Who indeed? I ask myself that question often. Metaphysical issues aside, I guess you could say I’m a jack-of-many-trades in the writing department. I’ve been known to author stage plays (The Potman Spoke Sooth), write and direct feature films (Night Visitors, The Road to Flin Flon), compile and edit baseball anthologies (The Cubs Reader, A Blue Jays Companion), and do a bunch of contract writing and editing for a variety of publishers. And oh, yes: I wrote a middle-grade novel, Raising Rufus, about a boy who discovers his inner hero while raising...well, a very unusualpet.
You can’t help but root for thirteen-year-old social underdog and theater nerd Nate Foster as he sneaks away from his “boring” hometown of Jankburg, PA, and takes a bus to New York City to audition for the lead role in a Broadway production of E.T., the Musical. Of course, things don’t go according to plan, but Nate’s spunk, humor, and fearlessness somehow get him through his longshot adventure in the big city. Federle’s warm and vivid characterizations and witty writing style make this one a winner for the whole family. (One caveat: Parents bothered by gay themes in middle-grade books—even understated ones, as here—might want to skip this one. Your loss.) Followed by two more: Fix, Six, Seven, Nate! and Nate Expectations.
“The Nate series by Tim Federle is a wonderful evocation of what it’s like to be a theater kid. Highly recommended.” —Lin-Manuel Miranda, star and creator of the musical, Hamilton
A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Slate Favorite Book of the Year
A small-town boy hops a bus to New York City to crash an audition for E.T.: The Musical in this winning middle grade novel that The New York Times called “inspired and inspiring.”
I’ve spent most of my 20-year career as a professional journalist covering the entertainment industry, and I find it endlessly fascinating. As is probably true for you if you’re reading this, I love movies and TV shows. As a curious person, I always want to know why. Why did this movie get made at this time with these people? If you want to know the answer, you’ve got to understand the business. Hollywood is such an interesting business, full of big personalities trying to manage corporate pressure and creative egos and to balance their need to make a profit with their desire to make great art.
The ultimate insider business story at the ultimate Hollywood company. Stewart takes readers unbelievably deep inside Disney at a critical moment when Michael Eisner’s 20-year run as CEO was coming to a dramatic end amidst, as the title implies, a corporate civil war.
While most people know Disney as the happiest place on Earth, the last few years of Eisner’s reign saw big-name moguls like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Michael Ovitz, Eisner, and Walt Disney’s nephew Roy Disney at each other’s throats.
Disneywar is a gripping and illuminating tale that shows how the sausage really gets made in Hollywood and how easily power in this town can disappear.
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Den of Thieves draws on extensive research and hundreds of interviews to document the fierce executive battle for control of the foremost entertainment company, in an account that discusses how Michael Eisner lost his chairmanship and how the conflict reflects modern-day American capitalism and popular culture. 250,000 first printing.
Legacy is an imaginative fable and
simultaneously a narrative poem that is beautifully constructed. It is very
relevant for our times.
First, it is a gripping read of heroism, triumph over difficulties,
and of confrontation with evil. As fable, it joins the ranks of the classics
like Aesop’s Fables or more recently George Orwell’s Animal Farm. But part of
its beauty is not only its construction but also that it can be read it to your
young children - they will love it!
It is simple to follow, yet has profound
depth. It’s been described as “a much-needed antidote to the moral vacuum of
modern culture.” I totally agree. Reading it is great but I even more strongly
recommend listening to it: the author’s voice is good enough for Disney.
I always intended to be a fiction writer (and have written ten novels, both YA and adult) but my oldest child is autistic, which led to my meeting and then collaborating on several non-fiction books with Dr. Lynn Kern Koegel, who’s an expert in the autism field, currently at Stanford University. Finding myself writing non-fiction wasn’t the only way having an autistic child changed my life. When my son was first diagnosed, I didn’t know what that meant for his future, and I desperately wanted information—and even entertainment—that made me feel inspired and hopeful. I needed to find my way toward feeling positive and not anxious, for both our sakes.
So, in the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I haven’t read this entire book, but I did read the original article that the book came out of and other articles by and about the Suskinds.
Ron Suskind did exactly what Lynn Koegel and I believe all parents should do: he observed his son’s interest and used it as a bridge for communication and connection.
Disney was a huge part of our family life when our kids were little (and still plays a role in our lives today since one of my sons is a children’s television writer and another one has his own theme park video channel), so I love that it was Disney movies that brought the Suskinds together.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind tells the story of how his autistic son was able to regain the ability to speak through the medium of Disney animated films.
"Ron Suskind's "Life, Animated" is an extraordinary saga of an exceptional boy from a remarkable family and their compelling journey through autism."-David Royko, Chicago Tribune
Imagine being trapped inside a Disney movie and having to learn about life mostly from animated characters dancing across a screen of color. A fantasy? A nightmare? This is the real-life story of Owen Suskind, the son of the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind and his wife,…
I've been drawing for over 68 years and carrying a sketchbook for over 60 of those years. I've seen success as an author, I'm an award-winning illustrator of books and magazines and animated many classic Disney features. Am I an expert on sketching humans and animals? ...No. I'm constantly learning in my effort to capture humans and animals in action by following the basic principles of drawing as they apply to quick sketching. My learning is aided by these books as I prepare lesson plans or the encouragement and inspiration found within their pages. I'm married to LaVonne, my high school sweetheart of 50 years, and have three grown children and six grandchildren.
I was privileged to see firsthand these two Disney Legends and their passions for the craft of storytelling through animation. I worked with Frank and Ollie as a young animation trainee. I learned the basics of animation by ‘in-betweening’ scenes primarily for Frank. In addition to ‘in-betweening’ for Frank, he would give me scenes to animate under his supervision. The principles and philosophy of the ‘Disney way’ are explained within the pages of this book and I was fortunate to have absorbed them firsthand.
Applying the principles of animation that Frank and Ollie presented has had a tremendous effect on all aspects of my art. My book, my personal award-winning illustrations, and a 38-year career with the Disney Studio bear witness of putting these principles into practice.
The most complete book on the subject ever written, this is the fascinating inside story by two long-term Disney animators of the gradual perfecting of a relatively young and particularly American art from, which no other move studio has ever been able to equal.
The authors, Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston, worked with Walt Disney himself as well as other leading figures in a half-century of Disney films. They personally animated leading characters in most of the famous films and have decades of close association with the others who helped perfect this extremely difficult and time-consuming art form. Not to…
I'm a student of animation and Disney history. As a Disney historian, I find much joy in writing the stories that intrigue and peak my curiosity. Stories that haven't been told or explored in-depth are exciting to bring to life because readers are hungry for new information on the Disney universe. And so am I. In choosing my writing projects it's important that no one else has written more than a cursory amount or nothing at all on the subject matter. I equally like to read books that shed new light on topics that I’m interested in and doing so in an authoritative voice. I hope you will enjoy the selection of books listed here.
Wild Minds is a wonderful and engrossing history of the early days of the animation industry. From Winsor McCay to Otto Messmer, Max Fleischer, and Walt Disney, this book twists and turns weaving a fantastic tapestry of the talented and highly competitive artists that invented animation techniques that are still being used today. Read about the choices Fleischer and Disney made that ended the former and vaulted the latter into stardom. A wild read for any animation history buff.
The vivid and untold story of the Golden Age of classic animation and the often larger-than-life artists who created some of the most iconic cartoon characters of the twentieth century
In 1911, famed cartoonist Winsor McCay debuted one of the first animated cartoons, based on his sophisticated newspaper strip "Little Nemo in Slumberland," itself inspired by Freud's recent research on dreams. McCay is largely forgotten today, but he unleashed an art form, and the creative energy of artists from Otto Messmer and Max Fleischer to Walt Disney and Warner Bros.' Chuck Jones. Their origin stories, rivalries, and sheer genius, as…
Ever since my primary school teacher read out my essay about a friendly octopus to the whole class, I’ve known I was a storyteller. I went on to enjoy a long career as a journalist–first, writing stories about rock and pop groups for the music paper Sounds (where I coined the term ‘The New Romantics’), then as editor of the pop magazine Record Mirror, and subsequently as a writer/editor for national newspapers including The Observer and The Sunday Telegraph. After that, I became a coach, a public speaking trainer, and a book editor. However, my most enduring passion is helping people find and tell their most meaningful stories.
I’m blowing a big chef’s kiss to this delicious little book.
Like gourmet cuisine, every ingredient is top quality and carefully chosen. The resulting dish is beautifully presented and full of flavour. You’ll find everything you need to know about how to tell a story well–from the 10 principles of storytelling to the gleaming detail and evoking the senses, delivered with verve and clarity by a seasoned scriptwriter and professor of storytelling.
The universe is made of stories, not atoms.' - Muriel Rukeyser. Today s world wants to know you and the real story behind why you do what you do. Whether you have a product to sell, a company mission to share or an audience to entertain, people are far more likely to engage and connect if you deliver a well-crafted story with an emotional core. Bobette Buster is a story consultant to major studios including Pixar, Disney and Sony Animation. In Do Story she teaches the art of telling powerful and engaging stories. With profiles of activists, leaders and visionaries,…
Let's face it: pirates of the Golden Age are just cool. No one would actually want to encounter them, but they have been the stuff of escapist dreams since childhood. Adventure, fellowship, treasure–the “romantic” aspects of piracy are what make these otherwise nasty individuals anti-heroes par excellence. As an adult and academic and as an occasional crewman on square riggers, I adopted pirates as a favorite sub-set of maritime history. As with other aspects of the past, I view the history of pirates and piracy as really two narratives: what the records tell us happened and why and what our persistent fascination with them reveals about us.
I like books that challenge longstanding but doubtful dogma and expose historical fallacies. This collection of essays does just that, and it quickly brought me up to speed on some of the best and latest studies about pirates and piracy.
More than a dozen essays by as many noted historians helped dispel my misconceptions concerning Blacks as pirates, the practices of piracy and privateering, the roles of women at the business end of piracy (booty is only good if you can sell it), and more.
Dispelling the romanticized myths surrounding pirates, Pennell's edited collection provides a corrective history of bandits at sea
The romantic fiction of pirates as swashbuckling marauders terrorizing the high seas has long eclipsed historical fact. Bandits at Sea offers a long-overdue corrective to the mythology and the mystique which has plagued the study of pirates and served to deny them their rightful legitimacy as subjects of investigation.
With essays by the foremost scholars on these countercultural "social bandits," as Lingua Franca recently dubbed them, this collection examines various aspects of the phenomenon in the three main areas where it occurred: the…
I'm a student of animation and Disney history. As a Disney historian, I find much joy in writing the stories that intrigue and peak my curiosity. Stories that haven't been told or explored in-depth are exciting to bring to life because readers are hungry for new information on the Disney universe. And so am I. In choosing my writing projects it's important that no one else has written more than a cursory amount or nothing at all on the subject matter. I equally like to read books that shed new light on topics that I’m interested in and doing so in an authoritative voice. I hope you will enjoy the selection of books listed here.
This book celebrates the artistry and legacy of Walt Disney’s key talents not only in animation but in the theme park attraction design. Mary Blair’s influence can be seen in animated classics like Disney’s Cinderella (1950), Alice in Wonderland (1951), and Peter Pan (1953) to Disneyland’s It’s a Small World and the mural at the Contemporary Resort at Walt Disney World, just to name a few. In a studio dominated by men, Blair rose to the top based on her talent for design and color styling. A wonderfully written book that showcases an artistic genius who brought magic to every project she worked on at Disney.
For more than a dozen years, a soft spoken, unassuming woman dominated design at The Walt Disney Studios with a joyful creativity and exuberant color palette that stamped the look of many classic Disney animated features, including Cinderella and PeterPan. Favorite theme park attractions, most notably the It's A Small World boat ride, originally created for the 1964-1965 New York World's Fair, were also among her designs. Now the story behind one of Walt's favorite artists is celebrated in this delightful volume of whimsical art and insightful commentary. In her prime, Mary Blair was an amazingly prolific American artist who…
I love a book set in a work setting, especially as
I’m a full-time author, so I no longer have dodgy colleagues! The Flatmate follows
Ria, who has returned to work following an enforced sabbatical after the
shocking death of her colleague and best friend, Livvy.
Enter Amanda, her new flatmate, and Livvy’s replacement. When Ria starts receiving messages and gifts
from dead Livvy, her colleagues think Ria is losing her mind.
Author Gemma
Rogers is great at pacing and creating believable and sometimes unpleasant
characters. I loved the believability of this story and read the book in one
sitting.
Always trust your very basic instincts or prepare for the consequences...
It was surreal returning to work after a sabbatical following the suspicious death of my best friend Livvy.
On my return to the company apartment, I was surprised to find Livvy's replacement, Amanda Dowd firmly entrenched as my new flatmate.
She'd seemingly appeared out of nowhere.
But something didn't feel right. I felt on edge.
Everyone seemed to love Amanda, even my ex-Jayden was blinded by her outgoing personality and model-like looks.Yet her desperation to become friends felt unnatural.
When I began to receive calls, photos and presents from…
