Here are some literary events to pencil in your calendar this week.

To get your event posted on our calendar, visit our Facebook Your Literary Event page. Please post your event at least one week prior to its date.

The August edition of the Franklin Park Reading Series will feature five writers including noted short fiction specialist Amy Hempel. Check it out on Monday, August 12th at Franklin Park Bar & Beer Garden starting 8 p.m. (Brooklyn, NY)

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Bestselling author David Baldacci  has signed a deal with Scholastic for a middle grade fantasy novel.

The children’s publisher will release The Finisher next March, the story of a fourteen-year-old girl named Vega Jane.

Scholastic Trade president Ellie Berger negotiated the deal with Aaron Priest, of the Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency. Executive editor Rachel Griffiths will edit the manuscript.

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Seven-time Grammy Award-winning band Coldplay (pictured, via) will release a song called “Atlas” for the Catching Fire soundtrack.

Lead singer Chris Martin tweeted a photo of the handwritten lyrics (embedded below),  lyrics based on the second book in Suzanne Collins‘ Hunger Games series.

“Atlas” will be released as a digital download on August 26th.

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A number of publishing promotions and job changes were announced this week.

Scholastic has hired Katrina Krantz as director of digital marketing, Caite Panzer as director of rights and global publishing strategy, Kelly Smith as senior editor for nonfiction, and Michael del Rosario as managing editor.

The company has also promoted fifteen staff members.

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David Menasche, a teacher with stage 4 brain cancer, raised more than $26,000 on gofundme (a crowdfunding site) for a road trip to re-connect with 75 former students.

Menasche documented the 101-day cross-country journey in a memoir entitled The Priority List: A Teacher’s Final Quest to Discover Life’s Greatest Lessons. In an interview with the Broward/Palm Beach New Times, he revealed that “the purpose of the trip was to regain what brain cancer took from me. Basically, my classroom.”

Menasche met and signed up with a literary agent after one of his students wrote a Miami Herald piece about his traveling venture. Brandi Bowles of Foundry Literary + Media negotiated the deal. Touchstone, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, will release the book on January 14, 2014.

Ever dreamed of being a Marvel superhero? The producers behind Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark are holding open casting calls to find the next Spider-Man (a.k.a. Peter Parker) and Mary Jane Watson.

On the west coast, casting will take place on August 12th at the Hollywood United Methodist Church. Over at the east coast, it has been scheduled for August 19th at New York City’s Stage 48 & Sky-Lounge.

The L Magazine adds that the producers intend to cast a Spider-Man who is “in their late teens to early 20′s of any ethnicity. They must have a great rock singing voice. They can be nerdy with an understated sex appeal and a good sense of humor.”

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Happy Book Lovers Day!

According to Holiday Insights, the holiday is listed on two dates, but a “vast majority of sites list it on August 9th. A smaller number of sites have it recorded on the first Saturday in November.”

How will you celebrate? Below, we’ve created a list of five suggestions. (Photo Credit: brewbooks)

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Archie Comics has a new horror series, bringing zombies to Riverdale with Afterlife with Archie.

The first issue will be released on October 9th. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa wrote the script and artist Francesco Francavilla created the illustrations. You can read more at the comic’s special site.

This marks the first time the company has produced a “direct marketing only, NOT for all ages” comic book. We’ve embedded the trailer above–what do you think?

Editor Kristen Taylor hopes to raise $3,750 on Kickstarter to print the sixth issue of Saucy.

The “Movement” issue of this indie food magazine will feature photographs, stories, and poems about food and relationships. We’ve embedded a video about the project above–what do you think? Here’s more about the project:

“The ‘Movement’ issue was shot in July 2013 on location in Miami, one of the strangest and most beautiful places to think about food in the context of a city. Slick and dangerous, circuitous and sly, the pages of this issue explore the many ways to move through and around this transient hub of markets and money.”

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Bookseller Half Price Books has launched a Book Beard tumblr page. They urged readers to imitate the catbearding photo trend, using books instead of cats.

You can share book beard photos on Instagram with the hashtag #BookBeard and will host weekly giveaways around book themes.

This week’s theme is “Book of Your Choosing, and/or Favorite Childhood Book.”

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