Want to finish your book this summer? From July 16 through August 1, 2012, Mediabistro will host its first Literary Festival & Workshops.

Among our long list of guests, Rebecca Skloot (pictured) will share some Unconventional Publicity tips and Constance Hale will offer Five Secrets for Wicked Good Prose. More details about the event follow below…

Check it out: “This is an innovative online conference and workshop that bridges the best of conferences and online learning: Keynote speeches by world-class authors, with interactive Q&A sessions. Practical how-to sessions from agents, editors, and writers that show you how to put big ideas into immediate practice. Writing workshops with authors and peers. Get feedback on your writing project. Peer interaction: Make connections with other writers from across the globe and participate in our summer reading group.”

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Rebecca Skloot has landed a book deal with Crown for her as-yet-untitled new book about the “human-animal bond.”

Writers House agent Simon Lipskar negotiated the deal with Crown VP Molly Stern. No publication date has been set. Skloot published the bestselling The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks last year, including her personal struggle to finish the nonfiction project inside the epic book.

Here’s more about the book: “She will explore, among many other subjects, the neurology of human-animal relationships, human nature and responsibility, and the unexamined ethics of our relationship with animals. A publication date has not yet been set. Ms. Skloot worked for more than a decade in veterinary medicine, first as a nurse for animals in general practices and emergency rooms, and later as a technician in veterinary morgues and neurology labs. In writing her book, she will weave personal stories — her own and others’ — with science, medicine, ethics, and history.”

Barnes & Noble has revealed the finalists for the 2010 Discover Great New Writers Awards. The fiction finalists were: Kim Echlin for The Disappeared, Nic Pizzolatto for Galveston, Eric Puchner (listen to our interview here) for Model Home. The nonfiction finalists were: David R. Dow for The Autobiography of an Execution, Siddhartha Mukherjee for The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer, and Rebecca Skloot for The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Winners in the nonfiction and fiction categories will receive a $10,000 prize and a full year of Barnes & Noble promotion. Second-place finalists receive a $5,000 prize and third-place finalists receive a $2,500 prize.

Here’s more about the judges, from the release: “This year’s nonfiction judges include Eric Blehm, 2006 Discover Award winner for The Last Season, and the author of The Only Thing Worth Dying For; journalist Christina Lamb, 2003 Discover Award finalist for The Sewing Circles of Herat, and author of The Africa House and House of Stone; and Terry Teachout, a drama and culture critic, whose work includes a biography of H.L. Mencken, The Skeptic, as well as a biography of Louis Amstrong, Pops.”

After nine months of shooting video author interviews, ReadRollShow revealed the most watched author videos of the year–an interesting peek at a new interview format.

The most popular video was an interview with Susan Casey about her surfing book, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean. We’ve embedded the video above–the rest of the list includes everybody from Rebecca Skloot to Sam Lipsyte.

Here’s more about the video: “Laird Hamilton helped to invent tow surfing, where a jet ski, driven by a partner, tows the surfer to the start, enabling them to catch waves far bigger and faster than any they could catch by hand-paddling. Laird’s feats in the water are the stuff of legend. But then one event during Casey’s research surpassed all others.”

The sun has finally returned to New York City, inspiring this GalleyCat editor to dream about beach reading. What books will you take to the beach this summer? Share your favorites in the comments section.

Counting on our readers’ collective knowledge of books, GalleyCat Reviews regularly features curated book lists from Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations. The site is building a new Beach Books category, and your suggestions will help build a better beach book list.

Over the last year, Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations has created more than 370 lists–giving reading advice on everything from book club books to cancer survivor books. Working with this carefully curated publication, we will share our favorite lists with GalleyCat readers. Add your suggestions in the comments section.

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News broke yesterday that Oprah Winfrey and American Beauty co-producer Alan Ball will team up to produce an adaptation of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for HBO.

On Twitter, author Rebecca Skloot fielded questions about the adaptation.

Skloot revealed that the producers will include both herself and her subject’s family: “I’ll [be] a consultant on film, so will Lacks family. That was important [to] me & HBO. That’s [one] of many reasons HBO was right home [for the book.]” She added: “I’ll be a consultant, and so will Lacks family.”

She also noted: “I’ve known [for] a while, just couldn’t say anything about it until it was public, which happened this AM while I was sleeping.”

The day concluded with casting suggestions from her Twitter followers: “Most popular votes [for] playing me in #HeLa movie: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway & Natalie Portman. For Henrietta: Halle Berry & Viola Davis.”

According to an AP report this morning, Oprah Winfrey and American Beauty co-producer Alan Ball will team up to produce an adaptation of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for HBO. The article had no additional details about the release schedule.

The nonfiction book by Rebecca Skloot became a bestseller this year, telling the fascinating story of an African American woman who died of cancer and how her cells were used by generations of scientists. Follow this link to read GalleyCat Reviews’ take on the novel.

Here’s an excerpt from the AP report: “The network said Wednesday that Ball, creator and executive producer of HBO’s drama series True Blood, will develop the project with Winfrey and her Harpo Films studio.”

As eBooks and eReaders threaten the very existence of brick-and-mortar establishments, Barnes & Noble has used the Nook eReader as a chance to bring digital book readers into the real-life bookstore.

Today eBookNewser pointed out how Barnes & Noble selected Rebecca Skloot‘s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for a special program. Here’s an excerpt: “In addition to this B&N blog post, this week’s eBook Showcase enables Nook owners to download a free essay by Skloot if they bring their Nook into a B&N store, through the company’s “More in Store” program.”

What do you think? Can this kind of in-store download help preserve the brick-and-mortar bookstore? If you want to read more about Skloot, GalleyCat Reviews took a look at her book last month.

While NBCC Board member Rebecca Skloot liveblogged the awards, Ron and I sat through a somewhat speedy ceremony emceed by president John Freeman and highlighted by Mary Gordon‘s glowing retrospective and tribute (accompanied by retro Jill Krementz photography) to Sandrof winner John Leonard, followed by Leonard’s own words, a speech so filled with mirth, self-deprecation and reflections on present and past reviewing that I hope the transcript is made publicly available at some point. Nona Balakian winner Steven G. Kellman was a quote-a-minute, namechecking the gamut from H.L. Mencken (who had unkind words about criticism and even more scathing words about poetry – partly because of a volume he himself had written and then done everything in his power to squelch) to Lily Tomlin (“we’re all in this together – alone,” as applied to book critics, who Kellman quipped “are the only critics who can do their job in their underwear.”)

Then came the awards:

Criticism: Lawrence Weschler, EVERYTHING THAT RISES: A BOOK OF CONVERGENCES (McSweeney’s)
Poetry: Troy Jollimore, TOM THOMSON IN PURGATORY (Margie/Intuit House)
Non-Fiction: Simon Schama, ROUGH CROSSINGS: BRITAIN, SLAVES AND THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (Ecco)
Biography: Julie Phillips, JAMES TIPTREE, JR.: THE DOUBLE LIFE OF ALICE B. SHELDON (St. Martin’s Press)
Autobiography: Daniel Mendelsohn, THE LOST (HarperCollins)
Fiction: Kiran Desai, THE INHERITANCE OF LOSS (Atlantic Monthly Press)

It’s an award winner list of some surprise – Jollimore’s win especially surprised the poetry faithful in the audience – and some that might have seemed like a surprise, like Desai, but on further reflection are just about right. Ron’s got more about notable quotes and the afterparty, but I’m especially happy to have chatted with John Leonard about his new prize, his belief that literary blogs are “where the passion is” and finding good books to read that might be off most people’s radar. It doesn’t get much better than that.