by Stone Marshall | Nov 8, 2015 | Awesome Book News |
The first official photos from the long-awaited Harry Potter spin-off have arrived online. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them recently began shooting ahead of its theatrical release next year, with long-term Potter director David Yates once again at the helm of another magical jaunt.
Avid Potter fans will recognize the title, which features in the earlier books and movies as a Hogwarts textbook, yet Fantastic Beasts is an entirely new creation. J.K. Rowling is penning the script that’s set to revolve around Newt Scamander, the author of the textbook who lives in ’20s New York and works for MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America), the US equivalent of the Ministry of Magic.
Oscar-winner Eddie Redmayne is tackling the lead role in classic style, as evidenced in this first batch of images from EW that showcase the period flair of the movie’s setting along with glimpses of the supporting cast. It boasts a ton of starry names including Katherine Waterston, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Jon Voight, Gemma Chan, Ron Perlman and Ezra Miller. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is scheduled to arrive on November 18, 2016.
Eddie Redmayne stars in first images for Harry Potter spin-off Fantastic Beasts
by StoneMarshall | Nov 8, 2015 | Awesome Book News, parent-news, State of Stone, Stone Marshall Book News |
Starting an email with “Dear Reader” feels lame. I’d rather say, Hello Andrew and Rachel and Ryan and Ava and, well, I think I’m making the point to myself. With each new book, I can’t exactly write an email to every one on the team, but I can reply to each email I receive. I don’t always reply and I’m sorry for that. But I’ll keep trying!
So, as I write this email, I’ll write to my son, Nabru Marshall.
Hi son,
Nice job at the Pokémon tournament on Saturday! No, I can’t play Pokémon now. Why? Because I’m writing you a letter. Let’s play tonight, 8pm, but you’ve got to give me a couple of Megas or else I have no chance. Ok, sure, we’ll build on our Studio Minecraft server for a bit and then play Pokémon.
Should we open the Stone Marshall Studio MC server to our readers? I think it makes sense to do that. They’ll get it. We’ve built the Legends & Heroes world they know from the books. Right, Jesse built most of it, but you’ve got your secret area that only you and your buddies know how to get to. Doh, it’s not a secret area now that I told everybody, but the entrance is still a secret.
How should we open it? We’ve got to keep the world intact. We can’t have Greifers destroying the Kingdom or parts of the Beyond. We can change the game mode to protect it. I think it would be cool to have a certain time each week where we login and create groups (Heroes vs. Legends) and have battles. I’m not sure how to set that up. I wonder if one of our readers knows how to admin an MC server?
You know what else I’d love? To have a reader-created world that we can write stories about. Make it part of our Legends & Heroes series.
Your buddies want me to finish Flynn’s Log 5. Yea, I know. I get email every day from readers, our friends, who want the same thing. I’m working on it. I distracted myself early in the year. We started the Stone Marshall Studio and the Legends & Heroes series to give me more time to write Flynn’s Log and keep up with our friends’ demands for more books, but it backfired. We spent tons of time working out the Legends & Heroes story arc and creating characters and illustrations and the world. And the whole time we left Flynn in limbo.
I need to tell you about Flynn.
What’s taking so long? Yikes, that’s a tough question. I love Flynn, but his mind is a bit mixed up right now. He doesn’t realize what’s really happening. So I’m trying to help him, but he’s not listening to me. He’s only listening to Zana.
Why don’t I tell Zana what to do, you ask? Right, have you tried talking to Zana? She’s way too logical. I can’t get anything past her. I try to explain “life” to her and she destroys my logic. I use the definition of life and she tells me how her version of life is more accurate. I can’t convince Zana to tell Flynn anything that I want him to hear.
Whose cap did Elle grab in Flynn’s Log 4? Wait just a minute, I’m not giving spoilers here, but I think you know what happened, if you look deep within.
When will the next book be out? If Flynn and Zana cooperate, then we’ll have a Christmas release. Elle is being helpful, but right now I need to listen in on Flynn’s mind. I also need to intercept Zana’s transmissions (her encryption is becoming more difficult to break).
I’ve not yet told you anything about Flynn. That’s because you keep asking questions. Flynn is, well, he’s where we left him. What’s he been doing? We’ll find out soon enough. But, I need to warn you. His emotional state might be unstable. He’s facing some questions that we all face, questions about his very existence and what it all means.
Does he find the answers? No more questions!
Until then, our friends can read the latest Legends & Heroes issue. Yes, our friends can get free codes for iBooks. I can’t get codes for the other ebook stores, it’s like Apple “gets it” with codes and the others don’t. But I can still get the issue to our friends who read on Kindle, Android, etc., if they know how to load an ebook onto their device.
So, if your friends want the latest issue for free, ask them to email me. If they read iBooks (Apple devices), I’ll send a promo code. If they use another device, I’ll send a link to the file for side loading.
But I need the right information, so be sure they send this to me:
Subject Line of Email: Legends & Heroes Issue 8
Type of eReader: iBooks, Kindle, Google Play, NOOK, Kobo, online, other
Or, if they don’t want the hassle of side loading and don’t mind paying a buck, they can get it here: https://www.stonemarshall.com/l&h0008. Be sure they ask their parents if it’s OK to buy the book and download the file!
With Love,
Dad (Stone Marshall)
by Stone Marshall | Nov 8, 2015 | Awesome Book News |
American author-illustrator Jeff Kinney has come out with the tenth book of the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series in which main character Greg Heffley starts a new school year and faces a challenge he never could’ve imagined.
In “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School”, Kinney brings the series back to its roots.
Life was better in the old days. Or was it? That’s the question middle-school weakling Heffley is asking, as his town voluntarily unplugs and goes electronics-free. But modern life has its conveniences, and Greg isn’t cut out for an old-fashioned world.
It follows Heffley as he goes on a weeklong field trip to a farm and deals with a generation gap between the kids and their chaperones. With tension building inside and outside the Heffley home, Greg looks for a way to survive.
According to Kinney, the most surprising thing about “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” has been how children of different cultures around the world have embraced Greg Heffley.
“For the tenth book, I wanted to bring things back to basics,” said Kinney on the dramatic choice of black for the book cover.
“And nothing says ‘Old School’ for a cartoonist more than black, the colour of ink,” he adds.
Published by Puffin Books, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School” hit the bookstores in more than 90 countries today, including in India.
Kinney didn’t grow up wanting to be a children’s author. His dream was to become a newspaper cartoonist, but he wasn’t able to get his comic strips syndicated. In 1998, Kinney came up with the idea for “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”. He worked on his book for almost eight years before showing it to a publisher in New York.
While attending the University of Maryland in the early 1990s, he ran a comic strip called “Igdoof” in the campus newspaper, and he knew he wanted to be a cartoonist. However, Kinney was not successful in getting his comic strip syndicated after college, and in 1998 he started writing down ideas for “Diary of a Wimpy Kid”, which he hoped to turn into a book.
Kinney worked on the book for six years before publishing it online on Funbrain.com in daily installments. To date, the online version of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” has more than 80 million visits, and is typically read by more than 70,000 kids a day.
In 2006, Kinney signed a multi-book deal with publisher Harry N Abrams, Inc. to turn “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” into a print series.
The first book was published in 2007 and became an instant bestseller. Besides the 10 books in the “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series, there are two additional books: “The Wimpy Kid Do-It-Yourself Book” and “The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary.”
The “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series has sold 164 million copies in print worldwide and has been translated to 48 languages. It is regarded among the few series that have surpassed the 150 million mark, including the Harry Potter series.
Tenth book of ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ series out
by Stone Marshall | Nov 6, 2015 | Awesome Book News |
For all you Diary of A Wimpy Kid fanatics, this piece of information will make your day.
American author-illustrator Jeff Kinney has launched the tenth book of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.Titled, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School, the book is yet another personal journal of Greg Heffley, the main protagonist of the series.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid series traces the life and struggles of Greg, a young boy who inadvertently lands into trouble all the time.The latest addition to the series, will be about how Greg, a middle-school weakling goes “old school” as his entire town goes electronics-free.
How the boy recovers from the massive challenge of living a life sans electronics and ultimately goes back to his roots lies at the crux of the book.
Through his latest book Kinney has tried to raise the much-debated question of whether life was better in the old days or is far better now?
As reported by PTI, the book ” follows Heffley as he goes on a weeklong field trip to a farm and deals with a generation gap between the kids and their chaperones. With tension building inside and outside the Heffley home, Greg looks for a way to survive. ”
Published by Puffin Books, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School has a dramatic and basic black cover the reason for which, according to Kinney is that he, ” wanted to bring things back to basics. And nothing says ‘Old School’ for a cartoonist more than black, the colour of ink ”
The book will hit the bookstores in more than 90 countries, including India on November 3.
Diary of a Wimpy Kid goes ‘Old School’ with its latest addition
by Stone Marshall | Nov 6, 2015 | Awesome Book News |
Writer Jeff Kinney has sold more than 150 million copies of his book series, “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” Creating one of the most lucrative franchises in the traditional publishing industry is just one of several unlikely pages in the book of Kinney’s career.
“I really wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist,” Kinney said in an interview with On the Money. “I didn’t have the chops to make it.”
Kinney studied computer science in college and worked at Funbrain as a designer of educational games. The semi-autobiographical and nostalgic cartoons were originally posted on Funbrain’s company website in 2006.
He spent 8 years developing the first-person, illustrated diary of middle schooler Greg Heffley before he brought it to an editor.
“I wrote ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ as a nostalgia piece, looking back like ‘The Wonder Years,'” said Kinney, referring to the 1980s TV series set in the 1960s. “But I found out that I was a kids’ author.”
Kinney’s first book was published in 2007, at an initial run of just 15,000 copies. Since then, “Wimpy Kid” has become a brand valued at nearly half a billion dollars – thanks to the books, licensed products and three feature films that have earned $225 million at the box office.
Last year, the Amulet children’s book imprint of publisher Abrams printed 5.5 million copies of the series’ 9th book.
The “Wimpy Kid” books are sold in 90 countries globally and have been translated into 45 different languages. Even The Vatican got in on the hype, releasing a Latin version of “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” earlier this year. “Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Old School,” the series’ tenth book, will be available November 3rd, with Kinney embarking on a global book tour for promotion.
“Sometimes I sit across from a kid in Madrid, Spain or in Brazil and we don’t share a language or a culture, but we share these stories,” he said. “I think it’s that we have childhood in common, it’s a universal language.”
An ‘Unlikely’ book store owner
The author’s newest chapter is as owner-operator of an independent brick and mortar bookstore in his town of Plainville, Massachusetts. Dubbed An Unlikely Story, the three-story building opened this spring, after a labor of love and a multi-million dollar investment from Kinney.
The store will now join the 2,000-plus independent bookstores currently operating in the U.S., according to the American Booksellers Association.
“Bookstores usually tend to run at 2 to 5 percent margin, so you’re not going to get rich off it,” said Kinney. “People are coming from miles around, even from overseas, to visit this store.”
Kinney’s huge global readership may have helped turn An Unlikely Story into a destination, but the store has thousands of books available beyond the Wimpy Kid brand.
“This small town is choked with traffic and we have police details, it makes me feel that there is a need for this,” he told CNBC. “They’re not there for my books, they’re there because of books.”
‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’ goes from cartoonist to author
by Stone Marshall | Nov 5, 2015 | Awesome Book News |
Neil Nitin Mukesh, who stars in Sooraj Barjatya’s next, claims that he has been offered a role in American TV series ‘Game of Thrones’.
Neil Nitin Mukesh is already reaping the benefits of working in the Salman Khan starrer Diwali release Prem Ratan Dhan Payo.
Mirror has learnt that the film’s action director Greg Powell, who’s worked on high profile Hollywood projects like Avengers: Age of Ultron, Fast and Furious 6 and the Harry Potter series, and is currently the stunt director of Game of Thrones, has offered Neil a role in the hit show.
“Greg has directed two sword-fighting sequences in PRDP for which I had to train for over a month in order to get the stance and wrist movements right. He seemed pretty impressed with all the hard work I put in and made the offer when we were shooting for the climax scene a few months ago,” Neil, who is a huge GoT fan, says excitedly, adding that someone from the show’s production team is expected to come down by the month-end for further discussions.
According to Neil, his role in the show will be quite similar to the one in PRDP. “I play a royal in both and also feature in combat scenes,” he says. The actor is also all praise for Greg, “He is extremely humble and professional. I feel honoured that I got to work with him,” he says, adding that the Khaleesi, Jon Snow and the Imp are his favourite characters from the show.
Apart from its graphic violence, GoT is known for its nudity and sex. Is Neil comfortable with it? “I have gone nude for Jail, so why not for this? I am okay with it if it’s required for my character. I am not intimidated by it as an actor,” he concludes.
Bollywood’s Prince to conquer the Iron Throne
