Archives par étiquette : Writers House

DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING de Susan Seidelman

From the director of Desperately Seeking Susan and the pilot of Sex and the City comes DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING, a charming and insightful memoir from Susan Seidelman, who blazed a trail in the early 1980s for a future generation of women filmmakers.

DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING
by Susan Seidelman
Macmillan, June 2024
(via Writers House)

In the early 1970s, Susan Seidelman left the ordinary suburb in which she was raised and moved to New York City to become someone different. The city was bankrupt, crumbling, cheap… and the Lower East Side was evolving into a creative playground for artists and misfits looking to reinvent themselves. There, Seidelman would break boundaries: first as an award winning independent film director of Smithereens (the first independent film nominated at the Cannes Film Festival), then as a much sought after studio director when Hollywood was still run as an all-boys club. Her work would become an important part of the zeitgeist that influenced the music, fashion, and pop culture of America in the 1980s and 90s as she unapologetically challenged the male gaze that permeated most movies of that time.

A story about feminism and creativity, and a fascinating look behind the scenes, DESPERATELY SEEKING SOMETHING is a treat for cinephiles, aspiring filmmakers, feminists, gender studies scholars, pop culture enthusiasts, New York City history lovers, punks, “bad girls,” aging Baby Boomers, and everyone and anyone who believes in the power of reinvention.

Susan Seidelman began her directorial career in the 1980s when her low budget film Smithereens became the first American Independent film accepted into the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It went on to garner awards at several major international festivals and is currently distributed by the “Criterion Collection”. Susan’s next endeavor Desperately Seeking Susan (starring Madonna and Rosanna Arquette) was a critical and commercial success that helped launch the screen careers of many emerging actors of that time. The film premiered at Cannes in 1985, was nominated for a French “Cesar” for Best Foreign Film and voted one of the top 100 films of all times by the BBC. Directing the pilot and early episodes of HBO’s hit series Sex and the City are among the highlights of Seidelman’s TV career, which also includes two Emmy nominations for her Showtime movie A Cooler Climate.

AMBER BROWN IS NOT A CRAYON: THE GRAPIC NOVEL de Paula Danziger, adapté par Victoria Ying

A brand-new graphic novel adaptation of the 10 Million Copy bestselling series!

AMBER BROWN IS NOT A CRAYON: THE GRAPIC NOVEL
by Paula Danziger; adapted by Victoria Ying
Penguin Random House, May 2024
(via Writers House)

Amber Brown and Justin Daniels are best friends. They’ve known each other for practically forever, sit next to each other in class, help each other with homework, and always stick up for each other. He never says things like, “Amber Brown is just a crayon.” She never says, “You got here ‘Justin time.’” They’re a great team . . . until disaster strikes. Justin has to move away and now the best friends are fighting. Will they be able to work it out before it’s too late?

Now a hit series on Apple TV+!

THE AMBER BROWN SERIES

#1: Amber Brown Is Not a Crayon

#2: You Can’t Eat Your Chicken Pox, Amber Brown

#3: Amber Brown Goes Fourth

#4: Amber Brown Wants Extra Credit

#5: Forever Amber Brown

#6: Amber Brown Sees Red

#7: Amber Brown Is Feeling Blue

#8: I, Amber Brown

#9: Amber Brown Is Green With Envy

#10: Amber Brown Is Tickled Pink

#11: Amber Brown Is On The Move

#12: Amber Brown Horses Around

Paula Danziger grew up wanting to be an author . . . and then she became one. She wrote over 25 books, traveled to more than 15 countries, and was the kind of colorful character you might find in one of her books. She loved to play, make new friends, and wear purple clothes and nail polish. Sadly, Paula Danziger passed away on July 8, 2004. Amber Brown—and the rest of her book characters—will continue to live on.

Raised in California, Victoria Ying is an author and illustrator of beloved children’s books. She realized that she had a true eye for detail when she fell in loves with comic books when she was a teenager. This interest in comics led her to a successful career in animation. Her credits include Tangled, Wreck it Ralph, Frozen, Paperman, Big Hero 6, and Moana.

LUMINOUS BEINGS de David Arnold et Jose Pimienta

The first graphic novel from New York Times bestselling author David Arnold, illustrated by Jose Pimienta!

LUMINOUS BEINGS
by David Arnold & Jose Pimienta
Viking, Fall 2024
(via Writers House)

When a group of teens decides to make a documentary about humanity’s recent brush with extinction (via undead squirrels), their quest for top-notch gear leads them on a 24-hour wild goose-chase through rowdy nightclubs and once-familiar neighborhoods, perilous castles and off-grid RVs, and at every turn—people. Some more eccentric than others, all leading quiet lives of love and loss in a strange new world. With nothing but their phones, the Squad documents these conversations, along with a slew of hijinks and misadventures throughout the night. The resulting footage becomes (and is indeed filled with) LUMINOUS BEINGS, an accidental documentary, not about the past, or how shit hit the fan, but how people came together to answer the ultimate question: where do we go from here?

David Arnold is the New York Times bestselling author of Mosquitoland, I Loved You in Another Life, The Electric Kingdom, Kids of Appetite, and The Strange Fascinations of Noah Hypnotik. He has won the Southern Book Prize and the Great Lakes Book Award, and was named a Publishers Weekly Flying Start for his debut. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages.

Jose Pimienta was raised in Mexicali, Baja California and now resides in Los Angeles, CA where they work on comics and storyboards for animation and film. Suncatcher was their debut author/illustrator graphic novel. Twin Cities is their first middle-grade graphic novel. In their stories, they focus on the importance of Latinx culture and the experience of growing up on the border.

ONE FOGGY CHRISTMAS EVE de Kerilynn Wilson

Kerilynn Wilson’s debut picture book captures one little girl’s walk to her grandparents’ house as an adventure of ingenuity and courage. Filled with dazzling artwork and sparse text, this will sit perfectly on shelves next to The Polar Express, and is sure to be enjoyed at Christmas and all year round.

ONE FOGGY CHRISTMAS EVE
by Kerilynn Wilson
HarperCollins, September 2024
(via Writers House)

On Christmas Eve, a girl ties a red ribbon on a present and exclaims, “I finally finished my gift for Nana and Papa!” Outside her window, though, is not the typical, snow-covered, late December scene. In fact, it’s so foggy outside that the girl can barely see past her own front door. The world is warped, colourless, and unfamiliar. . . maybe even a little scary. But the girl is determined: she will find a way to bring her Christmas gift to Nana and Papa’s.

Undeterred, she takes matters into her own hands and decides to light her own way to her grandparents’ house. But when her torch and fairy lights both fail her, the murky night feels full of fantastical shapes and fearsome creatures, and our hero not only finds herself entirely lost in the fog, but also loses the present she’s been carrying. That’s when an awesome herd of elk-shaped shadows with twinkling horns emerge. Summoning both confidence and trust, but without her Christmas gift, the girl allows the elk to direct her to her grandparents’ door. (Her accompanying parents, it turns out, look a lot like elk in the fog.)

After everything, she laments arriving at her grandparents’ house empty-handed. She describes her fantastical journey to her Nana. . . and in doing so, realizes she is already in possession of a gift even better than the one she lost on the way. Ultimately, this book is all about the gift of sharing your imagination and your story with those you love.

Kerilynn Wilson is an author/illustrator with a love of the weird and wonderful. Her debut YA graphic novel, The Faint of Heart, published in 2023. ONE FOGGY CHRISTMAS EVE is her picture book debut.

CAPITANA de Cassandra James

Brimming with adventure, romance, danger and just the right amount of mystery, CAPITANA is perfect for fans of the high seas in Adrienne Young’s Fable, the romance of Isabel Ibañez’s Together We Burn, and the enchanting Caraval books by Stephanie Garber.

CAPITANA
by Cassandra James
HarperCollins, January 2025
(via Writers House)

Ximena Reale is certain of one thing: the only good pirate is a dead one.

Ximena has trained for eight years to become one of the black-cloaked Cazadores, seafaring hunters who capture the pirates pillaging the Luzan Empire. Although Ximena is the top candidate at La Academia, passing the Royal Examination alone will likely not be enough for a daughter of the notorious Reales—pirate captains who, when Ximena and her wayward sister Marquesa were children, were executed for their crimes against the empire. Ximena scours La Academia’s Archives for something, anything, that might point her towards her one chance of redemption: Gasparilla. The greatest pirate alive. The ultimate prize. A man who may—or may not—exist.

So when a pirate calling himself Gasparilla attacks Luza’s capitol and steals every coin in the Empire’s vaults, also capturing Luza’s queen, Ximena leaps at the chance to catch Gasparilla. She offers to bring the pirate, and their queen, back in exchange for her Cazadoro cloak. This is an offer the Empire accepts, with one catch: there’s only one Cazadoro cloak up for grabs, and she must compete against Dante De León, the pompous and infuriating son of Luza’s High Minster, who will lose his inheritance if he fails to best her.

With their futures on the line, Ximena and Dante set out on a dangerous quest across the Archipelago, led by a turncoat member of Gasparilla’s crew. But no matter how far Ximena sails, her family’s pirate legacy continues to haunt her, and her exposure to a world outside of La Academia leads her to question the very laws she’s always fought to uphold. It all leads her to wonder: is it possible she’s been on the wrong side all along?

Cassandra James recently graduated from Princeton University, where she studied English with a focus on Creative Writing. She is originally from Florida, where she lives with her family of Colombian immigrants and dreams of setting sail. She was inspired to write CAPITANA by the Floridian legend of the pirate captain Gasparilla, and drew from various aspects of pirate history—including the real-life Republic of Pirates which was founded by Blackbeard and others—to create the fictional empire of Luza.