This is what happens after less than three hours sleep...if he only he were like that now!
Good morning, book people–or good ridiculously late night, as we’re thinking of it here this morning. A certain munchkin woke up a little after one and did not go back to sleep until 5:47 this morning…apologies for today’s lateness!
The big news today is that Jennifer Lawrence, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed beauty from Winter’s Bone will be playing Katniss in the upcoming Hunger Games movie. And fans are not happy. The folks at Galleycat point out that Robert Pattinson wasn’t immediately loved by Twilight fans, but is now much loved. And perhaps they’re right–perhaps readers will come around to Lawrence.
Entertainment Weekly has an interview up with director Gary Ross. Here’s what he had to say about casting Lawrence, and about Lawrence’s physical appearance:
When did you know Jennifer Lawrence was your Katniss?
GARY ROSS: First I saw Winter’s Bone, and I just thought she was phenomenally talented and just kind of riveting and amazing and had so much power. And then we had a meeting and I found her to be just a completely compelling, intelligent person. But then she came in and read for me and it just knocked me out. I don’t want to go into too many details, but we did a scene from the movie and it was so amazingly powerful that it was sort of stunning. You glimpsed every aspect of the role and the potential of the whole movie.In the books, Katniss is described as being olive-skinned, dark-haired, possibly biracial. Did you discuss with Suzanne the implications of casting a blonde, caucasian girl?
Suzanne and I talked about that as well. There are certain things that are very clear in the book. Rue is African-American. Thresh is African-American. Suzanne had no issues with Jen playing the role. And she thought there was a tremendous amount of flexibility. It wasn’t doctrine to her. Jen will have dark hair in the role, but that’s something movies can easily achieve. [Laughs] I promise all the avid fans of The Hunger Games that we can easily deal with Jennifer’s hair color.
So hair color and skin color are the same thing now? More on this next week.
Another auction to help Japan has popped up on the interwebs, this time with a kidlit and YA focus. Some folks from the NESCBWI have put together a new site, and are still taking donations (Authors for Japan closed their donations last week; that auction is open ’til Sunday.) Head on over and donate for a worthy cause! We’ll be donating a couple of signed first editions.
Also at Galleycat, video of Tiger Beat, a band comprised of YA authors, rocking out in the 42nd Street New York Public Library as part of the NYC Teen Author Festival. Definitely a fun watch.
It’s not exactly news, but agent Mary Kole over at Kidlit has a post (with examples), on keeping first-person style narration out of your third person work. It’s a useful post–and especially valuable if you don’t write much in third (like me!).
And finally, one we can’t afford to ignore–Kris Rusch on the trust me business model in publishing. This is a very long post–and the top half is general blog detail rather than the topic–but do spend the time reading it anyway. It might be easy to hand the business side of writing off to other people, but it’s not smart, and Kris does an excellent job explaining why. (via friend and critique partner extraordinare, Livia Blackburne.)
