TODAY'S NEWS

Charges Result in $38 Million Loss at HarperCollins
By Jim Milliot
A $30 million charge tied to corporate restructuring drove HarperCollins into the red in the third quarter and nine month periods ended March 31. With the charge, HC had an operating loss of $38 million in the third quarter compared to income of $29 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2008. Sales in the quarter dropped 19.5%, to $243 million. Read on »

New York Law School to Launch Google Book Search Web Site
By Andrew Albanese
The New York Law School is launching a web site dedicated to the Google Book Search settlement that will include discussion forums, a comprehensive archive of settlement documents and related commentary, and a tool for users to insert their own analyses and commentary on individual paragraphs of the proposed settlement. The project, dubbed “the Public Index” is part of the Public Interest Book Search Initiative overseen by NYLS professor James Grimmelman, an expert who has written extensively about the deal. The effort will be staffed by NYLS students, and is being underwritten with a grant from Google competitor, Microsoft. Read on »

In S&S Kids Reorg, New Roles for Chanda, Anastas; Dryden to Leave
By Jim Milliot
In his first major move since taking the helm at Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing in January, Jon Anderson has consolidated the management of several imprints. As part of the change, Emma Dryden is leaving the company, though she will continue to edit some of her well-known authors, including Ellen Hopkins, Karma Wilson and Alan Katz, in an advisory capacity. Oversight for the Atheneum and Margaret K. McElderry imprints, which Dryden had responsibility for as v-p and publisher, is being shifted to Justin Chanda, v-p and publisher of S&S Books for Young Readers. Read on »

Craig Virden Dies
By Diane Roback
Craig Virden, former head of children’s books at Random House, died on Wednesday morning of a pulmonary embolism. He was 56. Read on »

Arab Children's Book Publisher Forum Comes to BEA
The Arab Children's Book Publisher's Forum, headed by Sheikha Bodour Al Qassimi and one of the most significant organizations promotiong Arabic literature among children, is participating in the upcoming Book Expo America. The Forum, which includes members from various Arab countries, will have 60 of its members at the trade show, where it will, among other things, have a book pavilion highlighting a selection of titles from each of its member countries.

At BEA the organization will also announce the new ETISALAT's Annual Award, for most distinguished Arabic children's book. The prize comes with a monetary award of one million dirham, and the first winner will be announced at the Sharjah World Book Fair in November 2009.

Blogs

MORE STORIES

Page to Screen: A YA Zombie Thriller & The Second Coming of Bridget Jones
This week in Page to Screen—PW's weekly column tracking film rights circulating and sold in Hollywood—a YA zombie thriller gets fast-tracked and the scouts wonder whether the next Bridget Jones is upon us.

Alan Nevins, of Renaissance Literary & Talent, has just closed film rights on Carrie Ryan's YA novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Nevins, who brokered the deal on behalf of Jim McCarthy at Dystel Literary, sold the book, which Delacorte Books for Young Readers published in March, to Seven Star Pictures (K-11, forthcoming). Nevins said the book, a zombie thriller set in colonial times about a girl who lives in a quadraned-off religious community in the woods and is equally worried about a zombie invasion and her planned marriage, is in line to "do for zombies what Twilight did for vampires." Supposedly Seven Star is developing the project for an-as-yet-unnamed A-list starlet, and fast tracking the project with a first draft of the screenplay already in the works. Read on »

The PW Morning Report
Some Takes on the New Kindle; Bloomsbury’s Coup; Delayed Decision in Australia. Read on »

Alloy to Adapt "Private" for Web TV Series
Alloy Entertainment, which created and produced Gossip Girl, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and other hits, is producing and financing its first online entertainment program and web series, based on its bestselling series Private. The series will debut on Alloy Media + Marketing’s Teen.com network. Read on »

AUTHORS ON THE AIR

Authors on the Air: The Alzheimer’s Project; Huston Smith; Ayelet Waldman
Today, Good Morning America hosted Maria Shriver, co-executive producer of The Alzheimer’s Project, a four-part HBO television series debuting this Sunday, May 10. The companion book, The Alzheimer's Project: Momentum in Science by John Hoffman and Susan Froemke (PublicAffairs, 978-1586487560, $25.95), pubs next week. Read on »

PICTURE OF THE DAY

Univeiling the Kindle DX
At a press conference yesterday, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos shows the crowd images of the newer, bigger Kindle DX.
Submit your pictures here

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