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The award-winning Brazilian director Alê Abreu reveals details exclusively to Cartoon Brew about his next animated feature.

New York Times Bestselling author Alyson Noël has just released her second book for middle-grade readers, Shimmer.  In case you've been living under a rock, this new middle grade series is a spin off of The Immortals books, Alyson's successful YA series; and features Ever's younger sister, Riley. She stopped by to give us her version of an author bio. Enjoy!

The Q&A in which I live out my Vanity Fair fantasy and tackle 5 questions from the Proust Questionnaire under the guise of a “bio.”

1. What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
Soggy asparagus. It’s heartbreaking to look at and horrid to eat!

2. Your favorite occupation?
Daydreaming, which, by the way, is a perfectly valid and integral part of any author’s day. Just sayin’.

3. What is your favorite bird?
The hawk that patrols the canyon behind my house—he is the epitome of breath-stealing beauty in action.

4. What is your principle defect?
A propensity toward extreme giddiness that has been known to appear without notice.

5. What is your dream of happiness?
To live in a world of tolerance, love, compassion, abundance, and peace. A place where the sun always shines, birds always chirp, animals frolic, illness is eradicated, rainbows are plentiful, and the landscape is an exact replica of the Candyland game I played as a child.



Oxford Bibliographies Online is a series of intuitive and easy-to-use “ultimate reading lists” designed to help users navigate the vast seas of information that exist today. To introduce you to the doors this new online tool opens Andrew Herrmann, Associate Editor of OBO, has excerpted some suggested reading related to Greek mythology.  Use his study guide below to impress the date you bring to see the Immortals.

Andrew Herrmann, Associate Editor, Oxford Bibliographies Online

300, Troy, Percy Jackson & the Olympians, the reboot of Clash of the Titans, the forthcoming Immortals…Hollywood has been brushing up on its epic hexameter (or more likely picked up a Spark Notes guide to Homer) and has re-imagined the swords-and-sandals genre for the 21st century. While it is fun to see these classic works morph from the original Greek texts into flashy, raging battles between Brad Pitt and Eric Bana, classicists and mythology buffs alike often shudder at the blatant inaccuracies presented in these films (if Hector had killed Agamemnon in Troy, we wouldn’t have the Oresteia!). For those interested in knowing what happens in the true classic tradition, OBO recommends the following works on some of the central figures of these films.

Zeus, leader of the Olympians, has a rich mythology which extends beyond Liam Neeson’s now famous “Release the Kraken!” line in Clash of the Titans. Pura Nieto Hernandez’s Mythology entry offers a good starting point for those interested in this lightning-wielding god:

Dowden, Ken. 2006. Zeus. Gods and Heroes of the Ancient World. London and New York: Routledge.
In spite of its brevity, this introduction accomplishes a lot. Not only does Dowden concentrate on the cult of Zeus, he also provides the reader with ample mythological information about his rich subject. His careful presentation and analysis of the previous large bibliography makes this book a good introduction even to the study of ancient religion. Good illustrations add to its appeal.

Poseidon, father of Percy Jackson in the recent Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief and soon to be played by Kellan Lutz in the upcoming film Immortals, is the stormy god of the sea. The Greek Religion entry by Angelos Chaniotis points users to a detailed study on the worship of Poseidon in ancient Greece. However, this one is not in English, so brush off your dictionary or head over to Oxford Language Dictionaries Online:

Mylonopoulos, Joannis. 2003. Pelopónnesos oiketérion Poseidonos = Heiligtümer und Kulte des Poseidon auf der Peloponnes. Liège, Belgium: Université de Liège.
Thorough discussion of the cult, sanctuaries, festivals, and political significance of Poseidon in the Peloponnese; an exemplary study in terms of method, approach, and combination of diverse source material for the interpretation of the cult and sign

Hi Alyson, I am so excited (and all geeky nervous) you agreed to stop by.

**pause for the gooby starstrucked feeling to pass**

So before we get into marketing, let's pretend as if no one knows who you are and tell us a little (or a whole lot!) about yourself.:)

I’m the author of ten novels for adults and teens, including the bestselling THE IMMORTALS series, which you can read more about at my author web site or the series web site.

In addition, I run a blog

Psst!!! In case you didn't notice, Alyson is being very modest about her bio. In addition, Shadowland, releases on November 17th and is already getting rave reviews. But what did we expect :)>


So how was your road to publishing? Did you start any of your platform or marketing prior to getting an agent or selling your book?

Well, the embarrassing truth is, I was as green as they come. Seriously, there was no one as clueless as me. And while I wanted to be a writer since I read my first Judy Blume book back in sixth grade, I didn’t get serious about it until late 2001, just after 9/11 happened and I was working as a flight attendant in NYC and figured it was as good a time as any to go after my dream. So I started writing in whatever spare time I had, on layovers, on flight delays, on cocktail napkins, you name it, I was determined to get it done.

The moment I typed “The End” I bought a copy of Writer’s Marketplace, jotted off a query letter, and sent it directly to a long list of publishers, mistakenly thinking I didn’t need an agent (I can’t even begin to stress how very wrong that is). And while every one of them requested the full, they all rejected me in the end. Still, they were the nice kind of rejections, the kind that welcome you to resubmit if you choose to revise.

So I enrolled in some online writing classes, and through one of those classes I met a fellow student who referred me to her agent. He read my mss, loved the voice but told me my structure was a mess (it was!), and suggested I read STORY by Robert McKee. I bought it straightaway, read it in two days, took the next three weeks to ruthlessly revise my mss

 Nicole is in love with Zin, the leader of her break dancing group.  Everyone can see that he has feelings for her as well, but he refuses to act on them.  While working with Zin at a nightclub (where her boss nicknames her Raven), Nic

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