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The "Harry Potter" actress Emma Watson has been cast as Belle in Disney's live-action remake of its 1991 film "Beauty and the Beast."

Dianne (Di) Bates makes a living from full-time writing. She has worked as a children’s magazine and newspaper editor, manuscript assessor, book-seller, and writing teacher. Di has a wealth of publishing experience and is a recipient of The Lady Cutler Award for distinguished services to children’s literature. She has written over 120 books, mostly for […]

Disney has hired filmmaker Bill Condon as the director for a Beauty & The Beast live-action film adaptation. Variety reports that screenwriter Evan Spiliotopoulos has signed on to pen the script. According to Nerdist, the details of the plot have not yet been revealed. Some speculate that the story for Condon's production will be similar to the one featured in Disney's 1991 animated movie. The screenplay for that project is based on Jeanne-Marie Le Prince de Beaumont's classic French fairy tale. As of late, Disney has been working on a number of live-action fairy tale movies. Maleficent hit the silver screen last week and has received great reviews. Kenneth Branagh's Cinderella has a release date set for March 13, 2015. Jon Favreau will helm a live-action/CG hybrid remake of The Jungle Book. What fairy tale would you like to see get the live-action movie treatment?

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Great Aunt Lola is about to die. At least ten year-old Stephen thinks she could because she’s that old, and grumpy. And Stephen, labouring under a self and parent imposed ‘shy label’, is more than a little scared of her. He simply wants to flee, but is stuck in Aunt Lola’s house for the next three weeks until she turns eighty, or dies.

They say the simple things in life are the best, but could friendship with his elderly aunt be that easy and straightforward? Award-winning author Bill Condon convinces me it can.

Condon’s latest ‘tween’ novel, The Simple Things is for bridging the generation gap, what styling gel is for rampant adolescent hair-dos; maybe not 100% essential but essentially 100% worth the effort.

Actually, it was no effort at all to immerse myself into this heart-warming tale about letting go, facing personal doubts and overcoming uncomfortable situations. It’s a story about an only child who does what his parents tell him to do, is scared of climbing trees and doesn’t seem surrounded by an ocean of friends.

Blue, Stephen’s dog back home, is the one he misses most during his enforced exile at Aunt Lola’s place. However, he soon meets Lola’s neighbour and past flame, Norm, and Norm’s granddaughter, Allie. With their help, Stephen is able to confront a few of his short comings. He also embarks on a small sojourn of self-discovery as he learns about the simple things in life – like fishing, cricket, climbing trees and death. All this explicably pulls him closer to Aunt Lola. They form a prickly alliance, each benefitting from the other until finally they are forced to admit a deep and special friendship.

The Simple Things is ‘smiley face perfect’ (re; the wet cement moment page 127). Condon writes with unaffected adroitness, delivering this story with equal measures of gentle humour and poignancy, and just enough secrecy to entice readers to want to find out what really lurks behind Aunt Lola’s tough-guy bravado.

Condon’s characters are bright, sharply drawn individuals with enough depth to make us laugh and cry, minus the melancholy. I found Stephen’s charismatic, larrikin father and sarcasm-welding Allie most endearing along with our hesitant hero’s comical boyish charm.

The Simple Things is one of those easy to read, easy to enjoy books, so I suspect it was not that simple to write. But I for one am grateful Condon persevered as Stephen did with his aunt, for it simplifies the complexities of a young person’s relationship with themselves and their aging relative with composite grace and humour, allowing young male and female readers to value and cherish their own relatives all the better.

See why here.

Allen & Unwin February 2014

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 has “won” seven Golden Raspberry Awards (a.k.a. the Razzies). The film “emerged victorious” in the following categories:

Worst Picture – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Worst Actress – Kristen Stewart for Snow White & the Huntsman and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Worst Supporting Actor – Taylor Lautner for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Worst Screen Ensemble – the entire cast of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Worst Director – Bill Condon for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Worst Prequel, Ripoff, or Sequel – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Worst Screen Couple – Mackenzie Foy & Taylor Lautner for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2

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Brian lives in Queensland these days, even though he still calls himself a New Zealander. He was down in Sydney on a publicity tour for his Sci-Fi books.

His Recon Team Angel series is capturing a dedicated audience of fans.  However I love Brainjack. It’s taken off in Texas would you believe.

It was good chatting to him at The Hughenden in Sydney, over coffee. The last time we caught up it was for a SCBWI catch up there.

Also caught up with Linsay Knight who has just edited a fabulous series of Stories for5, 6, 7 and 8 year olds – 4 books with stories written by some of Australia’s best authors – funny, sad, clever, smart and more – by Andy Griffiths, Paul Jennings, Jaccqueline Harvey, Ursual Dubosarsky, Sophie Masson, John Larkin, Bill Condon, Belinda Murrell – a feast of our best authors. Published by Random House – it’s great from Christmas.

Twihards around the world will watch The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 this weekend. In the latest installment of the blockbuster series, fans can expect to see a dramatic vampire wedding and eventful honeymoon.

We caught up with screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg to talk about writing scripts and the adaptation process. The highlights follow below…

Q: Describe the writing process when you are charged with adapting a book for a script versus writing an original script.
A: Each comes with its own challenges, but nothing is more difficult than starting with a blank page, as a writer does with an original project. I had the good fortune to start with an already fully fleshed out universe and mythology. But an adaptation comes with its own challenges: Honing a 500 page novel into a 110 page script. Externalizing very internal character arcs. Not pissing off the millions of fans around the world who don’t understand, or frankly care, that a book and a movie are very different animals, and that one can’t simply transfer the entire text into screenplay format and shoot it.

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Release dates have been announced for the Peter Jackson‘s two Hobbit movies.

According to Variety, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey will come out on December 14, 2012 and The Hobbit: There and Back Again will hit theaters on December 13, 2013. The video embedded above features a tour of The Hobbit‘s set.

Here’s more from the article: “Jackson began shooting the two films in New Zealand in 3D in mid-March with a cast including Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins and Orlando Bloom, Andy Serkis, Elijah Wood, Hugo Weaving, Ian McKellen and Cate Blanchett reprising their roles from The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Bloom joined the cast Friday to portray the elf Legolas.”

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Stephenie Meyer confirmed on Facebook that 9-year-old actress Mackenzie Foy (pictured) will play Renesmee Cullen in the forthcoming adaptation, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.

The Hollywood Reporter has more: “Director Bill Condon is expected to use similar special effects as David Fincher in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button to show Foy aging 17 years over the span of seven years.”

Condon recently posted this racy photo from the movie set. Below, a spoiler-filled description of Renesmee from the novel.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Bill Condon -Prime Minister’s Literary Award Australia – Confessions of a Liar, Thief and Failed Sex God by the talented, thoughtful Bill Condon with his dry humour.

Frane Lessac -The Muriel Barwell Award for Distinguished Services to Children’s Literature CBCA

Frane Lessac and Mark Greenwood - Simpson & His Donkey- wonderful picture book

Dianne Wolfer - Winner of the West Australian Young Readers’ Award for the beautiful lighthouse Girl publisher Fremantle Press

and there’s more, much more – look at the awards for  Sally Murphy, Pamela Rushby, Lisa Shannahan and Emma Quay, Libby Gleeson, Deborah Abela

Great friends, great people, great authors & illustrators!