Last nights #kidlitchat on Twitter had a two-sided topic. One question was what to do when you are blocked with a current writing project. That one generated, as expected, a lot of great tips for jump-starting the writing machine.

But I want to talk about the other side of the question that didn't get much (if any) discussion - what, if anything, can we do to jumpstart or revive a stalled career?

I guess the first question is, what's a stalled career? So much of this business is out of our hands. We can control one thing, the manufacturing of a product to sell, a book, a poem, an article. A speech to give, a class to teach.  We can control to the quality of that product and we can control the completion of that product but the actual sale of that product, the sale which builds our career, well, we have no control over that.

So is a stalled career one in which you used to sell and now you don't? Is a stalled career one where you made it to one level of income and you're trying to jump to the next level? Is it that you want to be more known that you are now? What is a stalled career?

And the bigger, more important question is, what can you do about the state of being stalled? Because if you can't do anything you might as well just hunker down and get back to work on what you can control - the writing.

I'm interested in your thoughts.

Beverly Hills, CA (November 15, 2010) – Fifteen features have been accepted for consideration in the Animated Feature Film category for the 83rd Academy Awards®. The 15 features are: * “Alpha and Omega” * “Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore” * “Despicable Me” * “The Dreams of Jinsha” * “How to Train Your Dragon” * “Idiots and Angels” * “The Illusionist” * [...]

(Toronto, ON, November 11, 2010) – Is Bugs the most beloved or does Tweety take the cake? TELETOON Retro has launched a national awareness campaign in English Canada to increase familiarity and viewership of the classic cartoon channel and its programming among parents, kids and adult fans. The campaign is centered around a newly launched [...]

SIX POINT HARNESS DRIVES DESIGN CREATIVE ON HIGH PROFILE PROJECT FROM TOM HANKS AND PLAYTONE Electric City set for twenty three-minute webisodes that envision a thriving post-apocalyptic future November 8, 2010 (Los Angeles, CA) – Six Point Harness Animation Studio is slated to work with Playtone on the sci-fi based internet series Electric City, a compilation of [...]

Network’s First-Ever Original CGI Movie Airs Wednesday, November 24 at 7 p.m. (ET/PT)

Cartoon Network’s first-ever CGI original movie event, Firebreather, premieres on Wednesday, November 24 at 7 p.m. (ET/PT). Directed by Peter Chung (Aeon Flux) and based on the comic book series by Phil Hester and Andy Kuhn, Firebreather delivers fierce action in the clash of two worlds where monsters roam the Earth and past secrets are exposed. At the center of it all, a teenage boy named Duncan struggles to find his place as half-Kaiju and half-human.

It’s not easy being a teen like Duncan. His mom wants him to pay more attention to his homework, while his dad – a 120-foot, fire-breathing Kaiju from the depths of the earth – wants him to follow in his monstrous footsteps. Duncan faces trials by fire from two worlds — in one, overcoming his father’s challenges to prepare for the Kaiju throne; in the other, coping with life in a new high school. Ultimately, Firebreather is a story of a boy choosing between two different paths put before him by his parents. Through it all, only Duncan can determine his own future.

Firebreather is written by Jim Krieg (Ben 10: Alien Swarm) and executive produced by Julia Pistor (Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events).

The Firebreather voice cast includes:
· Jesse Head as Duncan
· Dana Delany as Margaret
· Kevin Michael Richardson as Belloc
· Reed Diamond as Barnes
· Amy Davidson as Jenna
· Tia Texada as Isabel
· Dante Basco as Kenny
· Josh Keaton as Troy

Cartoon Network (CartoonNetwork.com), currently seen in more than 97 million U.S. homes and 166 countries around the world, is Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.’s ad-supported cable service now available in HD offering the best in original, acquired and classic entertainment for youth and families. Nightly from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. (ET, PT), Cartoon Network shares its channel space with Adult Swim, a late-night destination showcasing original and acquired animated and live-action series for young adults 18-34.

PRESS RELEASE; The US premiere of the new Jan Švankmajer feature, Pixar’s Teddy Newton, Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist and honoree Will Vinton will all be at LAAF’s December program at Cinefamily!

The Los Angeles Animation Festival, goes International as it unspools Friday December 3 through Tuesday December 7 at Cinefamily’s Silent Movie Theatre at 611 N. Fairfax in Los Angeles. The US premiere of Czech filmmaker Jan Švankmajer’s feature Surviving Life (Theory and Practice), a screening and interview with Pixar’s Teddy Newton about his film “Day & Night”, two special programs from renowned writer/director/animator and festival honoree Will Vinton and a rare advance screening of Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist top a bill that includes several more features, panels, competition screenings, parties and awards.

Celebrated experimental animator Jan Švankmajer has only recently finished what he has been quoted as saying will be his last feature, this on top of a long and storied career including such works as Conspirators of Pleasure, Dimensions of Dialogue, Faust and many others created over several active decades. The festival is thrilled to provide a US premiere for Švankmajer’s Surviving Life (Theory and Practice).

A special guest of the festival is Teddy Newton, character designer through several Pixar projects since joining the studio on The Incredibles, for which he was instrumental in the creation of several of the films memorable characters, as well as its end title sequence. Newton has recently directed “Day & Night”, a unique Pixar short film project which the festival will explore in depth as Newton presents it and is introduced and interviewed by animation historian Jerry Beck.

The work of pioneering clay animation entrepreneur and LAAF festival honoree Will Vinton will be reviewed in a program of his short films, specials and commercials and a twenty-fifth anniversary screening of his feature The Adventures of Mark Twain. Vinton will be on hand to introduce his work and for post screening Q&A’s.

In addition the festival will screen a number of current features not in general release in the US including China’s first independent feature film Piercing 1, Japanese feature Redline, Jiří Barta’s In the Attic (his first feature in 25 years!) and independent animator Brent Green’s experimental feature Gravity Was Everywhere Back Then. The festival is rounded out on Tuesday December 7 with a special pre-US release screening of Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist slated into Jerry Beck’s regular monthly Animation Tuesday program. Friday night’s screening of Surviving Life will be followed by a very special retrospective of MTV animation with some of the creators and animators who made the work present.

“We’re are thrilled to be teamed with the non-profit Cinefamily in the staging of this year’s event and happy to be once again at their venue the historic Silent Movie Theater where we staged our inaugural LAAF event in 2007″ says festival co-director John Andrews. The festival was the brainchild of animation director Miles Flanagan who partnered with Andrews, an animation producer, on the event which seeks to both expose unseen work and allow networking opportunities between rising animation talent and successful careerists. This year the non-profit Cinefamily brings its great sense of eclecticism to the process of finding and acquiring work for screening in their intimate and attractive historic venue The Silent Movie Theater.

Details and deadlines for entry in the festival’s three unique competitions are available at the festival website www.laafest.com. Tickets and passes will be available in November at www.cinefamily.org. Potential sponsors should contact john or miles @laafest.com or [email protected].

UNIVERSAL CITY, CA October 20, 2010 – Tezuka Productions and Chris Meledandri’s Illumination Entertainment are partnering to bring PLUTO to life as a live- action/CG hybrid film. PLUTO, which has sold over 8.5 million copies in Japan, results from the union of the most beloved character in Japanese culture with the most contemporary Japanese writer, Naoki Urasawa. Meledandri’s international hits have amassed over $2 billion WBO including: Ice Age, Ice Age 2, Robots, Horton Hears a Who and The Simpsons Movie. Most recently, his new banner, Illumination Entertainment, released the film Despicable Me which has become the 10th highest grossing animated film of all time in the US.

Urasawa’s PLUTO, which he collaborated with Takashi Nagasaki, updates the characters from the legendary ASTRO BOY series, created by Osamu Tezuka (known as the“God of Manga”), brings an action-filled saga set in a world populated by giant robots and cybernetic citizens. The manga series is characterized by Urasawa and Nagasaki’s signature brand of storytelling. The combined creative genius of Urasawa, Meledandri and Tezuka guarantees an imaginative, exciting and visually stunning event film executive produced by Macoto Tezka.

Urasawa commented, “I have been a big fan of The Greatest Robot on Earth since I was a child. But I never thought I would remake the episode into PLUTO. It was a tremendous challenge for me. Now another challenge, turning PLUTO into a live action movie, has appeared. As a big fan of Tezuka, I would like to watch it with a lot of expectation.”

Meledandri commented, “With Pluto, Naoki Urasawa has defined an imaginative world full of inventive action and adventure but it was his characters and heartfelt story that compelled me towards acquiring these rights. I am privileged to be working with Tezuka, a company with an illustrious history and with Urasawa, one of our most gifted contemporary writers.”

Nagasaki commented, “In the 20th century, all the boys in Japan hungrily read “Astro boy, The Greatest Robot on Earth” by Osamu Tezuka. And I and Naoki Urasawa brought the legendary work back to the 21st century as PLUTO. It was a big challenge for us since it was considered as a taboo to challenge it in Japanese manga world. It is great pleasure not only for us but also for all movie and manga fans that PLUTO is turned into a movie in Hollywood, though I think Mr. Meledandri has undertaken more adventures than we did. I sincerely hope a great movie will be produced, which all the fans across the world will get satisfied with, excited at and touched by”

Tezka commented, “The collaboration between Osamu Tezuka and Naoki Urasawa was big news in the manga world. It was as if Takeshi Kitano encountered Akira Kurosawa or Lucas remade Stagecoach into Star Wars. If the talents of global film artists are added to the work, surely the excitement will be multiplied. I hope the movie will become an epoch-making masterpiece produced under a good partnership between Japan and Hollywood.”

Urasawa’s previous manga series, MONSTER has sold more than 21 million copies since released in1995.

About Illumination Entertainment
In 2007, Chris Meledandri founded Illumination Entertainment in partnership with Universal Pictures. It serves as the studio’s main supplier of all-audience family films and launched in July 2010 with the blockbuster Despicable Me. Despicable Me is the 11th highest grossing animated film in history and the fourth highest grossing animated film of 2010. Thus far, Despicable Me has opened in 26 international territories, and it has already made more than $360 million worldwide. Illumination is currently in post-production on Hop, which will be released in spring 2011. The company is also developing a new stop-motion version of The Addams Family with Tim Burton directing. Other projects in development include Flanimals, a CG-animated feature comedy based on the bestselling British book series by Ricky Gervais,

NEW YORK, Oct 10, 2010 (PR Newswire Europe via COMTEX) –

Nine Video Categories, Two Honorary Award Winners and One US$25,000 Grant for Best Overall Video

Online video sharing site Vimeo(R), an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI | PowerRating) tonight announced the winners of the Vimeo Awards at a gala awards ceremony hosted by Ze Frank at the SVA Theater in New York City.

“We developed the Vimeo Festival + Awards to recognize the people behind the most original creative videos on the Internet and give them a venue to learn from and inspire each other,” said Blake Whitman, Co-Director of the Vimeo Festival + Awards. “We received such incredible enthusiasm for this inaugural event, and the quality of the work that people have submitted has been incredible. The Vimeo Awards is a clear reflection of the influence and growth of high quality video available on the Internet.”

Submissions spanned the spectrum from traditional filmmaking to the use of emerging technologies. The inspirational winners in the nine categories are:

1. Narrative: “Thrush” (http://vimeo.com/4131811) by Gabriel Bisset-Smith

2. Documentary: “Last Minutes with ODEN” (http://vimeo.com/8191217) by

Phos Pictures

3. Music Video: “Liars ‘Scissor’” (http://vimeo.com/9591751) by Andy

Bruntel

4. Animation: “Between Bears” (http://vimeo.com/13776542) by Eran Hilleli

5. Original Series: “Break-ups The Series” (http://vimeo.com/11900273) by

Ted Tremper

6. Experimental: “oops” (http://vimeo.com/13788278) by Chris Beckman

7. Motion Graphics: “TRIANGLE” (http://vimeo.com/13216490) by Onur

Senturk

8. Captured: “Fluid Sculpture” (http://vimeo.com/3599345) by Charlie

Bucket

9. Remix: “BREAKDOWN the video” (http://vimeo.com/13516268) by Kasumi

A distinguished panel of judges – including M.I.A., David Lynch, Roman Coppola, Ted Hope, Lucy Walker, and Morgan Spurlock, to name a few – chose the winners from more than 6,500 entries submitted from around the world. Legendary cult Director David Lynch, who judged the Experimental Category of the Festival commented, “The quality of films I watched for the Vimeo Festival was A Number One.”

Roman Coppola, film Director and founder and owner of The Directors Bureau, who judged the Music Video Category of the Festival added, “There is some really inventive stuff out there and I appreciated having a window into the creative work that people are producing.”

Vimeo Award for Best Video: “Last Minutes with ODEN” (http://vimeo.com/8191217) by Eliot Rausch chronicles the last minutes of a dog, Oden, who loses his struggle with cancer. It is a deeply personal story, told from the perspective of Oden’s owner Jason Wood. The film was shot using a Canon
7D by Directors of Photography Luke Korver and Matt Taylor. Vimeo awarded them with the Best Video Award along with a grant of US$25,000 for the purpose of making a new, original work.

Morgan Spurlock, a judge in the documentary category said, “I am so happy to take part in this acknowledgement of independent filmmakers from around the world. It is definitely time for the online creative community to be celebrated.”

Jeremy Boxer, Co-Director of the Vimeo Festival + Awards reflected on the Best Video winner, “‘Last Minutes with ODEN’ is one of those rare, intimate shorts that leads with its heart and soul. The film has been crafted with superb skill and is a testament to the new generation of creators that use small cameras to tell personal tales. We are thrilled that this project has been selected as our overall winner and recipient of the first Vimeo Awards filmmaker grant.”

Honorary Awards for Digital Maverick, spot

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Beyond the Margins unveils their bright new site design along with this: Toot It, Don’t Blow It: Interview with Book Promotion Expert Bella Stander. Included: My list of what should be on an author website.

On SheWrites, Lori Tharps (whom I met at this year's VaBook Festival), offers Countdown to Publication: My PR To Do List for her new novel, SUBSTITUTE ME.

Below is an email exchange between a book publicist (BP) and a publisher (PUB), who advertised for publicity help on Craigslist.

Airily attired ladies hawking THE BURLESQUE HANDBOOK (HarperCollins/ItBooks) across from the Saudi booth, whose all-male staff and visitors kept their eyes averted.

As someone on Twitter commented after a day spent slogging through BookExpo, the book industry won't be dying anytime soon. However, BEA management wasn't on the ball, because many people were unaware that the show was down to 2 days (Wed & Thurs) from its usual 3. Thus they were miffed--to put it mildly--when they stayed at hotels Monday night and arrived for Tuesday appointments to find the show floor closed. That happened to 2 people I'd arranged to meet on Tues., who had missed the post-9am email "reminder" that the exhibition hall wasn't open till Wed. Due to popular demand (aka "complaints"), next year the show will go back to 3 days: May 24-26.

On Tues., after viewing Philippe Halsman's wonderful "Jump" photographs at the Laurence Miller Gallery, lunching with a literary agent and poking through fabric shops, I arrived at the Javits for a 3pm confab about the Virginia Festival of the Book with a Crown publicist. Fifteen lonely minutes later, I discovered that I was 24 hours early. Oops.

To console myself, I grabbed an ARC of Jennifer Donnelly's new YA novel, REVOLUTION, which entranced me until the 4:30 Editors Buzz Panel--and for the next 3 nights. It comes out in October. Don't miss it! I reviewed her first YA novel, A NORTHERN LIGHT, which deserved every prize it received, and then some.

As for the Editors Buzz, which unlike last year was SRO, I tweeted: "I see white people. They're all around me. And they're klutzy with microphones." Once again, most of the 6 panelists apparently hadn't practised their speeches beforehand, and droned/babbled on till I wanted to scream. Moderator John Freeman asked questions to help them out, but some were beyond saving. One notable exception was Cary Goldstein of Twelve, who--surprise!--started out as a publicist. He made a great case for THE EVOLUTION OF BRUNO LITTLEMORE by Benjamin Hale, a novel narrated by a talking chimpanzee who has an affair with a woman and commits murder. (I know: ICK! Goldstein says the book's fantastic, but I passed on picking up an ARC.)

After that I met Kevin Smokler, chief evangelizer for BookTour.com, for drinks & nosh at Hudson Yards Cafe. (Decent food! Reasonable prices!) Whether you're an author or a reader--but especially an author--you MUST check out BookTour.com. It's already good, but from what Kevin told me, it's going to get even better in the next few months.

On Wed. morning I attended an excellent program: "Designing & Executing an e-Strategy for Authors: A Publisher & Agency Perspective." No danger of being put to sleep by moderator Charlotte Abbott or panelists Kathleen Schmidt (Director of Publicity & Digital Media, Shreve Williams Public Relations), Ron Hogan (just laid off as Director of E-Strategy, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Jason Ashlock (principal, Moveable Type Literary Agency). They said a lot of the same things about online publicity that I've been telling my clients, only better, plus offered much information and thoughtful analysis. See highlights on Twitter: #eauthor.

5 Comments on BookExpo Wrap-Up, last added: 5/31/2010