Paramount Pictures and Scott Rudin Productions have optioned Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation and the other novels in his Southern Reach trilogy. Farrar Straus and Giroux will publish the first book in 2014.

The sale occurred “within hours” after Joseph Veltre at the Gersh Agency negotiated the book deal (on behalf of Sally Harding at The Cooke Agency) with Sean McDonald at FSG. Here’s more about the book, from the release:

It tells the story of a biologist who, in seeking answers to her husband’s tragic disappearance, volunteers for an expedition into an area sealed off as an environmental disaster zone, only to find a pristine wilderness –  but in Area X the rules of nature seem to work a little differently.

(Author photo via)

Novelist Nnedi Okorafor has won the World Fantasy Award for her novel, Who Fears Death.

Author Jeff VanderMeer described the book: “[The novel] is a powerful combination of science fiction, fantasy, African folklore, and stark realism. It tells the story of Onyesonwu, a woman of extraordinary powers in a post-apocalyptic West Africa, a world of perils and mysteries, of lost technologies and brutal wars. Onyesonwu’s name means “Who fears death?”, and her birth is the result of rape used as a weapon in battle; this legacy affects the woman she becomes, and the novel portrays her education as a sorceress and her quest to bring order and peace to her life and world.”

The announcement was made at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego. We’ve included the other award winners below…

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Amazon.com has awarded the Shared Worlds science fiction/fantasy teen writing camp a $15,000 grant. The money will help the camp bring guest writers, establish scholarships, and pay general operating expenses.

The nonprofit event takes place at Wofford College in South Carolina. Around 50 students will attend the camp next year. The long list of guest instructors next year includes authors Jeff VanderMeer and Ekaterina Sedia, editor Ann VanderMeer, and game designer Will Hindmarch.

Here’s more from the release: “[The camp] uses an innovative approach to writing fiction and realizing full creative potential, all in a safe and structured environment. During the first week, the students build SF or Fantasy worlds in groups, aided by Wofford faculty who provide useful information in areas like government, biology, and cartography. In the second week, the students fine-tune their worlds and write stories set within those worlds, receiving professional feedback from award-winning authors.”

GalleyCat vastly underestimated the number of foolish people in the publishing industry. Despite our best efforts to cover the madness, our Twitter feed, RSS reader, and email were overwhelmed with additional April Fools’ Day pranks.

Here are the tricks we missed the first time around: Dear Author organized an elaborate scheme, rumored to have used a GalleyCat editor for the nefarious plot. Then Phoenix Books hired Jason Pinter as senior editor to work on a few unconventional titles.

Shelf Awareness studied the long-overdue publishing industry bailout. MobyLives reported that George W. Bush lost his book deal.

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There are far more fools in the publishing industry than GalleyCat ever imagined. Here’s a round-up of the literary news breaking around the Internets on April 1st, 2009…

Jeff VanderMeer sold his newest book, Bookdeath, including chapters like: “How to Use Personal Information About Your Enemies in Your Fiction.” Meanwhile, Publishers Weekly raved about a new reality TV show for writers.

The Kenyon Review has purchased conglomerate publisher Random House for a low six-figure deal. The FBI has deputized the entire team at Writer Beware for a special publishing scam task force: “Rich, Victoria and I will be reporting to Quantico for special training next Monday. At the end of our training, we’ll be issued our badges and guns, and begin our tour of the country.”

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The Association of Writers and Writing Programs held its annual conference last weekend in Atlanta, and a great many bloggers were out in full force to cover the proceedings. Jeff Vandermeer was seemingly everywhere; Tayari Jones reports her Saturday night reading went “very well”, as did the party she threw; Carolyn Kellogg provides the wrapup of the conference’s star readings from John Barth and Michael Martone; Laurel Synder discovers that the word “shame” incites all manner of reactions; and Gwenda Bond had the last word on fashion:

There are some seriously questionable and seriously bad fashion choices going on in America’s creative writing programs and English departments. I don’t want to hear another word about how people at science fiction conventions dress. Ever. Again. It’d be one thing if people just looked like they were auditioning for the part of Ignatius J. Reilly or Katie Holmes in Wonder Boys, but the fondness of the vest I’ve seen on display is truly frightening.

Yeowch, I suspect, is an understatement…