| news | 
|
CHABON AND KING READING, SEPT. 23
If you're in New York on Friday, Sept. 23, you might consider indulging yourself in the rare treat of attending a paired reading by Michael Chabon and Stephen King. The reading, part of the annual New Yorker Festival, will take place 7 p.m. Directors Guild of America offices at 110 West 57th Street.
Tickets can be purchased for $15 at Ticketmaster starting Aug. 25 at 12 p.m. EST..
For those of you who either can't make it or are cheap bastards, Chabon and King will be available to sign books Saturday at 2 p.m. at the New Yorker Festival's headquarters. Chabon will be signing The Final Solution and Kill will be signing The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.
ESCAPE FROM LEGOLAND
David Oakes, an artist whose specificialty is customizing LEGO Minifigs, reports that he recently sold a picture of a LEGO-version of the Escapist to Dark Horse. Oakes said "it should be coming soon, possibly as soon as #8."
A picture of one such Escapist Minifig can be found at Oakes' website.
To see some of Oakes' other creations, click here.
AYELET: MIND YOUR OWN KIDS
Ayelet Waldman's newest Salon column hit the net yesterday, this time criticizing parents who lecture mothers about child abandonment theory and breast feeding.
In the article, Waldman, who has come under heat in recent months for an essay confessing her love for her husband over her children, asks, "What is it about parenting that allows us to indulge our inner scold?"
To read the entire article (which, in my honest opinion, is her best Salon column yet), click here.
HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN ESCAPIST
For those of you who dream of the day where your Spider-Man action figure can battle-it-out with the Escapist, Raving Toy Maniac has the instructions on how to make your very own Escapist figure.
The figure, created by Joshua Izzo, was made using "a DC Direct Power Ring figure body and head with a DC Direct Question face. His mask is cut paper and the rest is all paint."
To view other action figure recipes, click here.
MORE ON AUTHOR AUCTION
The Washington Post has more on that author auction, including the specifics of Michael Chabon's involvement.
Chabon, who also plans to sell one of his character's names, said almost every writer asked to participate agreed immediately.
One who did balk told him, "It's a great cause, but I just can't give somebody else that amount of control over my book. I need to be able to name my characters."
Chabon admitted that the couple of times he has auctioned off minor characters in his novels -- to raise money for his children's school, for example -- he wasn't too happy with the results: "The winning names were not even remotely names I would have chosen or invented."
But that paled beside what happened to a novelist who held a similar charity auction years ago, Chabon said: A rival author won and asked that his name be inserted in the novelist's book. That's why he has a line in his preview reserving "the right not to use the name if it is offensive, mischievous, ill-intentioned or inappropriate." Meanwhile, the Associated Press has picked up the story now also.
...Board member Chabon, who won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," said his own work would be meaningless without the freedoms afforded under the First Amendment.
"I don't think anything else can be hopeful or accomplished if you have the fear that you will get arrested or prosecuted or censored," said Chabon. "I saw a cry for help. So it was my goal to try to get writers whose work and whose name would be meaningful to the greatest number of people." For those of you who have a few thousand dollars lying around, Chabon's auction kicks-off Sept. 1.
YOUR NAME IN CHABON'S NEXT NOVEL!
For those of you who want not only to own Michael Chabon's next novel but to also in it, First Amendment Project is auctioning off the chance to do just that!
Chabon's offering is as follows: "Your name or the name of your choosing will appear at least once in the next novel I write. I reserve the right not to use the name if it is offensive, mischievous, ill-intentioned or inappropriate."
The auction runs Sept. 1 to 10.
Bidders can also fight it out to have their name in Ayelet Waldman's next Mommy Track Mystery. Her auction runs Sept. 8 to 18.
The First Amendment Project is a nonprofit organization that advocates for the freedom of expression, information, and petition. The Project provided representation for George T., whose conviction for writing violent poems was overturned last year.
Chabon, who is on the board of the First Amendment Project, told AuctionBytes.com that the idea for an auction came from Neil Gaiman, who raised $3,500 for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund by auctioning off the chance to name a cruise ship in his next novel, Anansi Boys, on eBay.
"It just made sense to apply this on a grander scale," Chabon said. "If one of us could raise that much for a non profit on his own, what could a dozen or more authors pull in for the First Amendment Project?"
In a message on Neil Gaiman's site in March, Chabon said the organization had gone broke after defending a San Diego environmental activist from being sued for "petitioning to protect bald eagles."
"TFAP won the court battle but it was a classic Pyrrhic victory. One more like that and they are lost," Chabon said.
Chabon continued: "There is so much to care about and we face so many demands for our time, attention, and money. I know. But the First Amendment... it all starts there, doesn't it? It seems to me that there's really no point to anything else without that basic guarantee."
EW PROFILES AYELET
It seems this Ayelet-doesn't-love-her-children thing will never end. I'm so close to banning these stories from my site, in fact. But, sadly, it's news. Here, for your consumption, is the newest addition to the lot:
Until this spring, Waldman, 40, was best known as the author of the effervescent Mommy-Track mysteries, in which former lawyer and stay-at-home mom Juliet Applebaum juggles breast pumping and sleuthingthe latest, The Cradle Robbers, lands in stores this month. Then, in March, Waldman asserted in a New York Times essay that her post-kid sex life remains "vital, even torrid" because, unlike many mothers, she is in love with her spouse, not her kids. Waldman's money quote: "If I were to lose one of my children, God forbid, even if I lost all my children, God forbid, I would still have him, my husband. But my imagination simply fails me when I try to picture a future beyond my husband's death."
Three weeks later, she was on Oprah's couch fending off a posse of irate females. "It was terrifying," says Waldman, who, in person, is witty, profane, and compulsively candid. "They'd assembled all these women and one of them was shouting 'Let me at her, let me at her.' Oy. I got letters from people saying 'Amen, sister,' and from men who were getting laid for the first time in 10 years. But you only feel the negative stuff." SOLICITATION FOR ESCAPIST #8 ONLINE
Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist #8
Writer: Brian K. Vaughan, Harvey Pekar, Jeff Parker, Andi Watson
From off the streets of Cleveland comes fan-favorite writer Brian K. Vaughan (Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways) and critically acclaimed artists Philip Bond (Vinarama, Vertigo Pop) and Eduardo Barreto (Mr. Machine Gun!) to kick off the anthology's first multi-part story! Meet Maxwell Roth and Case Weaver, latter-day versions of Joe Kavalier and Sam Clay, as they set out to make the Master of Elusion a sensation once again in "The Escapists”!
Next, on his way home from an extended stay at a Cleveland hospital, our man Harvey Pekar encounters…The Escapist?! The team-up you thought you'd never see, illustrated by Dean Haspiel (The Quitter). Also in this issue, award-winning creator Andi Watson (Skeleton Key, Geisha) and Eisner Award nominated Jeff Parker (The Interman)!
With cover art by Brian Bolland, you won't want to miss this eclectic eighth installment of the multiple award-winning quarterly anthology!
Pub. Date: Nov 09, 2005
BLOG INTERVIEW WITH AYELET
I wish I chilled with Oprah. She keeps out of the greenroom. But she was incredibly sweet, and very friendly. She was like a real person, you know? Which I totally didn't expect. She was funny and casual, and did a great job of keeping me from flinging myself off the couch and out of the city of Chicago, which is what I wanted to do when I saw the other women on that panel. I mean, there was a woman who came on the show specifically to say that she only ever had sex with her husband while watching television! And *I'm* the crazy one! To read the rest of the interview, click here.
Got news? E-mail me!
Tuesday, August 23, 2005, 10:50 PM ET
Source: The New Yorker Festival 2005
Tuesday, August 16, 2005, 11:30 PM ET
Source: Exclusive
Tuesday, August 16, 2005, 11:30 PM ET
Source: Salon
There is little I do as a mother that can't be criticized, not least by myself. Parenting is incredibly hard work, even without having to look over your shoulder to make sure you're doing it the way the neighbors (actual and cyber) think you should. Let's all commit ourselves to the basic civility of minding our own business. Failing that, let's just go back to a time when we were nasty and judgmental, but only behind one another's backs. Enough of the complacent confrontation. Enough of the scolding.
Sunday, August 14, 2005, 8:00 PM ET
Source: Raving Toy Maniac
Sunday, August 14, 2005, 5:00 AM ET
Source: Washington Post
The auction was started by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Michael Chabon, who serves on the advisory board of the First Amendment Project. He began soliciting contributions from writers a few months ago, when he realized the group was running out of money. Gaiman suggested he consider an auction modeled after a smaller charity event he held last year, in which he sold the name of a cruise ship in his next novel for $3,500.
It can take years of late-night navel gazing for a novelist to choose the name of a character, says author Michael Chabon. Or it could come as quickly as an Internet auction on eBay, and in the process, keep a nonprofit dedicated to supporting the freedom of expression in America from closing its doors.
Thursday, August 11, 2005, 3:00 AM ET
Source: First Amendment Project, AuctionBytes.com, NeilGaiman.Com
Thursday, August 11, 2005, 3:00 AM ET
Source: Entertainment Weekly
The petite redhead in the oversize Superman T-shirt shepherding two small children across a rocky Maine beach has none of the hallmarks of the terrible mother she is reputed, in some circles, to be. Ayelet Waldman, vacationing with her husband, novelist Michael Chabon, and two of their four children, has a refrigerator full of organic hamburger waiting for dinner at their rented farmhouse; she's just arranged for the new Harry Potter book to be delivered to their two older children at camp. True, she refuses to play the "soul-sucking death torture" game of Candy Land, but that hardly makes this veteran carpooler Mommie Dearest. Nonetheless, over the last few months, complete strangers have informed Waldman that she has no business raising children.
To read the rest (if you're a subscriber), click here.
Saturday, August 6, 2005, 5:00 AM ET
Source: Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics has posted the solicitation for Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist #8, the first issue in Brian K. Vaughan's anticipated run. The issue hits stands Nov. 9.
Artist: Eduardo Barreto, Dean Haspiel, Philip Bond, Andi Watson, Jeff Parker
Cover Artist: Brian Bolland
Genre: Action/Adventure, Superhero
Format: Full color, 80 pages, 7" x 10"
Price: $8.95
ISBN: 1-59307-256-2
Saturday, August 6, 2005, 5:00 AM ET
Source: Conversations with Famous Writers
Conversations with Famous Writers has a new interview with Ayelet Waldman over at its site, touching on the Mommy Track series and her guest shot on Oprah after the infamous essay where she said she loved her husband, Michael Chabon, more than her children.
When the bruhaha started, my husband, after spending a few hours face-down on the bed, moaning about the fact that I'd revealed his sex life to five million people, said, "Well, at least you didn't go on Oprah to talk about it." Two weeks later I called him and said, "Er, honey, remember what you said about Oprah?" It was a stunner, to say the least. Here I've been saying the same kind of thing for years in total obscurity, and then all of a sudden WHAM. Oprah.