In the first book, with "Twilight," I don’t think I even met her until I was well into a draft and I was worried about meeting her because she was the 500-pound gorilla, she was the heavyweight. I was really protective of my process. I was afraid. I didn’t know her from Adam, and I was afraid of getting run over and of not being able to create what I wanted to create or in some way have my voice stifled. When I met her, I realized, "Oh, that's not going to happen at all." But she was cautious too. She was looking at me going, "Are you going to butcher my child?" By the time I finished "Twilight," her reaction to it, it was still one of the great moments of my career, having the author say such wonderful things about the script. From that moment she relaxed about can I deliver and I relaxed about inviting her into my process.

I didn't have a director of "New Moon" until I was finished, so on "New Moon" I became much more involved with her, and with "Eclipse" I was getting her notes on the outline. With "Eclipse," because I was taking some liberties with the storytelling, it was really important to me that I stay true to her mythology, her voice. She gave me notes as far back as the outline and on every draft since. We’re very tight and very much in each other's world.

Producers Nick Wechsler, Steve and Paula Mae Schwartz have used their own money to acquire screen rights to "The Host," the first adult novel written by Stephenie Meyer, author of the "Twilight" series. Andrew Niccol will write the script and direct.

Meyer's novel is a love story set in the near future on Earth, which has been assimilated by an alien species of benevolent parasites that call themselves "Souls." One such soul, the Wanderer, is fused with a dying human named Melanie Stryder, in an attempt to locate the last pocket of surviving humans on Earth.

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In addition to writing four volumes of the "Twilight" series, Meyer has been heavily involved in the screen transfers, and she spurned several overtures for "The Host." The producers continued lobbying the author and her UTA reps with a significant offer, a strong vision for the project and a collaborative spirit. Meyer eventually said yes.

In fact, Niccol first came under consideration after Wechsler and the Schwartzes asked Meyer what her favorite science fiction films are. "Gattaca" and "The Truman Show" were in her top five; Niccol wrote and directed "Gattaca" and scripted the Peter Weir-directed "The Truman Show."

The names Edward and Bella are almost as famous around the world as those of Harry and Hermione. But in Arabic-speaking countries, the heroes of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight quartet might yet eclipse those of Rowling's mega-selling series.

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[Foreign rights and sales manager of the Arab Cultural Center Haissam] Fadel said, when Rowling's books were translated into Arabic by Egyptian publisher Nahdet Misr, it helped to open a new market of readers—those now willing to give YA a try.

Fadel's company, which has divisions in Casablanca and Beirut, took a chance and bought Arabic-language rights to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight quartet at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair. "At the time, the books were not so well-known in the Arabic world," he said, "but the movie changed all that." When the books reach bookstores this May, images from the film will be used on the promotional posters.

Fadel said the company wanted to capitalize on the interest generated by the film, and felt it was important to get the books translated as quickly as possible. "It was a huge commitment and hugely expensive, but we used four different translators—one on each book," he said. "Of course, we would have liked to have just used one translator, but we observed that when customers went into a bookstore to buy Twilight they tended to buy multiple volumes, so we wanted to have them on offer all at once."

Stephen King's opinion may drive a stake through the heart of Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. In an interview with USA Weekend, the bestselling author compared Meyer with J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series. According to Stephen, "Both Rowling and Meyer, they're speaking directly to young people... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good."

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"People are attracted by the stories, by the pace, and in the case of Stephenie Meyer, it's very clear that she's writing to a whole generation of girls and opening up kind of a safe joining of love and sex in those books. It's exciting and it's thrilling and it's not particularly threatening because it's not overtly sexual."

He further explains, "A lot of the physical side of it is conveyed in things like, the vampire will touch her forearm or run a hand over skin, and she just flushes all hot and cold. And for girls, that's a shorthand for all the feelings that they're not ready to deal with yet."

A dim light fell on the country this weekend, as Stephenie Meyer's first book in the "Twilight" series went to the cinema and dazzled 16-year-old girls across the country and people who act like them. For the rest of us, bewildered is probably a better word to describe what happened.

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Meyer graduated from BYU in 1995 with a bachelor's in English. Because of this inside angle, The Daily Universe requested an interview with the 34-year-old author last week However, we were snubbed. After a few hours of searching, our reporter finally tracked down Meyer's publicist's e-mail address. But the publicist sent us an e-mail telling us Meyer was on much deserved time off. That's publicist-speak for "She's not going to grant you an interview, so don't bother us."

I'm willing to give Meyer the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure her publicist didn't even pass the message along that her alma mater's newspaper requested an interview. If Meyer has time for a self-indulgent cameo appearance, she has time for a 15-minute phone call.

We don't fault Meyer for being a little self-indulgent. She has achieved a degree of success few thought possible after J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" turned normal people into ravenous fans. We would, however, fault Meyer if she thought she doesn't need to talk to us. We may not be ABC or MTV or some of the national media outlets that have interviewed her, but we are her school. It'd be a shame if all her new-found fame and fortune has made her too cool for us. After all, some might call her books a fluke.

Then there's the possibility Meyer is just embarrassed to talk to us. For characters who are supposed to be chaste, Bella sure didn't look like she wanted to wait for marriage when she had her pants off for Edward. They only actually kissed, but they did it with her pants off. The entire film is just as sexually taunting, with Bella and Edward continually tempting themselves for more. I'm not sure I would call that chastity.

"The manuscript that was illegally distributed on the Internet was given to trusted individuals for a good purpose. I have no comment beyond that, as I believe that there was no malicious intent with the initial distribution," she wrote in a posting on her website. But Meyer, 34, said this was a huge violation of her rights of an author as well as her rights as a human being because she owns the copyright and has say over when the book should be made public.

She said that musicians and filmmakers have the same rights over their work, and that it is dishonest of anyone to download material off the Internet and to reproduce and distribute it. "This has been a very upsetting experience for me, but I hope it will at least leave my fans with a better understanding of copyright and the importance of artistic control," Meyer wrote. "I feel too sad about what has happened to continue working on 'Midnight Sun,' and so it is on hold indefinitely."

Meyer said the draft that was released on the Internet was incomplete, with messy and flawed writing, but she was making that draft available on her site because it added a new dimension to the "Twilight" story.