competition (UK fiction contest, great prize, work to be read by agents and editors), and the PM Moon Children’s Book Contest (children’s fiction k-3, publication prize). Check them out!

Have a rejection-letter collection? This, from Galley Cat:

Bill Shapiro (editor of Other People’s Love Letters) is looking for your literary rejection letters, planning to publish them in a 2010 collection entitled, Other People’s Rejection Letters.

If you need more immediate satisfaction (or sympathy) feel free to include your literary rejection in the comments section. Or check out the excellent Literary Rejections on Display blog.

Learn more about it HERE. And check out this essay on Guide to Literary Agents blog, 10 Hidden Gifts of Rejection Letters, for additional fun.

In case you haven’t heard, the Amazon Kindle is sold out. Drat. The wait list is currently several weeks long. Would you have purchased one, if you could’ve? Or will you wait and hope that the rumors are true and there will be a new version rolled out in early ’09?

JK Rowling’s The Tales of Beedle the Bard–a book of five fairy tales referenced in Harry Potter–is now on sale and, given that the first print-run will be over 7 million copies, it’s expected to be a best-seller. All of the profits will go to charity. Check out the standard copy at Amazon, retailing currently for $7.14, or bust out the big change for the beautiful $100 collector’s edition. (And just in case you haven’t seen the latest Harry Potter trailer, here ’tis.)

Speaking of movie adaptations (again, but you know I can’t help myself), the film version of Bernhard Schlink’s powerful novel The Reader will be out in a limited release starting tomorrow. You can get a peek at the film, starring Kate Winslet, Ralph Fiennes and David Kross, via the trailer HERE.

Fantasy SF blog reported on news that was truly news to me: Alan Rickman (Snape, of Harry Potter fame) will play the role of the caterpillar in a new film production of Alice in Wonderland, brought to life by one of Hollywood’s most fantastical producers, Tim Burton.

In agent news, Marsha Philitas is now a senior literary agent with L. Perkins Associates after Jenny Rappaport left to start her own agency. From Rappaport’s site:

Jenny primarily represents science fiction and fantasy, horror, young adult fiction, and romance, along with a few select nonfiction titles.

In science fiction and fantasy, her tastes are very broad, but be careful for cliches. There’s so much wonderful material out there to explore that every fantasy novel doesn’t need the stereotypical elf, dwarf, and farmboy-turned-world savior, all of whom start their adventure in a bar with tavern wenches. Regarding horror, she prefers the darker, psychological side of things, and she very firmly does not like splatterpunk.

She represents all types of young adult fiction, but her favorites are the ones that fall into the SFF or horror genres. Regarding romance, she is only looking for historical romances and paranormals (contemporary or historical). She also handles a bit of women’s fiction, and is always a sucker for a very good historical novel. Literary fiction is difficult to place with us.

The Rappaport Agency does not represent picture books, most types of nonfiction, or religious fiction.

We were going to interview Jenny for WU and aren’t quite sure yet how this development might affect her ability to do our Q&A. Hopefully we’ll still be able to bring this to you. Stay tuned!

Amazon has officially acquired ABE books and apparenly doesn’t plan to make any big changes to the way ABE runs, which is good. I’ve long been a fan of ABE, where you can find good deals on out-of-print books.

The New York Times announced their picks for the top ten books of 2008; three of the five fiction choices were published by Alfred A. Knopf: Steven Millhouser’s Dangerous Laughter, Toni Morrison’s The Mercy and Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth.

Wow. I’d be hard pressed to come up with a list like this. How do you choose? What was YOUR favorite book of 2008?

Picture courtesy Flick’s Monroe’s Dragonfly

Therese Walsh co-founded Writer Unboxed in 2006. Her debut novel, The Last Will of Moira Leahy, sold to Random House in a two-book deal in 2008, was named one of January Magazine’s Best Books of 2009, and was a Target Breakout Book in 2010. She's never been published with a lit magazine, but LOST's Carlton Cuse liked her haiku best on Twitter, and that made her pretty happy.

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