How did John Cusack get to know Edgar Allan Poe? 'Read'

Starting Friday, when "The Raven" opens, we can all see John Cusack bring the 19th century writer Edgar Allan Poe to life. The premise of the film seems pretty 21st century: a serial killer is murdering victims in the style of Poe's stories, and the writer sets out to discover who it might be. Yet it actually hearkens back to Poe's work -- he is often credited with inventing the detective novel with stories like "The Murders in the Rue Morgue."

In advance of the film, Cusack is talking about his experiences with playing the notoriously dark-visioned writer. At a film screening Sunday night, the L.A. Times' Ministry of Gossip blog asked Cusack how he got into Poe's head. "Read," Cusack answers in the video below. "Read his stuff. I read biographies on him, but I read mostly his stories. Tried to immerse myself in his stuff, in his imagination .... It was like going into a nightmare, in a way."

At the L.A. Times Festival of Books, the Huffington Post caught Cusack's answer to the question: What are you reading now?

"The Sugar-Frosted Nutsack: A Novel" by Mark Leyner (who interviewed Cusack on stage)
"In the Hands of Dante: A Novel" by Nick Tosches
"Walking Since Daybreak" by Modris Eksteins
"A Movable Feast" by Ernest Hemingway (after seeing "Midnight in Paris")

He also said that he likes e-books for the dictionary apps, but when he has a hard copy he writes in the margins of his books so that  he can "make them mine." 

Cusack also promises that Poe aficionados will find the film packed with nods to his real life and work. All of Poe's work can be downloaded for free, in e-book form, from Project Gutenberg.

On Thursday, Cusack will be doing an online chat with fans at the L.A. Times -- sign up here to be a part of that conversation.

RELATED:

Comic-Con literary highlights

Happy birthday, Edgar Allan Poe!

Could 'The Raven' save Poe's Baltimore house?

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: John Cusack and friend at the April 23 screening of "The Raven" in Los Angeles. Credit: Jason Merritt / Getty Images

The Reading Life: Thinking about Stephen King

This is part of the occasional series "The Reading Life" by book critic David L. Ulin.

On the afternoon of New Year's Eve, I spent half an hour or so discussing Stephen King with my colleague David Lazarus on Patt Morrison's KPCC-FM radio show. The news peg, such as it was, involved the decision by the New York Times to include King's new novel, "11/22/63," on its list of the 10 best books of 2011. But the bigger question had to do with King's merit as a writer, which, almost 40 years after he began to publish, remains a source of conversation, if no longer quite debate.

For the record, I didn't think much of "11/22/63"; I found it meandering and unfocused -- not to mention far too long. And yet, I also believe that, like many a genre writer, King has gotten a bad rap for much of his career, written off because he appeals to a popular audience, when in fact his work exposes, with real acuity, a lot about who we are.

Think about it: Beyond the mechanics, of plot, of horror, what King offers are domestic interactions, slices of family and civic life. He uncovers our anxieties, our worries, our obsessions -- the inner darkness we all know. That's why, for me, some of his most moving works are the most naturalistic: "The Body," "Misery" or the recent novella "A Good Marriage," which anchors his 2010 collection "Full Dark, No Stars." There, King traces a particularly human bleakness, the bleakness of an empty soul.

This is the key to his writing, that when he's on, no one is better at prying open the ordinary reality of evil, the way our nightmares emerge from our daily experience, from our fears and our frustrations, our envy and our rage. It's true even when he's writing about the supernatural; as he observed when I profiled him for The Times in 1998, "Every monster, every horrific situation, every supernatural situation can be taken in a metaphoric way, if you have an interest in normal human life. Or even abnormal human life."

Stephen King plans to donate up to $70,000 to heat Maine homes

With federal budget cuts taking a bite out of a charitable fund that helps lower-income Maine residents heat their homes, author Stephen King announced plans Wednesday to help bridge the gap. His Stephen and Tabitha King Charitable Foundation will match up to $70,000 donated to Maine's heating oil fund, with hopes that they can raise $140,000 total.

King no longer lives year-round in Bangor, Maine, but he returns there and owns three local radio stations that will spread the word about the effort, the Bangor Daily News reports. “We’ll match up to $70,000 of the amount raised,” King said. “This economy is terrible and Tabitha and I both worry so much about Bangor because it truly is a working-class town and we are always looking for ways to help, and right now this is a great need.”

King added, “And on top of it the price of fuel continues to rise. The cost goes up, the need goes up and the assistance goes down. That’s the bottom line. That’s what is happening.”

Last winter the federal government gave Maine $55.6 million for the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program; the state learned last month that this winter's funds will be just $23 million. The Bangor News writes that people are "desperate to find help to fill their oil tanks." The governor plans to seek funds to fill the gap from the Maine Legislature.

The average high temperature in Bangor during the winter months is just around freezing, with lows averaging around 11 degrees; in 1962, it recorded a record low of 30 degrees below zero.

RELATED:

Stephen King's 'Bag of Bones' coming to TV

Stephen King follows Stone, Delillo into JFK myth

Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" won't be a movie after all

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: A house in a 2008 Maine snowstorm. Credit: Anathea via Flickr

'Pride & Prejudice & Zombies' — there's an app for that

The people who brought you "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" have launched "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies: The Interactive Book App" just in time for Halloween.

The download is available for iPads and iPhones at an introductory price of $4.99. A version for Android tablets is expected soon.

Quirk Books kicked off the classic literature mashup bonanza in 2009 with "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies," which became a surprise bestseller. The publisher followed up with more of the same, with "Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters," "Android Karenina" and "The Meowmorphosis." What would Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy and Fanz Kafka think? Their books and others in the public domain are fair game, so the market was soon flooded with books like the "The Undead World of Oz" and  "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Zombie Jim."

But "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies" started it all. Its interactive edition has Jane Austen's original version when your device is facing one way; flip it around and it's zombified. "The people in Austen's books are kind of like zombies," zombify-ing co-author Seth Grahame-Smith told The Times the day of the book's release. "No matter what's going on around them in the world, they live in this bubble of privilege. The same thing is true of the people in this book, although it's much more absurd."

The app's zombie elements include hundreds of illustrations, motion graphics, music and sound effects (squish). It was created by PadWorx Digital Media, which won a 2010 Publishing Innovations award for its ebook version of Bram Stoker's "Dracula." A trailer for "Pride & Prejudice & Zombies: The Interactive Book App" is after the jump.

Stephen King's 'Bag of Bones' is coming to TV [video]

Stephen King's "Bag of Bones" is coming to the screen -- the television screen, that is. The adaptation of King's novel will air on A&E for two nights in December.

Pierce Brosnan stars as Mike Noonan, a novelist suffering writer's block after the death of his wife. He retreats to a lake house, where things get creepy. In the video above, Annabeth Gish, getting made up as a rotting corpse, explains she's spent two hours in the chair.

"Bag of Bones" was published in 1998; 13 years seems like an awfully long time to wait for a screen adaptation. But at least it's happening -- earlier this year, the much-anticipated adaptation of King's "The Dark Tower" series was killed by a new studio administration. The A-list project, adapted by screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, would have starred Javier Bardem and been directed by Ron Howard.

Want to see a little more of "Bag of Bones"? Deadline Hollywood has a spooky new trailer.

RELATED:

Is Stephen King standing up for print?

Stephen King follows Stone, Delillo into JFK myth

Stephen King's "The Dark Tower" won't be a movie after all

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Price meets Poe in Los Angeles

Actor Vincent Price was born 100 years ago. The Yale-educated, art-collecting heir to a candy fortune found himself becoming the king of midcentury American horror movies — creepy, campy, macabre. Of his many movies, Price appeared in 10 full-length films adapted from works by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe didn't have the affluent background of Price, but the two shared a talent for the terrifying.

Three of those films in which Price meets Poe will be screened as part of LACMA's Price-A-Thon. The daylong film fest, all free, is being presented in conjunction with the museum's Tim Burton exhibit. It's taking place on the eve of Halloween, Oct. 30.

"The Pit and the Pendulum" kicks the day off at 1 p.m. and is followed by "The Masque of the Red Death" at 2:30 p.m. Both films are taken from stories by Poe and are in "The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. 2," available as a free ebook at Project Gutenberg. The third film has a more tenuous Poe connection. Titled "The Witchfinder General" in England, it was given the name "Conqueror Worm" for U.S. release, which comes from the Poe poem that's briefly alluded to in the picture. "The Witchfinder General/Conqueror Worm" screens at 9:15 p.m.

RELATED:

Happy birthday, Edgar Allan Poe

Could Poe movie save the writer's Baltimore house?

The creepy Nathaniel Hawthorne story Edgar Allan Poe loved

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photos: Vincent Price, left, in 1958; Edgar Allan Poe, undated. Credits: Los Angeles Times file; Associated Press

Weird Tales editor Ann VanderMeer exits

Ann VanderMeer will be leaving Weird Tales magazine, where she has been editor since early 2010. Before that, she was the magazine's fiction editor.

VanderMeer has been a key figure in promoting dark, strange fiction that operates on the boundaries of fantasy and history, of science fiction, literary fiction and horror. A little steampunk, a little new weird. While VanderMeer was at Weird Tales it won its first Hugo Award, for best semiprozine.

In her goodbye, Vandermeer lists some of the authors she's been proud to publish: Kathe Koja, Jeffrey Ford, Michael Bishop, Norman Spinrad, J. Robert Lennon, Ian MacLeod, Felix Gilman, Sarah Monette, Conrad Williams, Joel Lane and Stephen Graham Jones. Some of those will appear in an upcoming issue of Weird Tales, a roughly quarterly publication. The issue scheduled for February 2012 will be VanderMeer's last.

The magazine has been bought by writer and editor Marvin Kaye, who says he'll be taking over the editing reins himself. VanderMeer has a number of projects already in the works:

My current plans include final work on THE WEIRD: A Compendium of Dark and Strange Stories out from Atlantic in October. This huge reprint anthology, perhaps the largest ever published for this kind of fiction, includes 116 stories from the last one hundred years and totals 750,000 words. I will also be shepherding the anthology ODD? to completion through my and my husband’s e-book imprint Cheeky Frawg, along with completing several other anthology projects. In addition, I will continue to talk about and promote weird fiction through a new blog associated with THE WEIRD that will act as a repository of information and features, as well as providing a home for a new slate of “one-minute Weird Tales,” although they will of course be called something else. Beyond that I am considering this a chance to explore new and exciting opportunities.

VanderMeer's husband and sometime collaborator is the writer Jeff VanderMeer, who has contributed to the L.A. Times book section. 

RELATED:

Bookishly from Tallahassee

Steampunk submissions invited

Neil Gaiman sings (sort of) 'The Problem with Saints'

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Image: Weird Tales issue No. 358. Credit: Weird Tales

James Patterson: the $84-million author

James Patterson made $84 million in the last year, making him the world's best-paid author, according to a list released by Forbes magazine Wednesday.

Patterson is the author of the Alex Cross novels and dozens of other thrillers; he's so popular these days that he often has co-writers help produce his books. His most recent (unless another has been published since this blog post was begun) is June's "Now You See Her."

Forbes' list tallies author income from May 2010 to April 2011. Patterson's earnings are so high that they more than double the No. 2 author, romance queen Danielle Steel. Steel earned $35 million in the same period.

The rest of the top six authors earned between $20 million and $30 million. Horror-and-more novelist Stephen King comes in at No. 3 with $28 million, mystery writer Janet Evanovich is No. 4 with $22 million and tied close behind, with $21 million each, are "Twilight's" Stephenie Meyer and Rick Riordan, who writes (mostly) for younger readers.

Who's next? Dean Koontz with $19 million, John Grisham with $18 million, Jeff "Wimpy Kid" Kinney with $17 million, Nicholas Sparks with $16 million and Ken Follett with $14 million.

Suzanne Collins, author of the "Hunger Games" trilogy, is on the list with $10 million and can probably look forward to an appearance on the list next year, as the film adaptation of the second book has been greenlighted even before the first has made it to screens. The last of the top 10 is J.K. Rowling -- once the highest-earning author on the list, her movie dollars seemed to have trickled. That's OK. She hasn't yet let anyone buy a Harry Potter e-book -- which might just make for a new magical revenue stream.

RELATED:

2008: Biggest-earning authors

Kathryn Stockett and Janet Evanovich become Kindle million-sellers

Pottermore: It's an interactive reading experience

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: James Patterson. Credit: Reuters

Could the Poe movie save Edgar Allan Poe's Baltimore house?

Edgar Allan Poe's Baltimore house is running on fumes. The historic house is a museum open to the public that lost the $85,000 in support it gets from the city of Baltimore for the second year running, and may be forced to close.

Poe lived in the house at 203 Amity St. with his aunt, her mother and his cousin Virginia from 1833, when he was 23, until 1835. That year, Poe moved to Richmond, Va., and reduced circumstances forced the family to leave the house; now, financial issues have put Poe's museum in jeopardy. A Baltimore city official told the New York Times that budget cuts left everyone "under the gun," although the city's $55,500 support of the Babe Ruth Birthplace Museum continues. Babe Ruth's museum gets many more visitors than Poe's. Some say that's because Poe's house is in a poor neighborhood -- that's a housing project behind it in the photo above -- but maybe it's partly because of timing. 

A Poe resurgence seems to be in the works, and maybe it could do something for Baltimore's Poe house. John Cusack stars as Poe in "The Raven" due out in 2012. The film is set during the last days of Poe's life, and is a fictionalized account that adds a serial killer into the mix of his mysterious (possibly alcohol-induced) end. Although Poe died somewhat mysteriously in Baltimore in 1849, the film was shot in Serbia and Hungary. Could "The Raven" swoop in and provide the angel funding needed by the Baltimore Poe museum?

"The Raven" isn't the only film that should bring renewed attention to Poe. The long-dead author is a key figure in "Twixt," Francis Ford Coppola's first 3-D film: instead of 3-D glasses, audience members at a preview at Comic-Con donned Edgar Allan Poe masks with treated lenses. And maybe we'll see a TV crime serial featuring Poe as a 19th-century detective -- ABC picked up the pilot of "Poe" earlier this year.

When Poe's family was forced to leave the Baltimore house, he did what anyone would do -- he married his cousin. OK, that's not what anyone would do, but it is what Poe did. He was 27; she was 13.

Poe and his new wife lived together in Richmond, which has its own Poe Museum that "boasts the world's finest collection of Edgar Allan Poe's manuscripts, letters, first editions, memorabilia and personal belongings." Yet while it's era-appropriate, Poe never resided in the building that houses the museum; he lived and worked nearby.

He did live in the Baltimore house, and is presumed to have written several poems and stories there. Often considered the father of the short story, Poe had written a collection of pieces that he could only publish individually, including "MS. Found in a Bottle" and "Berenice -- A Tale." Poe is an early practitioner of detective fiction and of the macabre. It would just be creepy if his Baltimore house were nevermore.

RELATED:

Literary highlights of Comic-Con

Happy birthday, Edgar Allan Poe

Print and fold your own Edgar Allan Poe

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Edgar Allan Poe's Baltimore house (center, with black shutters). Credit: Mitch Le Clair via Flickr

Literary highlights of Comic-Con

By now most everyone has packed up and left San Diego in the wake of Comic-Con, which wrapped up its four-day run Sunday. The conference is a gigantic celebration of comics, movies and fan culture; this year, there were a few particularly bookish highlights.

John Cusack talked about playing Edgar Allan Poe in "The Raven." The 2012 film, named after the author's famous poem, focuses on the mysterious last days of Poe's life -- he died at age 40 in 1849 in Baltimore, possibly from overindulgence in alcohol. "I saw some of Hunter S. Thompson in Poe -- his unflinching ability to delve into the abyss and come back. He reminded me of Hunter in that way," Cusack said at his panel, where he called the author "the godfather of Goth." Hero Complex reports that to amp up the story of the writer's final days, the filmmakers have thrown in a serial killer plot. Oh, Hollywood.

Poe was seen elsewhere at the convention, specifically, on the faces of the audience at the preview of Francis Ford Coppola's movie "Twixt." The film is an original script by Coppola, and is about a horror writer (played by Val Kilmer, who also attended) whose career is in decline and who begins having dreams of orphan girls and a certain long-dead author. The movie is partially -- only partially -- in 3-D, and the Poe masks served as 3-D glasses. Coppola told Hero Complex:

[W]e were in Constantinople and I was meeting with a Turkish lawyer whose sister shows up at dinner and they start giving me this beverage called raki, which is very alcoholic, and I went home to my hotel, fell asleep and had this vivid dream. It was all this Edgar Allan Poe imagery and the scary forest and this little girl with braces saying, “You’re looking at my teeth! You’re looking at my teeth!” and children coming out of a grave in the floor, and then Edgar Allan Poe shows up and I was saying, “This is a gift. I’m being given a story” and I said to Poe, “Guide me.”

If that's not enough Poe for you, stay tuned for a possible Poe television show. In January, ABC picked up a pilot for "a crime procedural" that stars Poe, "the world's very first detective, as he uses unconventional methods to investigate dark mysteries in 1840s Boston." Right.

But back to Comic-Con. For the first time the top prize at the Eisner Awards ended in a tie. Both "Wilson" by Daniel Clowes and "Return of the Dapper Men" by Jim McCann and Janet Lee were awarded the Best Graphic Album-New prize, the top graphic novel award at the Eisners. Other winners included writer Joe Hill for his work on "Locke and Key"; Hill is the son of novelist Stephen King.

Another first: Steven Spielberg made his first ever Comic-Con appearance, with his adaptation of Hergé's classic comic series, "The Adventures of Tintin." The well-loved series launched in 1929 and has been published in 80 languages. Before Spielberg began showing footage from his motion-capture film, he asked, "How many here have ever read a Tintin book?" and recieved a cheer in response, Hero Complex reports. "That makes my job easier," Spielberg said. 

Another literary adaptation discussed at Comic-Con was "Paradise Lost," an adaptation of John Milton's epic poem. Star Bradley Cooper, who read the classic work as an undergrad at Georgetown University, appeared on a panel where he talked about taking on the role of Lucifer. Cooper's take: It's an "intimate family story" and he'll be giving the devil his own sympathetic spin.

RELATED:

Happy birthday, Edgar Allan Poe

Print and fold your own Edgar Allan Poe

Bradley Cooper may play the devil in "Paradise Lost"

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photos, from top: John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe on the set of "The Raven" in Budapest in 2010; Poe masks at Comic-Con. Credits: Bea Kallos / European Pressphoto Agency; Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times