Videos

Amazon Publishing’s 47 North imprint has released a book trailer for The Mongoliad: Book One, the first installment in a group-written novel headlined by Neal Stephenson and Greg Bear.

Instead of making a Hollywood version of the book or hiring actors, the video actually reflects on the inherent silliness of making a book trailer in the first place. It ends with the tagline: “Some books are so good, a trailer just seems Medieval.”

Here’s more about the book: “The Foreworld medieval adventure saga was actually born out of swordfighting. Stephenson and the other authors are avid practitioners of Western martial arts and they are part of an enthusiastic study group in Seattle. Stephenson realized that the descriptions of swordfighting in his novels would have been much better with contributions from people with fighting expertise. Thus the idea for a saga about the complex, bloody history of Western martial arts was born, co-written by Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, Mark Teppo, E.D. deBirmingham, Joseph Brassey, Erik Bear, and Cooper Moo.” (Via Reddit Lit Video)

How many hours did you spend writing last week? Multiply that times 52 and you will have a rough idea of your annual dedication to the craft of writing.

In the rambling and inspiring video embedded above (contains a bit of swearing), novelist Yuvi Zalkow speculates that it will take aspiring authors 10,000 hours of writing to master the craft. What do you think?

I also see how we writers are so compelled to obsess over the accolades we think we deserve before fully maturing our writing chops. And so this video turned into a talk about the need to write. To write a lot. Without doing a lick of research (or even bothering to read his book), I swiped Malcolm Gladwell’s notion that it takes 10,000 hours to master a particular craft. (Don’t quote me on this!) I just love the idea of that number because it is a damn big number. And I think it is roughly true. It takes a long time for most of us mortals to get good at writing. (Via Reddit Lit Videos)

Gospel music star BeBe Winans has landed a book deal for a memoir about his friendship with the late singer Whitney Houston. Worthy Publishing will publish The Whitney I Knew in July, complete with photos and links to video performances.

Above, we’ve embedded footage of Winans’ moving tribute to Houston at her funeral. Here’s more about his upcoming memoir:

Winans met Houston at a concert in Detroit 26 years ago and quickly developed a close bond. They considered each other to be family … Delivering a moving eulogy at her nationally telecast funeral, BeBe Winans affirmed the truth about the Houston he knew for so long, relaying stories laced with humor and strength of spirit that characterized her life. “She gave us plenty of memories. In my heart and mind, I have so many great, great moments to share,” said Winans.

HBO has released its first trailer for Hemingway & Gelhorn, a film starring Clive Owen as Ernest Hemingway and Nicole Kidman as the journalist Martha Gellhorn.

The film captures the relationship between great novelist and a great war correspondent.

Here’s more from The Olive Press: “Their five-year marriage first saw them travel to Spain to record some of the most famous reports on the Spanish Civil War between 1936 and 1939. Gellhorn was the only woman ever to ask Hemingway for a divorce and she inspired him to write his most famous novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

Sh*t Girls Say creators Kyle Humphrey and Graydon Sheppard have inked a book deal with Harlequin.  A book based on the popular YouTube video series is scheduled for a fall 2012 release.

The first video (embedded above) has already generated more than 16 million views on YouTube. Creative Artists Agency negotiated the deal with executive editor Deborah Brody.

Here’s more from the release:  “In the irreverent spirit of Humphrey and Sheppard’s YouTube videos and Twitter feed—which allows Graydon Sheppard to famously exhibit his feminine side—the book will feature full-color images that capture the hilarious essence of everyday phrases used by women. Quirky and fun, the print edition of Sh*t Girls Say will appeal to the millions of devotees of this pop culture phenomenon.”

Instead of hiring actors or making a Hollywood-style book trailer, novelist Jurgen Fauth had remix artist Ivan Guerrero create a book trailer for his new new novel, Kino.

Guerrero is a video creator who uses public domain footage to make popular “premakes” of films such as Up! (1965), The Avengers (1952), and The Empire Strikes Back (1950). His inspiring work shows a whole world of possibilities for book trailers.

If you are looking for public domain material to use in your own book trailers, you should explore the Prelinger Archives online–a collection of 60,000 “advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur” films assembled by Rick Prelinger over the last twenty years.

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In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve dug up a video featuring actor Ralph Fiennes reading William Shakespeare‘s “Sonnet 129.”

While many have come to know Fiennes for playing Harry Potter villain Lord Voldemort, he is also a respected stage actor. He won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Hamlet in the 1995 Broadway production.

Fiennes recorded this reading for the 2002 compilation album, “When Love Speaks – The Sonnets.” What’s your favorite Shakespearean sonnet?

If you watch one video today, you should watch the heartwarming video embedded above–a Los Angeles filmmaker visited a cardboard box arcade built by a 9-year-old kid.

The video should remind us all about why we should think like a little kid when we write. Wired contributing editor and author Jonah Lehrer described why children can be “effortlessly creative” in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works:

Picasso once summarized the paradox this way: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” From the perspective of the brain, Picasso is exactly right, as the DLPFC is the last brain area to fully develop. This helps explain why young children are so effortlessly creative: their censors don’t yet exist. But then the brain matures and we become too self-conscious to improvise, too worried about saying the wrong thing, or playing the wrong note, or falling off the surfboard.

In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve dug up a video of President Bill Clinton reading the poem “Concord Hymn” by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

President Clinton recorded this video for “The Favorite Poem Project” in 1999. This project was founded by the 39th poet laureate of the United States, Robert Pinsky. Altogether, 50 short video documentaries were made for this project.

Emerson wrote this poem in 1836 for the memorial of the Battle of Concord. This monument commemorated those who lost their lives in that famous battle of the American Revolution. What’s your favorite Emerson poem?

Fifty years before the book trailer even existed, the great Ernest Hemingway experimented by recording a rambling and possibly intoxicated introduction to Across the River and into the Trees.

Miracle Jones posted the video at the new literary videos section at Reddit, suggesting that “all writers should do this with their books.” What do you think? Open Culture has more about the recording:

The reading is called “In Harry’s Bar in Venice,” and it was recorded with a pocket recorder sometime in the late 1950s. You can access the recording (thanks to HarperAudio) in multiple formats here: .au format, .gsm format, .ra format. Or you can buy it as part of a larger collection called Ernest Hemingway Reads Ernest Hemingway.