Search and PR strategist Adam Sherk has compiled a list of the most overused terms in press releases. He used PRWeb's press release archive to find the most frequently used terms. Many press releases are full of words used to praise the products and the people mentioned in them. Words like leader, best, top, unique, innovative and great made the list. Below is a list of the top ten most overused press release buzzwords. You can view the top 100 list here.
Website Tells You Which Famous Author You Write Like
The I Write Like site provides a statistical analysis tool, which analyzes your word choice and writing style and compares them with those of famous authors. The site will tell you which famous writer you write like. You just paste your text (latest blog post, journal entry, comment, chapter of your unfinished book) into the input box and press analyze. The site says they do not store any of your text.
I Write Like was created by Coding Robots. They have posted some of the funny feedback they have received from people using the site here.
Rick Atkinson to Receive 2010 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement
Author, historian and journalist Rick Atkinson will receive the 2010 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing. The $100,000 honorarium will be presented at the Library's annual Liberty Gala on October 22, 2010.
Rick Atkinson said, "This is simply thrilling. I couldn't be more honored than to be selected by the Pritzker Military Library for an award that recognizes the literary aspirations of vivid military history. I'm grateful, and delighted."
The Pritzker Military Library Literature Award recognizes a living author for a body of work that has profoundly enriched the public understanding of American military history. You can read more about the award here.
Amazon.com and Penguin Group have named the winners of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Two grand prizes were awarded this year for best general fiction novel and best young adult novel. The winners, selected by Amazon.com customers, were revealed at an event held at the Amazon campus in Seattle. Each winner received a publishing contract from Penguin Group USA that includes a $15,000 advance.
Patricia McArdle is the winner of the general fiction category for her novel, Farishta, which will be published by Riverhead Books. Amy Ackley is the winner in the young adult fiction category for her novel, Sign Language, which will be published by Viking Children's Books.
Patricia McArdle, a resident of Arlington, Virgina, is a retired American diplomat whose postings have taken her around the world, including northern Afghanistan. Her novel, Farishta, centers around a female American diplomat who, transferred to a volatile, remote outpost in northern Afghanistan, provides aid to refugee women fleeing the violence.
Young adult fiction winner Amy Ackley of Brighton, Michigan, is a mother of three whose career has included a variety of jobs, from public administration to labor relations for top automakers. Her novel, Sign Language, tells the story of 12-year-old Abby North and her discover that something is wrong with her father. Amy Ackley was inspired by the loss of her father and two close friends to cancer to write the novel.
PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing Created
ESPN and the PEN American Center have announced the formation of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. The inaugural $5,000 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing will honor a nonfiction book about sports. Eligible titles should be of a biographical, investigative, historical, or analytical nature and of the strongest literary character. The award will be open to all such books published in the United States in 2009. Publishers, authors, and agents must submit eligible titles by June 15, 2010.
You can find out more details here on PEN's website.
Reuters reports that Marilyn Monroe's writings are going to be published in a book called Fragments. It will be released in October. The U.S. publisher will be Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Fragments sounds like a great title for the book since Marilyn Monroe's writings that will be published are said to be somewhat random.
The impression given by Monroe's writing, he said, is that of a delicate, introspective person whose train of thought could veer all over the page.
"There is a certain melancholy tone throughout the book, and what is very beautiful in some of the notes is the way you see the association between ideas, even if they are quite scattered all over the page," said Comment, editor at Editions du Seuil.
"They go in all directions and it can be sometimes quite difficult to find order within the fragments," Comment told Reuters in an interview, adding that the writing bordered at times on self-psychoanalysis.
Reuters says Marilyn's writing sheds zero light on historical controversies like the JFK assassination, but they do reveal that the actress had some regrets about taking so many "dumb blonde" roles.
Editor Courtney Hodell says the book also includes poems and photographs. Hodell says, "She was a great reader and someone with real writing flair. There are fragments of poetry that are really quite beautiful, lines that stop you in your tracks."
Time asked author Elmore Leonard ten questions. One of them was about writing advice for young writers. Elmore said, "I would say just start writing. You've got to write every day. Copy someone that you like if you think that perhaps could become your sound too. I did that with Hemingway, and I thought I was writing just like Hemingway. Then all of a sudden it occurred to me, he didn't have a sense of humor. I don't know anything he's written that's funny."
Elmote Leonard also says he first writes by hand and then types his work on an electric typewriter. He does not have a computer. Elmore Leonard also thinks writers who refuse to let their books be adapted into films are crazy. He also talked about characters and point of view. Take a look:
Hundreds of television writers and showrunners are protesting the changes in format to the prime time Emmys.
Top showrunners such as John Wells ("Southland"), Ron Moore ("Battlestar Galactica"), Victor Fresco ("Better Off Ted"), Ed Bernero ("Criminal Minds"), Carol Mendelsohn ("CSI"), Clyde Phillips ("Dexter"), Doug Ellin ("Entourage"), Seth MacFarlane ("Family Guy"), Jason Katims ("Friday Night Lights"), Shonda Rhimes ("Grey's Anatomy"), David Shore ("House"), Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse ("Lost") and others have signed a statement opposing shifting two TV writing categories out of the live Emmy telecast (writing for a dramatic series and writing for a movie/miniseries).
The TV Academy announced changes to the show's format Thursday in an attempt to make the program more expedient by time-shifting eight of the 28 categories out of the live telecast. The moves will cut about 15 minutes from the three-hour program.
"Our job is to make an entertaining show that appeals to the maximum number of people but, most importantly, maintains the integrity of the Emmy brand," executive producer Don Mischer said at a teleconference last week.
Though the axed categories were split among directing, writing, acting and producing, writers point out that there were only four writing categories in the primetime telecast to begin with.
The WGA is pretty steamed about the changes and issued this statement:
"This action of the board of governors is a clear violation of a longstanding agreement the Writers Guilds have with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences regarding their awards telecast. It is also a serious demotion for writing and a fundamental misunderstanding of the importance of writers in the creation of television programs. Last year's Emmys suffered a tremendous decline in quality and ratings because of a lack of scripted material. That the Academy would then decide to devalue the primary and seminal role that writing plays in television is ridiculous and self-defeating."
The WGA is certainly correct about last year's Emmys -- the show was a total disaster with that awful reality TV format. We say: stop dissing the writers and bring back the live coverage of the writing awards.
Terry Pratchett's daughter Rhianna Pratchett has found success in the video game realm. She told That Video Game Blog that game publishers still don't know best how to use writers. She says they often contact writers at the end of a game's lifespan instead of at the beginning - but she says that's starting to change.
"Writers and narrative designers are still relatively new positions on development teams." she said. "This means there's still a level of uncertainty about how best to use and integrate them. I know from talking to lots of fine people in my field that the writing process can often be done too late, without proper access to the team and under extreme pressure. Thankfully, things are starting to get a little better and more writers are being contacted in the first few months of a project's lifespan, rather than the last few months. Personally, I consider I've been very lucky with some of my projects."
Rhianna Pratchett would also like to see more variation in video game content and less of the "Gruff guy with super powers/large weapon kicks assss!" plot lines.
"A little more variation in concept and content would be nice, as well, which is something writers and narrative designers can help with. Although they have their place and god knows I've enjoyed them on occasion, I could do with a little less 'Gruff guy with super powers/large weapon kicks assss!' tales. The medium has huge potential, so I'm not sure why there's this constant desire to keep rooting around in Hollywood’s action-movie scrapheap."
Rhianna Pratchett talked about humor in video games in another interview. Her writing in the Overlord and Overlord II video games helped make the games respected for their dark humor.
"What I think has really worked for the franchise is that the setup and gameplay is ripe with humour," says Pratchett. "You play an evil Overlord, rampaging through a twisted fantasy world, with an ever expanding army of sycophantic minions who loot and pillage for you. What's not to love about that?"
Rhianna Pratchett's website can be found here. She's has written scripts for several fantasy titles including Heavenly Sword, Overlord, Overlord: Raising Hell, Mirror's Edge and Viking: Battle for Asgard. She has also written a Mirror's Edge comic book mini-series with DC Comics.
Cormac McCarthy Wins PEN/Saul Bellow Lifetime Achievement Award
Cormac McCarthy has won another literary honor. He has been awarded
the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for lifetime achievement in American fiction. The award carries a cash prize of $25,000.
McCarthy won a Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, a National Book Award for All the Pretty Horses, and saw the film adaptation of No Country for Old Men win four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
Other awards form the PEN American Center, included a nonfiction award for
The bin Ladens by Steve Coll and citations to 20 other authors for achievement in short fiction. Nobel laureate Nadine Gordimer and Ha Jin were among those honored.
Tina Fey and Steve Martin presented the screenplay Oscars last night at the Kodak Theater. The Oscar for Best Original Screenplay went to Dustin Lance Black for
Milk. The Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay went to Simon Beaufoy for
Slumdog Millionaire. Here is Dustin Lance Black's acceptance speech:
The Oscar nominations were announced this morning. The nominees in the writing categories are:
Adapted screenplay:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (Paramount and Warner Bros.), Screenplay by Eric Roth, Screen story by Eric Roth and Robin Swicord
Doubt (Miramax), Written by John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon (Universal), Screenplay by Peter Morgan
The Reader (The Weinstein Company), Screenplay by David Hare
Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight), Screenplay by Simon Beaufoy
Original screenplay:
Frozen River (Sony Pictures Classics), Written by Courtney Hunt
Happy-Go-Lucky (Miramax), Written by Mike Leigh
In Bruges (Focus Features), Written by Martin McDonagh
Milk (Focus Features), Written by Dustin Lance Black
WALL-E (Walt Disney), Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter
One big omission in the major categories was The Dark Knight. It snared some technical nominations and a Best Supporting Actor nod for Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker, but no writing, directing or Best Picture nods.
The new book giveaways co-sponsored with our sister site, ReadersRead.com,
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Agatha Christie's Poirot: The Definitive Collection DVD Box Set.
Fans of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective
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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Publishing Children's Books,
3rd Edition by Harold D. Underdown (Alpha Books)
A Silent Ocean Away by DeVa Gantt (Avon), a breathtaking
saga of an extraordinary American family.
Roads to Quoz: An American Mosey
by William Least Heat-Moon, an ingenious and mirthful exploration
of small-town America. (Little, Brown)
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But instead of thinking of New Year's Resolutions for yourself
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There's no entry fee of any kind and all email addresses are kept strictly confidential. Winners are selected monthly from a
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The New York Times has an interesting profile of that rarest of things: the successful female screenwriting team. Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith wrote
Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You, Ella Enchanted, and She's the Man). Their new film is the comedy House Bunny starring Anna Faris as a Playboy bunny who gets kicked out of the Playboy mansion and is adopted by a sorority.
"I guess all our films have been about people learning they don't need to be what others expect them to be," Ms. McCullah Lutz said. "It just happens. We get to the end of a script, and I say, "Well, we did it again.'"
*****
"I'd been thinking, 'What happens to these women?'" Ms. Faris said by phone from New York. "L.A. is full of beautiful women, and what happens when they start getting older? Do they go into advertising? Do they go back to school? Do they go to IHOP?" In The House Bunny, the exiled cupcake Shelley Darlington (Ms. Faris) is adopted by the sorority women of Zeta Alpha Zeta, who give Shelley a sense of herself in exchange for tutorials on makeup and men.
*****
Caution, they agreed, is the enemy of comedy.
"If you watch 10 Things, it's racy by today's standards," Ms. Smith said of the almost-a-decade-old film. "The most limiting thing in our genre is that the comedic window of what you can and can't get away with has gotten smaller and smaller."
We loved 10 Things I Hate About You, which incidentally launched the careers of Heath Ledger and Julia Styles. The House Bunny is in theaters now.
The three finalists for the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor have been announced.
They are Larry Doyle, for the novel I Love You, Beth Cooper (Ecco); Patricia Marx, for the novel Him Her Him Again the End of Him (Scribner); and Simon Rich, for his collection of vignettes, Ant Farm (Random House). The announcement was made Tuesday in Columbus, Ohio, by Thurber House, a national literary center that sponsors the award. The annual prize, worth $5,000, will be presented on Oct. 6.
You can read more about the life and work of James Thurber and the awards named after him at the official website.
The 
Amazon.com and Penguin Group have named the winners of the 
ESPN and the PEN American Center have announced the formation of the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing. The inaugural $5,000 PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing will honor a nonfiction book about sports. Eligible titles should be of a biographical, investigative, historical, or analytical nature and of the strongest literary character. The award will be open to all such books published in the United States in 2009. Publishers, authors, and agents must submit eligible titles by June 15, 2010.
Reuters 
Terry Pratchett's daughter Rhianna Pratchett has found success in the video game realm. She 
