Discworld Monthly

My last post included information from the Discworld Monthly, an incredibly valuable resource for the very latest in DIscworld news.... the most recent Newsletter includes news from TP, about groups and productions that are happening, ads, readers letters, reviews and a competition in which you could win some luggage lables from the Discworld Emporium...
...There is also a box on the left of this blog where you can subsribe to the DM....

The Watch Movie

From the Discworld Monthly-

Terry Pratchett's 'The Watch'
11 March 2011:
Sir Terry Pratchett and Rod Brown, Managing Director of Prime Focus Productions, announce that they have come to an agreement for the unprecedented and exclusive worldwide television rights to create brand new storylines for the iconic characters of Pratchett's phenomenally successful Discworld series.
Terry's universal success has seen him create one of the leading fantasy fiction franchises of all time, with 70 million worldwide sales of his 38 book Discworld titles (with a 39th being published in October 2011). Whilst there have been three successful mini series adaptations of his Discworld books made for television in the UK, this is the first time that Pratchett has granted a production company the international rights to his character's and world, for the creation of new stories exclusively for a television audience.
The main focus of the series will be set in the bustling, highly mercantile, largely untrustworthy and always vibrant city of Ankh Morpork and will follow the day-to-day activities of the men, women, trolls, dwarves, vampires and several other species who daily pound its ancient cobbles (and, of course, Igor in the forensics department). Terry commonly refers to the City Watch police force series "the jewels in his Discworld Crown". These richly developed and highly compelling characters will feature in a 'crime of the week' episodic storyline. As each weekly adventure unfolds, viewers will be taken on a ride through Pratchett's genius imagination, with the author overseeing the creation of the series, where wild and exciting encounters with werewolves, dragons, dwarfs, trolls and golems and the classic heroes and villains, are an everyday occurrence... many of whom even make outstanding crime fighters!
Rod Brown, Managing Director of Prime Focus Productions said, "I believe that the globally successful Discworld franchise will readily translate to the small screen in the form of a high-end, mass appeal weekly drama series. It will give the audience the anticipation and excitement of brand new Discworld stories every week through the medium of television, rather than books. It's a huge responsibility to get this right for Terry, his legions of Discworld fans and the new followers to his work that we will attract along the way, but I believe they will be in for a treat with a high calibre writing team already attached, including 'Monty Python's' Terry Jones and Gavin Scott (Small Soldiers, The Borrowers). We have already spoken to a number of international broadcasters who have shown early interest and we hope to move forward very quickly to bring this exciting project to fruition".
Sir Terry Pratchett said, "I'm very excited! I really am incredibly happy about this because Rod was part head of the team that produced the very successful Sky One adaptations and my message of encouragement to him now is; don't bugger it up!"

Snuff Hints continued... this month- a Footnote

FOOTNOTE
* It was all a mystery to Vimes, who was absolutely sure that it was impossible to tell the difference between a chicken fart and a turkey fart, but there were those who professed to be able to do so, and he was glad that such people had chosen this outlet for their puzzling inclinations rather than, for example, fill their sink with human skulls, collected in the high street.

Winners of 'Anywhere but here, Anywhen but now' award announced....

From The Guardian

Terry Pratchett reveals winners of his debut writers' award

First Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now prize divided between two first-time novelists

Terry Pratchett with the winners of the Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now award, Michael Logan (left) and David Logan.

Terry Pratchett has chosen a story of sex-crazed zombie cows and an Iain Banks-esque coming-of-age novel as the joint winners of his inaugural Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now prize.

The £20,000 award for previously unpublished novelists was looking for "stories set on Earth, although it may be an Earth that might have been, or might yet be, one that has gone down a different leg of the famous trousers of time", according to the Discworld author. "The possibilities are literally endless, but remember, it's all on Earth. Maybe the continents will be different and the climate unfamiliar, but the physics will be the same as ours. What goes up must come down, ants are ant-sized because if they were any bigger their legs wouldn't carry them. In short, the story must be theoretically possible on some version of the past, present or future of a planet Earth."

More than 500 writers submitted entries, with Michael Logan and David Logan (no relation) chosen as the joint winners from a shortlist of six "after hours of debate" yesterday evening. Both will receive a publishing contract from Pratchett's publisher Transworld, with the prize money to be split.

"It was a long deliberation and although to some it might seem a cop-out to split a prize, we decided that since the existence of the prize was to find new talent then this was the happiest decision to make," said Pratchett, who judged the prize with Tony Robinson and experts from Transworld and Waterstone's. "[David Logan's] Half Sick of Shadows and [Michael Logan's] Apocalypse Cow both stood out in their different ways and I wish their creators the best of luck in their writing careers."

Half Sick of Shadows is "a darkly atmospheric, richly written coming-of-age novel in the spirit of Iain Banks's The Wasp Factory", said Transworld, while Apocalypse Cow is the story of a group of social misfits thrown together after the government accidentally unleashes an experimental bioweapon, "with peculiar repercussions for Britain's farm animals".

"Ever since I wrote my first short story at the age of eight, it has been my dream to become an author – although the idea for a novel about sex-crazed zombie cows did come a little later," said Michael Logan, who lives in Kenya but was born in Scotland. "The full impact of attaining a lifelong goal has yet to fully sink in. I'm sure it will hit me on the way home, when I will bemuse all around me by performing a victorious knee-slide across the concourse at Gatwick."

David Logan said he felt "very lucky" to win the prize. "I am disappointed for the runners-up. The difference between winning and losing is a hair's breadth," said the writer, who lives in Carrickfergus, Northern Ireland.