Rodale is hiring! The company is on the hunt for an innovative creative director to join its trade books division in New York City.

In this role, you’ll oversee the visual identity of the brand in print and digital formats, managing your team’s production of over 140 projects each year. You’ll guide the design process from conception to production, while managing an in-house staff and stable of freelance designers, photographers and illustrators. Read more

To help readers share stories, tips and secrets anonymously, the New Yorker will use a new tool called Strongbox.

Co-developed by the late Internet activist Aaron Swartz, the open-source code could help more journalists communicate with confidential sources. AppNewser has all the details:

The New Yorker has introduced a new online receptacle where sources can share documents and messages with the magazine anonymously. The tool is called Strongbox and it is accessible using the Tor network, a private and secure online network. The publication will not record the I.P. address or any browsing information from people who share documents on Strongbox. It will also not try to access your computer or operating system, and they will not add cookies to your browser.

Can you self-publish a movie?

When releasing Upstream Color this month, director and writer  Shane Carruth opted to to take the DIY distribution route. The film opened in theaters in 20 markets around the country, followed by a wide range of platforms from iTunes to YouTube to Netflix to DVD. Carruth explained his choice:

As a filmmaker you try to make a compelling case for an audience to stick around minute by minute with what is on the screen … By also crafting the marketing we’re still doing that, still storytelling, but we’re trying to make a case for an audience to show up. Hopefully for viewers, framing the film this way and staying true to the film’s intent makes it a bit more of an intimate relationship.

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The Fault in Our Stars author John Green delivered the commencement speech at the graduation ceremony for Butler University’s class of 2013. To read the entire speech, head to Green’s Tumblr page.

Watch the entire speech in the video embedded above (his talk begins at the 1:01:08 mark). Here’s an excerpt:

I would just note that the default assumption is that the point of human life is to be as successful as possible, to acquire lots of fame or glory or money as defined by quantifiable metrics: number of twitter followers, or facebook friends, or dollars in one’s 401k.

This is the hero’s journey, right? The hero starts out with no money and ends up with a lot of it, or starts out an ugly duckling and becomes a beautiful swan, or starts out an awkward girl and becomes a vampire mother, or grows up an orphan living under the staircase and then becomes the wizard who saves the world. We are taught that the hero’s journey is the journey from weakness to strength. But I am here today to tell you that those stories are wrong. The real hero’s journey is the journey from strength to weakness.

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Trying to sell your screenplay? If you donate to a worthy cause, a production company manager will consider your script.

Screenwriter Joe Nienalt and Benderspink manager Daniel Vang have launched a campaign to raise money for heart disease and stroke research. Vang as offered to ”consider you for representation” in exchange for a donation to their cause. Last year the duo raised $45,000 and helped a set of writers start their career. Check it out:

If you donate $25, Daniel will read the first ten pages of your script. If you donate $50, Daniel will read the first 50 pages (if it’s great, he won’t want to put it down after 10 or 50 pages). If you donate $100, Daniel will read your entire script (good or bad) … Numerous writers have obtained representation through our past campaigns including one talented writing team last year … You WILL hear back one way or another once you donate and submit. It may take awhile but you will definitely hear back one way or another. It may take awhile so be patient but again, you will hear back so feel free to follow up with me every so often once you submit.

(Link via)

Audubon, one of the oldest continuously published magazines in the country, has been harvesting some of the best earth-minded writing for more than a century. The pub appeals to the well educated, politically active nature lover. Though the mag is the only pure nature magazine on the market, EIC David Seideman admits that the publication aspires to the reach and commercial success of National Geographic, while still maintaining its commitment to the thought-provoking, long-form type journalism of The Atlantic and The New Yorker.

Audubon regularly publishes eco-themed book reviews, and the website offers a unique promotional opportunity for authors. “If there are authors who have written books about environmental or nature subjects, and they would like to blog on our site to promote their book or run excerpts on the site, we would explore that opportunity with them,” explained Seideman.

For more info, read How To Pitch: Audubon.
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ABC Studios has picked up a TV show based on poet Jason Mott‘s The Returned, months before Harlequin MIRA releases the novel. The show is scheduled for the “2013-2014 midseason” and the novel comes out in September.

The Killing and Damages writer Aaron Zelman will write the script and Charles McDougall will direct. The cast includes Omar Epps, Frances Fisher, Sam Hazeldine, Nicholas Gonzalez and others. Here’s more from the release:

A disquieting and wholly original narrative that spans the globe and embraces the full range of humanity, The Returned is primarily centered around one family that gets caught up in a worldwide event. Harold and Lucille Hargrave lost their eight-year-old son when he drowned on his birthday nearly fifty years ago, but now Jacob has returned, exactly as he was that fateful day. Jacob is just one of the thousands of Returned who are reappearing on earth and being reunited with their families, a phenomenon that inspires mass hysteria among many. The Hargraves become caught up in the madness that engulfs their community as it navigates this strange new reality—a reality the origins and meaning of which remain unclear.

From now until June 1st, 7,500 libraries around the world have joined the Big Library Read–allowing millions of patrons to check out and read a single digital book simultaneously.

OverDrive and Sourcebooks have teamed up to share The Four Corners of the Sky by Michael Malone. As libraries struggle to pay higher fees for some eBooks and some publishers limit the number of check-outs permitted for a book, this campaign could have an important impact. Here’s more from the release:

In addition to ongoing Facebook and Twitter (#BigLibraryRead) conversations during the pilot, Sourcebooks will host a live Facebook chat on May 23 with author Michael Malone.  Many of the largest library systems around the world are participating in the Big Library Read, including: Queens Library (NY), the U.S. Navy, Melbourne Library Service (Australia), Toronto Public Library (Canada), London Libraries Consortium (United Kingdom), and the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (South Africa). The Big Library Read is the first event of its kind and may be replicated in the future to reach wider and more targeted audiences.

The New York Public Library is hosting a special exhibition honoring Federico García Lorca at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. “Back Tomorrow: Federico García Lorca / Poet in New York” opened on April 5th and will run until July 20th.

This free program features the manuscript for Lorca’s Poet in New York, drawings, photographs, letters, and mementos. Fans of the Spanish poet can also attend various “Lorca in NY” lectures, workshops, and events. Here’s more about the exhibit:

In 1936, the poet left the manuscript of Poet in New York on the desk of his Madrid publisher with a note saying he would be ‘back tomorrow,’ probably to discuss final details. He never returned…The book was published posthumously in 1940, but the manuscript mysteriously disappeared, lost to scholars for decades. The Fundación Federico García Lorca in Madrid and The New York Public Library exhibit it now for the first time…

If you have an iPad or an iPhone, you can now host a video Google Hangout on your mobile device–connecting with your writing group, book club or editor in a face-to-face chat.

Simply download the free Hangouts app and sync with your Google+ contacts. Once your circles are loaded, you can quickly launch a hangout. AppNewser has more:

Users on iOS devices can finally start using Google’s new chat app, appropriately call Hangouts, allows you to do what you’ve always done with Gmail’s desktop experience: text friends, start videos, and share photos in seamless conversations across multiple devices. The best part about the new Hangout app is how easy it is to continue a video chat from a text chat in seconds. If that feature doesn’t impress you, Google’s also putting in 850 emojis for all of those emotions you can’t express.