from Entertainment Weekly

James Frey to pen teen series with Jobie Hughes

Jul 2, 2009, 01:40 PM | by Kate Ward

Categories: Books, News

HarperCollins announced today that it will publish four teen-centric books by A Million Little Pieces author James Frey and debut novelist Jobie Hughes. The first book will be titled I Am Number Four, and will focus on a group of alien teens who travel to Earth after their home planet is destroyed. “The authors have created a rich and imaginative world filled with action-packed suspense that will captivate teen readers,” HarperCollins Children’s Books President & Publisher Susan Katz said in a release from the publisher.

[ click to read at EW.com ]

from The Los Angeles Times

from The NY Times

July 1, 2009, 5:30 PM

HarperCollins Buys Series from James Frey

A week after submitting a young adult novel anonymously to editors, James Frey, the notorious author of “A Million Little Pieces,” and a writing partner, Jobie Hughes, have agreed to sell North American rights to “I Am Number Four” and three subsequent books in a planned series to HarperCollins, Mr. Frey’s most recent publisher of his adult novel, “Bright Shiny Morning.” Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

[ click to continue reading at NYTimes.com ]

Breaking News from ABCNEWS.com:

Actor Karl Malden Has Died at Age 97, According to His Family [3:30 p.m. ET]

An elderly gent was invited to an old friends home for dinner one evening. He was impressed by the way his buddy preceded every request to his wife with endearing terms such as: Honey, My Love, Darling, Sweetheart, Pumpkin, etc. The couple had been married almost 70 years and, clearly, they were still very much in love.

While the wife was in the kitchen, the man leaned over to his host, ‘I think it’s wonderful that, after all these years, you still call your wife those loving pet names’.

The old man hung his head. ‘I have to tell you the truth,’ he said, ‘Her name slipped my mind about 10 years ago, and I’m scared to death to ask the cranky old bitch what her name is.’

from Fused Film

Plot Details Surface on James Frey’s I Am Number Four

By Kevin Coll • June 29, 2009

It was recently announced that Michael Bay would be producing and possibly directing an adaptation of the upcoming novel, I Am Number Four, and now we have some more details on that film. Our friends over at FilmDrunk has dug up a new synopsis for the film, which you can read below.

The protagonist is 15. The rival race of aliens are from the planet Mogadore. They destroyed Lorien in order to strip the planet of its natural resources because Mogadore was dying, and still is, and they followed the Loric to Earth to finish the job. The Loric develop their “Legacies” (special powers) around their fifteenth year. This first book is a kind of love story. At its core it’s a type of father/son alone in the world, always moving to stay alive story, a lá The Road.

[ click to read at FusedFilm.com ]

from Gawker

The Time Alice Hoffman’s Review Drove Richard Ford into a Gun-Wielding Rage

By The Cajun Boy, 5:52 AM on Tue Jun 30 2009, 1,622 views

In a comment thread from a post earlier tonight about Alice Hoffman, commenter PromQueen mentioned that Richard Ford once shot up one of Hoffman’s books after she “wrote nasty things” when she reviewed his work for the New York Times.

Turns out the story is true. Here’s what Ford, talking about his book The Sportswriter, told the Guardian in a 2003 interview:

“People had written me off. When the book came out it just took a while to make its way. It didn’t happen overnight. It got bad reviews — that’s the book that Alice Hoffman wrote nasty things about in the New York Times.”

Ford’s run-in with Hoffman, with whom he shared a publisher, has become legendary. In retaliation for her criticism, Ford shot a hole through her latest book and posted it to her. “Well my wife shot it first,” says Ford, rather proudly. “She took the book out into the back yard, and shot it. But people make such a big deal out of it - shooting a book - it’s not like I shot her.”

[ click to continue reading at Gawker.com ]

from the AP

Cops: Woman takes kneeling woman’s cash in church

WESTBURY, N.Y. (AP) — Nassau County police said a congregant at a Long Island church disregarded at least one of its commandments: Thou shalt not steal. Police said the 46-year-old woman reached over a pew and took cash from a purse while its owner knelt Sunday at Our Lady of Hope Roman Catholic Church in Westbury. Police said an usher saw the theft, and officers stopped the woman as she left the church.

Police said they determined the same woman stole cash from another worshipper’s purse while that victim took communion May 10.

[ click to continue reading at AP ]

from MTV

[ click to read at MTV.com ]

from The NY Observer

Reed It and Weep: Legendary Lou, Velvet Underground Singer, Greets Groupies at Book Signing with Schnabel

By Joe Pompeo

Lou Reed, legendary frontman of the Velvet Underground, and Julian Schnabel, noted artist and filmmaker, were sitting at a rustic wooden table inside the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea on the evening of Thursday, June 25.

The two longtime friends were there for a book-signing and cocktail party celebrating the forthcoming release of Berlin, a new collection of photographs taken during Mr. Schnabel’s filming of a tour Mr. Reed did in 2007 to revive his classic 1973 album and rock opera of the same name.

One by one, enamored fans approached the duo with copies of the book and other memorabilia—vintage concert posters, black-and-white photographs, Velvet Underground LPs—that they wanted Mr. Reed, dressed in a saggy black sweater and black jeans, and Mr. Schnabel, wearing loose white pajamas, the top half of which were unbuttoned just enough to reveal a thick swath of chest hair, to autograph with shiny silver markers.

[ click to continue reading at The Observer ]

from the New York Times

From the Inbox: James Frey’s “I Am Number Four”

From John:

Hiding identity here may be the result of the fact that number four is more or less a copy of number three, except for the fact that only one has been thrown in to change the mix.

Clearly, the number three and even possibly two and one, are going to claim that substantial portions of four have been lifted from them (then embellished?) and they will press some sort of claim if four picks up a book contract and/or movie rights.

For that reason alone, given Mr. Frey’s previous issues, legal departments would most likely be on high alert if his name were to be associated with something called “I am Number Four.”

He ought to skip ahead to 10 to put a little distance between himself and those other numbers.

He needs to avoid seven, 14 and 21. I have already optioned them to a large publisher.

[ click to read at NYTimes.com ]

from KFI Los Angeles

Filipino prisoners pay tribute to Michael Jackson

Inmates in a Philippines prison honored the late pop icon Michael Jackson the way they’ve always celebrated his music, officials said, by dancing.
Sunday, June 28, 2009

(UPI) - Hundreds of inmates in a Philippines prison honored the late pop icon Michael Jackson the way they’ve always celebrated his music, officials said, by dancing.During the past two years, the more than 1,000 prisoners of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center have routinely danced in unison to Jackson’s “Thriller” album. The spectacle of the orange uniform-clad men’s synchronized dancing not only attracted hundreds of curiosity-seekers to the prison but a video of it became an Internet sensation. The 4-minute video clip attracted 23 million views after being posted in 2007.”He is like the God to them. It is Michael’s music that gives them international recognition,” Byron Garcia, a security consultant at the prison told Xinhua inside the sprawling jail.After Jackson died Thursday, the prisoners decided to perform to four Jackson songs in a row as a final tribute.

The 1,581 inmates, serving sentences up to 10 years for murder, rape and drug crimes, Saturday danced to an audience of about 500 visitors and journalists, the Chinese news service reported.

[ click to continue reading at KFI ]

from Flip Flop Fly Ball

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from ABC Australia

[ click to read at ABC Australia ]

from Variety

DREAMWORKS, FREY IN “FOUR” PLAY

By: Mike Fleming
Published: Fri, June 26, 2009, 12:06 PM 

DreamWorks has acquired screen rights to “I Am Number Four,” the first of a six-book science fiction book series that has “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” director Michael Bay aboard to produce and possibly direct.

DreamWorks is working on a high six-figure deal, sources said.

The real surprise in the deal, though, is the identity of one of the two authors. Though WME began shopping the book Thursday under a pseudonym, sources said one of the writers is James Frey, best known for writing “A Million Little Pieces.” Neither the agency nor the studio would confirm.

The deal puts Bay right back in business with DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg and Stacey Snider. It is expected that Steven Spielberg will be as active in a behind the scenes capacity similar to the godfather role he has played in the “Transformers” franchise. The sale comes as “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” takes a run at the record books this weekend, after setting records on its first two days in theaters.

The franchise is about a group of nine earthbound alien teens who escaped their planet just before it was destroyed by a hostile species. While the high school-aged kids assimilate, the title character discovers that he is being hunted by the enemy that blew up his planet.

Both the publishing rights and the screen rights were shopped simultaneously, with Bay taking it into DreamWorks/Disney, Columbia and Universal; J.J. Abrams’s Bad Robot for Paramount; Bryan Singer for Fox, and BenderSpink for New Line and CBS.

Frey recently became a client of WME when his agent, Eric Simonoff, joined WMA from Janklow-Nesbit.

[ click to read at Variety.com ]

from Entertainment Weekly

James Frey to Craig Ferguson: ‘I’m happy to be notorious,’ plus what he said about Tom Cruise

Jun 27, 2009, 11:39 AM | by Ken Tucker

James Frey gave a rare and revealing interview to Craig Ferguson last night on the Late Late Show. The author, whose 2003 memoir A Million Little Pieces brought a hailstorm of criticism for charges of inaccuracy, most notably in a 2006 TV interview with Oprah Winfrey, has apparently come to terms with his reputation.

Due to his various addictions, “I didn’t remember [various details] so I just made it up,” was how Frey summarized his Pieces experience to Ferguson. “I’m perfectly happy to be notorious,” he said. He was put at ease by Ferguson, who has spoken openly about his own struggles with drugs and drink, and will himself publish an autobiography in September called American On Purpose.

Frey was promoting the paperback relase of his novel Bright Shiny Morning. At one point, Frey admitted that he “thought Tom Cruise” when he created the Morning character Amberton Parker, whom Frey described as “a gay movie star with children.” Strikingly, the studio audience laughed and clapped at this.

Frey made no reference to a deal announced this week, in which he will collaborate with another, unnamed writer on a six-book science-fiction series, the first of which, I Am Number Four, has been optioned by director Michael Bay.

[ click to read at ew.com ]

from The New York Times

Undercover, James Frey Pitches Again

James Frey, the author of “A Million Little Pieces” and “Bright Shiny Morning,” is working with another writer and anonymously shopping a young adult novel called “I Am Number Four.”

A source familiar with the project said that Mr. Frey, who was famously caught embellishing details in “A Million Little Pieces,” his memoir of drug addiction and recovery, came up with the idea of what is proposed as a six-book series and is working with another writer to write the actual text.

A manuscript of the first book in the series has been circulating among editors at several large New York publishing houses. The story is about a group of nine children from a planet called Lorien who have been attacked by a hostile race from another planet. The nine children and their guardians evacuate to Earth, where three are killed. The protagonist, a Lorien boy named John Smith, hides in Paradise, Ohio, as a human and tries to evade his predators.

[ click to continue reading at NYTimes.com ]