Veteran soldier Kevin Powers has inked a deal with Little, Brown and Company for his Iraq war novel The Yellow Birds.

Powers, who has served in the Iraq war, is currently working towards an MFA as a Michener Fellow in Poetry at the University of Texas at Austin. Powers’ manuscript was acquired by publisher Michael Pietsch.

Pietsch had this statement in the release: “Ever since reading Ernest Hemingway’s In Our Time I have been gripped by novelists’ accounts of the experience of war.  And as soon as I began reading The Yellow Birds I knew I was in the presence of a masterful rendering of the particular horrors of this particular war. From the first word of this novel to the last, Kevin Powers’s portrayal of young soldiers trying to stay alive—and of the effect of the war on their families at home—is profound, unsettling, and sadly beautiful.”

Peter Guralnick‘s 1994 biography, Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley, will be adapted into a biopic. Screenwriter John Fusco will write the script.

According to Deadline, this project has been in the works for over a decade. Here’s more from the article: “Steve Bing is producing the film now for Fox 2000. The book covers the formative years of Presley up to his enlistment in the Army.”

In addition to biographies, Guralnick has published short story collections, novels, and music criticism. The Last Train to Memphis (1994) is the first book in a two-volume biography set; it was followed by Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley (1999).