Bless This Man !!

From the WashingtonPost.com, IN CONVERSATION . . . With Michael Chabon, an interview conducted by Julie Phillips (NBCC and Hugo Award winning author of James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon.)

Phillips: Gentlemen of the Roadgives me the impression that you had a lot of fun writing it but aren't entirely convinced by the world you've created. Do you think you will ever really break into science fiction? Or are you doomed to keep coming back to literature?

Chabon: I believed every single word of it with every fiber of my being, actually! Writing it wasn't just fun, it was deep and magical -- I traveled. As for science fiction, it is literature, as you very well know, my dear. The gates between the kingdoms are infinitely wide and always open!

This is Interesting: Lethem's Film Option

I've just discovered (via GalleyCat) that Jonathan Lethem is giving away a free film option on his novel You Don't Love Me Yet to a filmmaker to be selected March 15th, in exchange for a percentage of the budget should the film ever get made. What's more, the plan is for all ancillary rights to characters and "the plot and situations, the notions and conceits and milieu of the book" will be launched into the public domain five years after said films release, where they will be available for anyone to make spin-off works in a variety of media. I hope someone takes Lethem up on this, because I'd like to see what happens in five years. I think it's an inspired idea. My only questions are - why only one filmmaker? Why not let as many filmmakers as want to have a shot? And why wait five years? Why not throw it out there now? But my discover of this announcement follows right on the heels of a long discussion I had with a friend in LA about collaborative filmmaking. I'm very interested in this experiment, as I also am in this one.