A long lost project by Jim Henson (that’s not for kids), the creative genius behind the Muppets who tragically passed away at the age of 53 in 1990, is soon going to finally get the attention it deserves.

Stephen Christy, Editor in Chief of Archaia Entertainment is responsible for giving Henson’s project new life.  In January, the Jim Henson-written screenplay, Tale of Sand, will be released as a graphic novel and is illustrated by multi award-winning artist Ramon Perez (Marvel and DC illustrator).

The graphic novelis so faithfully illustrated from Henson’s lost screenplay that the font used throughout was digitally created to match his handwriting – giving readers a deeper understanding into his creative process. Completely unlike Henson’s well-known projects, this endeavor is not for kids and yet still has the stamp of Henson’s brilliance.  Filled with whimsy, mystery and magic, the screenplay was set aside by Henson when he began work on Sesame Street and The Muppets, never to have the opportunity to return to the project.  Tale of Sand, remained in Henson’s expansive archive until Archaia and the Jim Henson Company joined forces to put this spectacular story into production.

 

Stephen Christy:Stephen spearheaded a co-development partnership with Zachary Quinto ('Spock' in the J.J. Abrams-director Star Trek films) for his production company’s (Before the Door Pictures) pair of graphic novels, 'Lucid' and 'Mr. Murder is Dead.”  Stephan also acquisitioned the eagerly anticipated 'Conspiracy of the Planet of the Apes' graphic novel written by Drew Gaska with multiple industry-leading illustrators set to launch concurrent with the release of the next major Planet of the Apes movie

 

Based in the company’s Los Angeles office, Christy is responsible for acquiring new properties, overseeing development and helping to forge partnerships within the entertainment sector – all the while ensuring that Archaia remains true to its reputation of providing the highest caliber of content.  Christy joined Archaia from Devil’s Due Publishing where he headed IP Development and successfully oversaw the negotiations of nine development deals with major Hollywood production companies over a 14-month period. Prior to Devil’s Due, Christy worked at both Marvel Comics and DC Comics in various aspects of the business.

 

  To hear the interview with Stephen Christy click here

 

Dave Barry

Pulitzer Prize-winning Humoristand

Alan Zweibel

Original Saturday Night Live Writer

What happens when you team up a beloved, New York Times-bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-winning humorist with an original Saturday Night Live writer who has won Emmys and the Thurber Prize for American Humor?  You get LUNATICS – the book, not the authors.  Well, maybe the authors, too.

Join Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel discuss their new novelLunatics,an outrageous, laugh-your-butt-off comic masterpiece of our time, which trenchantly addresses everything from China, Cuba, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the perils of school soccer leagues, ballet recitals, and dressing up like Chuck E. Cheese.  The book has recently been optioned for film by Universal Studios, with Steve Carell attached to star.

In alternating chapters, the authors’ alter egos,Jeffrey Peckerman and Philip Horkman, two suburban schlubs from New Jersey,become legendary international criminalsthrough their own astonishing stupidity.  Somehow Horkman, the owner of a pet store called The Wine Shop, and Peckerman, a forensic plumber (don’t ask), manage to turn a disputed call in a girls’ soccer game into global pandemonium.  Peckerman and Horkman are charged with, among other things, committing acts of terrorism in New York City, endangering zoo animals, hijacking a clothing-optional cruise ship, extorting hundreds of millions of dollars, and seriously damaging a valuable flamenco guitar belonging to the singer Charo.  Yet through an uncanny ability to show up in critical world hotspots at exactly the right moment, perform some seemingly impossible feat, then vanish, they improbably become the most famous and adored human beings on the planet.

About the authors:

The New York Timeshas called Dave Barry “the funniest man in America.”  From 1983 to 2004, he wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning humor column for the Miami Herald.  He is the author of some thirty books, including the nonfiction bestsellers I’ll Mature When I’m Dead and Dave Barry’s History of the Millennium (So Far),as well as the novels Big Trouble and Tricky Business and five young adult Peter Pan novels (with Ridley Pearson).  Two of his books – Big Trouble and Dave Barry’s Guide to Guys – have been turned into movies.  For a while, his life was even a television series, Dave’s World, but then it was canceled.  The series.  Not the life. 

Alan Zweibelhas also been praised by The New York Times, which said he has “earned his place in the pantheon of American pop culture.”  He is the author of six previous books, including the 2006 Thurber Prize for American Humor-winning novel The Other Shulman.  Starting with his stint on Saturday Night Live, he has won numerous Emmys and Writers Guild of America awards for his television work.  On Broadway, he has collaborated with Billy Crystal on the Tony Award-winning play 700 Sundays, and with Martin Short on Fame Becomes Me.  In 2010, the Writers Guild of America presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award.  Zweibel is currently working with Billy Crystal on the screenplay for the feature film version of 700 Sundays, a pilot for HBO, executive-producing (with Steve Carell and David Steinberg) a new series called “Inside Comedy” that premieres on Showtime in January, and recently appeared in an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. 

To hear the interview with Dave Barry and Alan Zweibel click here

 

 

 

In A SINGULAR WOMAN: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother, award-winning New York Times reporter Janny Scott tells, for the first time, the full story of the woman who gave Barack Obama the values, the self-confidence, and the life story that became the foundation of his extraordinary political rise.  Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with professional colleagues, friends, and family members including the president and his half sister, as well as a wealth of archival material, this remarkable biography tells the unexpected tale of a brainy girl from a quintessentially American family, who, at seventeen, conceived a child with a man from Kenya in an era when nearly half of all states barred interracial marriage.  

In the extraordinary life that followed, she defied countless rules about how women, mothers and Americans were expected to behave.  Married twice to men of different races and cultures, Dunham raised two biracial children mostly as a single mother and a working professional. She spent more than half her adult life in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country.  She was complex and contradictory, idealistic and pragmatic, and above all resilient. Neither a visionary nor a saint, she was deeply human.  It is also the heartbreaking tale of a woman whose death at fifty-two, as Obama was embarking on his first campaign for public office, prevented her from ever knowing what he would make of his life.  

 

To hear the interview with Janny Scott click here  

The Ultimate Insider’s Rock and Roll Memoir delivers an honest behind-the-scenes look at some of the biggest acts in the music industry today… 

DRINKING with

STRANGERS

MUSIC LESSONS FROM A TEENAGE BULLET BELT

By Butch Walker

With Matt Diehl

From Butch Walker, voted as a Rolling Stone “Producer of the Year,” and called one of “America’s best singer-songwriters”, comes DRINKING WITH STRANGERS,  a behind-the-scenes memoir of his music career, from his roots in Georgia to his current producing days in Hollywood where he works with some of today’s hottest talent, including Weezer, Katy Perry, Avril Lavigne  Pink, Hot Hot Heat, Tommy Lee, Fall Out Boy and The Donnas to name a few.

Since his days with his one-hit-wonder band, the Marvelous 3, Walker has been a successful record producer and performer—he’s played with Taylor Swift at the Grammys, sells out shows across the country every year, and continues to be one of the most sought after record producers in the industry. But the road to success wasn’t easy.

Butch and his band The Black Widows, have an exuberant new album called The Spade with Dangerbird Records.

 

BUTCH WALKER is a recording artist, songwriter, and producer. He lives in Atlanta and Los Angeles. His latest recording with the Black Widows is The Spade.

To hear the interview with Butch Walker click here

 

New York Timesbestselling author, Gregory Maguire began his Wicked Years series with the groundbreaking novel Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which was adapted into one of the most successful Broadway musicals in history.  Now three books later, and with 7.5 million copies of the four-book series currently in print, he completes the saga of the Wicked Years with OUT OF OZ: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years

In Wicked, Maguire created a rich fantasy world based on the characters and setting of The Wizard of Oz, as told from the point of view of the antagonist of L. Frank Baum’s classic tale.  Offering a different look into the land of Oz, one of political and social unrest, Maguire first introduced readers to a little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, the misunderstood creature who grows up to become the infamous villain of Baum’s beloved story.  That first novel in the series was followed by the hugely successful and bestselling novels Son of a Witch, the story of Elphaba’s son Liir, and A Lion Among Men, the story of the Cowardly Lion named Brrr.  With the publication of this fourth volume, the millions of copies in print, and the musical Wicked celebrating its eighth year on Broadway, including a multitude of traveling road companies, books in the Wicked Years series have also been published in twenty countries and have been embraced by young and old alike.

Now in OUT OF OZ, Maguire brings the world of Oz full circle, as he once again takes readers back to the marvelous land of Oz, where the Emerald City is mounting an invasion of Munchkinland, Glinda is held under house arrest, and the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law.  And Dorothy Gale of Kansas makes something more than a cameo appearance.  Amidst the chaos, Elphaba’s granddaughter, Rain, comes of age to take up her broom in an Oz wracked by war.

OUT OF OZ is an imaginative and stunning conclusion to what has not only become a cultural phenomenon, but has also become one of the most beloved and bestselling series in modern American literature. 

Gregory Maguire is the bestselling author of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister; Lost; Mirror Mirror; and the Wicked Years series, including Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men.  Wicked, now a beloved classic, is the basis for the blockbuster Tony Award-winning Broadway musical of the same name.  Maguire has lectured on art, literature, and culture both at home and abroad.  He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.

 

To hear part 1 of the interview with Gregory Maguire click here

To hear part 2 of the interview with Gregory Maguire click here  

  

 

Over the past decade, Sue Monk Kidd’s celebrated novel The Secret Life Of Bees has touched the hearts of countless readers. The Secret Life of Beeshas spent more than two and a half years on the New York Times bestseller list, sold more than six million copies in the United States, and has been translated into thirty six languages. It has been nominated for and received numerous awards both here and abroad and was turned into a star-studded, award-winning major motion picture. In addition, this remarkable novel has inspired generations of reading groups and fan clubs, and it has helped shape high school and college curriculums around the country. 

 The Secret Life of Bees is the story of Lily Owens, a girl who has shaped her life around one devastating memory—the afternoon her mother was killed, when Lily was four.  Besides her harsh and unyielding father, Lily’s only real companion is Rosaleen, a tender, but fierce-hearted black woman who cooks, cleans and acts as her “stand-in mother.”One summer afternoon in 1964 in South Carolina—a place and time of seething racial divides—violence explodes and Rosaleen is arrested and beaten.  Lily is desperate, not only to save Rosaleen, but to flee from a life she can no longer endure.  Calling upon her youthful daring, she breaks Rosaleen out of jail and the two escape, into what quickly becomes Lily’s quest for the truth about her mother’s life.  They are taken in by three black, beekeeping sisters, May, June, and August, and Lily is consumed by their secret world of bees and honey, and of the Black Madonna who presides over this household of strong, wise women.  Lily’s journey is one of painful secrets and shattering betrayals but it is a passage that ultimately helps her find the thing her heart longs for most. In a strong, irresistible voice that catches us up and doesn’t let us go, The Secret Life of Bees takes us into a world apart— into a mesmerizing story about the divine power of women and the ability of love to change one’s life.

To hear the interview with Sue Monk Kidd click here