Bret Easton Ellis talks American Psycho

American Psycho author Bret Easton Ellis

We at The Scribbler are very excited to learn that one of inspirations behind this project is going to be making an appearance in London this summer.

Celebrated contemporary writer Bret Easton Ellis is going to be talking about his acclaimed 1991 novel American Psycho as part of the Guardian Review book club.

The discussion with John Mullan is taking place on 14 July at King’s Place, London.

American Psycho is one of the best-loved modern classics of recent times. In 2000 it was made into a major motion picture starring Batman actor Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman.

A 27 year-old Wall Street employee, Bateman is the epitome of 90s decadence. Living in an upscale, chic Manhattan apartment, dining at the most exclusive restaurants and an expert in fashion and expensive consumer products. He is handsome, sophisticated, charming and intelligent. He is also a psychopath.

American Psycho is a brilliant, jet-black comedy wherein Bret Easton Ellis satirises the excesses of yuppy materialism and examines the dark side of the American Dream.

Tickets are £9.50 online and £11.50 from the box office. The event starts at 7.00pm. For more information visit the King’s Place website or call 020 7520 1490 to reserve your seat.

Watch the intro to American Psycho, the motion picture:

Discussion:
Who’s going to be going to the talk? Do you even rate Bret Easton Ellis? If so, why? If not, why not?

Words: Dean Samways

Toby Young – A Master of nothing?

Toby Young, author of How To Lose Friends and Alienate People

To celebrate the DVD and Blu-Ray release of ‘How To Lose Friends and Alienate People’, The Scribbler talks to the author of the book that became one of the funniest movies of last year.

In an exclusive interview Toby Young talks about how he got into writing, what nurtured his talent and how the transformation from book to film transpired.

Enjoy our little chat with one of the most sought after writers of the twenty-first century below and leave a comment:

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THE SCRIBBLER: When, where and how did you first discover your flair for writing, and how was it nurtured early on?

TOBY YOUNG: Both my parents were published authors so, for me, writing a book wasn’t a particularly huge leap. Growing up, it was always something I thought I’d do. In addition, my father was always quite encouraging. From a very early age he used to tell me that I was a natural writer.

TS: What was it about working on The Danube that drove you to follow a career in journalism when you were, at the time, studying very different subjects?

TY: I studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics as a student — a subject known as PPE — and that is considered a typical degree for a journalist to take. I think a more pertinent question is why I didn’t go into current affairs journalism, why I tend to do the softer, more personal stuff, and that was something I fell into by accident. It was just easier to get published on the features page than the op ed page and, having come up that route, that’s the path I’m still on. But as I get older I find myself drifting more towards news and current affairs.

TS: You mentioned that as you get older you feel drawn to current affairs, how has that transition in writing styles and subjects been for you?

TY: I just mean that I enjoy appearing on programmes like Newsnight and Question Time – not that it happens very often!

'The Sound of No Hands Clapping'

TS: Can you describe the move you made from journalism to fiction writing? What differences exist between the two disciplines in terms of having to change your methods? Did you come across any difficulties and how did you overcome them?

TY: I’ve published very little fiction. My two books – ‘How To Lose Friends and Alienate
People’ and ‘The Sound of No Hands Clapping’ – are both non-fiction.

TS: While your two books are non-fiction some creativity must have gone into them, even if it was just finding ways of making scenes sound as colourful as possible.  How did you approach writing books like that? Are they not just mammoth features?

TY: I’ve read quite a few books on screenwriting and done Robert McKee’s screenwriting course a couple of times. I found that very helpful when it came to writing books. I think the principals of storytelling are universal, regardless of whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction.

'How To Lose Friends and Alienate People'

TS: How did ‘How To Lose Friends and Alienate People’ come about? Can you briefly describe the writing process of such an auto-biographical book. Was it as much fun writing it as it is reading it?

TY: I worked on the proposal for ‘How To Lose Friends’ for a couple of years, but, after I’d sold the book on the back of that, it only took me about six months to write. I’m not sure “fun” is the right word to use. Hunter S Thompson said, “I suspect writing is a bit like fucking, which is only fun for amateurs. Old whores don’t do much giggling.”

TS: To the majority of readers it would appear you’ve led quite the lifestyle. How do you intent to follow your two books? Do you think you’ll have to turn to fiction to convey the same messages and humour?

TY: Well, my life is certainly less exciting now that I’m married and have four children. I want to write more fiction, but it’s hard finding the time between all my other commitments.

TS: During the film making process of HTLF&AP was it difficult to let some of the book go in the production reasons? How much input did you have in the process?

TY: No, I didn’t find that at all difficult. William Goldman, the novelist and screenwriter, once told me that a writer has to learn how to murder his babies, but that came naturally to me. The producers of the film were initially a little wary of me because they thought I’d fight to preserve every last scene in the book, but when they realized I wasn’t going to do that they were much more open to my suggestions. I knew that if the book was going to be turned into a film it would have to be very different.

TS: Are you happy with the finished piece? Has is inspired you to do a bit of screenwriting?

TY: Yes, very happy. It’s a very entertaining film. On the screenwriting front, I caught that bug about twenty-five years ago and I’m still plugging away. Being involved in the making of a film hasn’t put me off in the slightest.

TS: As the hype over HTLF&AP the movie pipes up again with the release of the DVD what are your plans for the future?

TY: I’d like to keep writing books, plays, movie scripts, etc, but be paid a lot more for doing it.

TS: You’re a bit of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to writing. Which discipline do you enjoy dabbling in the most and why?

TY: I like comedy writing the best, particularly devising comic scenes. If you can pull that off, it’s very satisfying, particularly when you hear people laughing in the theatre or the cinema.

TS: I was able to contact you quite freely without having to go through publicists or PR. Do you usually work with them?  For the budding writers out there, what are the pros and cons of working with such professionals?

TY: I worked with a PR company on How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, but generally speaking I don’t. As far as I can tell, the only advantage of forcing people who want to interview you to go through a PR company is that they take you more seriously.

TS: The Scribbler is dedicated to inspiring and advising would-be writers to get their material published. What is the best piece of advice you could give them, or you have ever been given concerning your work?

TY: When I was about 19 I bumped into Clive James at an airport and told him what a big fan I was of ‘Unreliable Memoirs’. He reciprocated by giving me a piece of advice that I’ve found very useful: Keep it personal. The important thing is to find your own voice, to write in a style that is unique to you. Once you can do that, the rest is easy.

TS: Just how personal are you prepared to go in your writing?  How much of yourself do you dare put into your work?

TY: I like to think I’m pretty open and honest, but it is easy to delude yourself about just how open and honest you’re being. That is to say, many people who write about themselves and their reactions to things claim to feel what they think they ought to feel, but which, in reality, they don’t. I don’t think they’re being straightforwardly deceptive – it’s more that the lies they tell themselves spill out on to the page — but it still has the smell of dishonesty about it. The really hard thing about personal writing is to be completely faithful to who you really are and not pretend to be the person you think you ought to be.

TS: What you up to at the moment?

TY: I have a few irons in the fire, but experience has taught me not to talk about anything until you’re ready to unveil it before the public because, so often, these projects come to nothing.

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Find Toby Young in cyberspace:

• TobyYoung.co.uk
• Twitter

Watch Toby Young interview Simon Pegg (and vice versa) for The Culture Show below:

Discussion:
Are you a fan of Toby Young’s writing? Does the movie do HTLF&AP justice? Post your views, comments and start discussions in the comments box below.

Words: Dean Samways

Economic downturn makes for unhappy reading

Not even the boy wizard could help Waterstones' profits last year (Waterstones)

Waterstones today announced figures that suggest the book market has been effected by reduced customer spending during the current economic climate.

The retailer’s parent company HMV saw Waterstone’s like-for-like sales drop 3.1% in the 26 weeks between April and 25 October. The comparison showed a 1.4% fall when adjusted for the phenomenal impact of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on 2007’s result.

The report also shows HMV has suffered market deterioration since the end of October which is in line with the well-documented downturn in consumer confidence. It is quoted in saying the book market has seen a ‘marked deterioration’ in the five weeks to 29 November.

Waterstone’s operating loss before exceptional items increased in the first half year to £9.3m from £8.9m in 2007.

According to HMV the book market as a whole shrunk 5% during the period and had been particularly hit by poor performances by non-fiction publications.

What is perhaps more worrying is the continued work with year-on-year losses. Before tax losses for the group were £27.5m, against £28.7m a year earlier.

Of course this doesn’t mean that novel writing has to be unprofitable. Self-publication can be a fantastic way of getting your work read by a wider audience and earning money on the side.

The Scribbler will be looking to publish advice and guidance on the best means of self-publication in early 2009.

Keep it here for all the best news, reviews, features and interviews on the literary industry.

Take a look at a book launch that really should have peaked Waterstones’ profits last year. The irrepressible Russell Brand and his Booky Wook in Waterstone’s Piccadilly:

Discussion:
Has the credit crunch stopped you buying the number of books you would normally like to? Have you resorted to library loans? Aspiring writer? Would you consider self-publication if publishers begin a campaign of turning authors away due to the economic climate? Let us know below.

Words: Dean Samways

Guardian and Observer clean up at music journalism awards

Radiohead's Thom Yorke on the cover of OMM which won best editor last night

Newspapers The Guardian and The Observer stole the show at last night’s 2008 Record Of The Day Awards for Music Journalism and PR (phew) when they walked away with five gongs. The Word was named magazine of the year.

Caspar Llewellyn-Smith, editor of Observer Music Monthly bagged the editor of the year award for the second consecutive year. The Guardian was celebrated for it’s music content winning best music coverage in a national newspaper and best podcast. The Guardian’s Alexis Petridis was named record reviews writer of the year and The Observer’s Kitty Empire won the 2008 live reviews writer award.

Other winners included Dog Day Press (best independent PR company) and Polydor (best in-house PR department).

The highlight of the eveing came when legendary British music journalism Jon Savage was honoured when he received the outstanding contribution to music journalism award.

Representing the artdesks up and down the country was Pennie Smith who picked up the outstanding contribution to music photography award.

MBC PR co-founder Barbara Charone won the outstanding contribution to music PR awards and

The awards took place at Conway Hall, London.

The full list of the 2008 Record of the Day Award winners is as follows:

• Live Reviews Writer of the Year: Kitty Empire – The Observer
• Best PR campaign for a breakthrough UK Act: Tony Linkin at Coalition PR for Glasvegas
• Best PR campaign for an established UK Act: Lewis Jamieson at Hall Or Nothing PR for Elbow
• Record Reviews Writer of the Year: Alexis Petridis – The Guardian
• Best Music Coverage in a Newspaper: The Guardian
• Business and Technology Writer of the Year: Ben Cardew – Music Week
• Best PR campaign for an established non-UK Act: James Hopkins at Columbia Records for Kings of Leon
• Best PR Campaign for a Breakthrough Non-UK Act: Ash Collins at Toast PR for MGMT
• Best Podcast: Guardian Music Weekly
• Best Editor: Caspar Llewellyn Smith – Observer Music Monthly
• Best Independent PR Company: Dog Day Press
• Best Independent PR individual: Nathan Beazer at Dog Day Press
• Best Digital Publication: NME.COM
• Best in-house PR person: Andy Prevezer at Warner Bros Records
• Best In-House PR department: Polydor Records
• Artist and Music Features – Writer of The Year: Simon Cosyns and Jacqui Swift – The Sun, Something for the Weekend
• Breaking Music Writer: Paul Lester
• Magazine of the Year: The Word
• Best Blog: 20 Jazz Funk Greats
• Best Online PR: Scruffy Bird
• Outstanding contribution to music journalism: Jon Savage
• Outstanding contribution to PR: Barbara Charone – MBC PR
• Outstanding contribution to music photography: Pennie Smith

That classic image of The Clash's Paul Simonon captured by Pennie Smith

If you’re into your music journalism you’ll know who this guy is below (he’s the legendary Beatnik muso Lester Bangs for any of you who don’t):

Discussion:
Are you thinking of a career in music journalism? Are you already writing music pieces? Want you share them? Leave a comment with your experience in the music journalism world here (the editor is a freelancer for Drowned in Sound when it suits him so he’ll be keen to chat on the subject)

Words: Dean Samways

Father Ted writer bags an Emmy

Graham Lineham - creator of Father Ted and The IT Crowd

The comedy genius behind Father Ted, Irish writer and director Graham Linehan (blog) picked up an Emmy in New York this week for his Channel 4 show The IT Crowd (blog).

The sitcom, starring Irish actor Chris O’Dowd and set in the IT department of a fictitious British company, picked up the International Emmy for Best Comedy

Linehan is the writer and director of the hit comedy series.

His previous successes include Black Books, starring Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey (blog). Linehan teamed up with Moran to pen the three series about a surly London bookshop owner. During it’s run Black Books won two BAFTAs for Best Situation Comedy in 2000 and 2005, and a Bronze Rose at The Festival Rose d’Or of Montreux in 2001.

The 36th International Emmy awards gala was held on Monday night at New York’s Hilton Hotel. The winners were chosen from 40 nominees from 16 countries.

These prestigious awards recognise excellence in TV programming produced outside the States.

British broadcasting dominated the awards, while Argentina and Jordan celebrated their first Emmy victories.

Argentine production Television Por La Identidad won the award for TV Movies or Mini-Series. It tells the story of the country’s ‘disappeared’ pregnant women from 1976 to 1983, and their resultant search for their children.

British television won most other competitive categories topped off with gongs for David Suchet and Lucy Cohu who won the top acting honours.

Suchet, best known for his role as Agatha Christie’s Poirot, won for his performance as the doom media mogul Robert Maxwell in the BBC’s Maxwell and Cohu collected her award for Forgiven, in which she played a suburban housewife who discovers her husband is sexually abusing their daughter.

Britain’s take-home also included Best Drama Series for BBC show Life on Mars and the Arts Programming Emmy for Channel 4’s Strictly Bolshoi.

Nick Park’s creation Shaun the Sheep won Best Children’s and Young People’s Programming while mountaineering disaster epic The Beckoning Silence was named Best Documentary.

Click here to read The Guardian’s piece in praise of The IT Crowd.

To see Chris Morris‘ (Smokehammer blog) funniest bits from The IT Crowd have a gander below:

Discussion:
Are you fans of Linehan’s work?  Is anyone out there working on a comedy script at them moment?

Words: Dean Samways

Burroughs paints London town poppy red

William S. Burroughs

William Burroughs, author of cult classic The Naked Lunch and opium addict, is having some of his work put on show in two London exhibitions this December.

The tenth anniversary of the legendary writer, filmmaker and artist’s death will be marked by a public display of some of his previously unseen artworks.

Burrough’s first show will appear at the Riflemaker gallery in Soho. The exhibition, opening 9 December, will comprise over 100 abstract works the author painted on the inside of manila folders while he was penning some of his classic novels like The Naked Lunch and The Soft Machine.

Samples of this work leaked into the public sphere some two years ago and caused quite a stir, making December’s exhibition a much anticipated event for fans. What makes the display more unique is this will be the first time anywhere in the world that the complete collection of abstracts has been showcased.

Since his death in 1997 the works have been lying almost undiscovered in his Lawrance home in Kansa. During the last decade workers have been cataloguing the artist’s collections and this is the first to come out of their hard work.

Tot Taylor, director of the Riflemaker gallery, said: “The file-folders come from his bedroom. He was always thinking of different things. He would file his notes in the folders and paint the insides according to how the writings could be envisaged in art. The paintings are very beautiful, some are soothing; some are psychotic. The Burroughs estate is working slowly through his things, and these files have only recently come to light.

“Burroughs has been hugely influential among musicians because of his don’t-give-a-damn attitude. He was proud to be like that and was the originator of the Beatnik movement, which was hugely influential.”

The father of Beatnik’s London outing doesn’t stop there though. Starting 16 December at GSK Contemporary, Royal Academy, a collection of unseen films will be aired from their reel tins for the first time as well as other works.

Footage of the writer caught on camera reading his work will accompany portraits of the counter-culture icon by painters like David Hockney, and collaborations between the multi-talented Burroughs and other artists.

David Thorp, curator of GSK Contemporary said the show would inspire younger artists by demonstrating just how important he was to his own generation of artists.

“He was hugely influential as a presence with value outside the mainstream. He stands for something that is iconoclastic and anti-establishment in a romantic but robust way.”

For the diary:
‘Life-File: The Private File-Folders of William S Burroughs’ is at Riflemaker from 9 December ‘Burroughs Live’ forms part of GSK Contemporary at the Royal Academy from 16 December

Below is a snippet from a documentary wherein Burroughs discusses his time in London and his famed method of writing, ‘cut up’. Rest assured The Scribbler will explore Burroughs’ artistic techniques in much greater detail in the near future:

Words: Dean Samways