Ron Does Stuff

The Sunrise on the Reaping publicity campaign, the 2025 Harlequin mentorship program, Martin Scorsese, and Choose Your Own Adventure in this week’s edition.

Sunrise on the Reaping publicity campaign

Scholastic just uploaded a sneak peek reading of the latest book in the Hunger Games universe, “Sunrise on the Reaping”. Suzanne Collins does the reading herself, so click the YouTube video above if you’re interested.

The excerpt is just the start of a massive global campaign that the book’s publisher, Scholastic, has organized. According to Publishers Weekly, the rollout includes the excerpt also being read in different languages by “influencers” all over the world as well as more than 1,000 release parties all over the world.

Custom displays, signage window clings, and book displays will be in bookstores all over America, with 2,500 event kits being distributed that include a poster, an event guide, a trivia booklet with two packs of 25 Sunrise on the Reaping buttons, fan postcards, and more.

Harlequin opens 2025 mentorship program

Harlequin is once again opening its mentorship program for debut writers in underrepresented communities, with May 1 being the start of receiving applications. On the publisher’s website, the company writes that the Romance Includes You mentorship is open to “eople who identify as Black, Indigenous, people of color, biracial and multiracial, members of 2SLGBTQ+ communities, marginalized ethnic and religious cultures, and people living with disabilities and neurodiversity.”

The top applicant will get “a publishing contract with an advance for their debut novel, a one-year mentorship with a Harlequin editor to complete their story for publication, and a writing grant to support their early writing career.” Harlequin says the value of the mentorship is at $5,000 or P286,610 based on current exchange rates.

Check out the rest of the details on the Harlequin website.

Martin Scorsese to direct ‘Home’ adaptation

Publishers Weekly reports that Martin Scorsese is “attached to write, direct, and produce, alongside filmmaker Todd Field,” an adaptation of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead novels, starting with Home. He will be doing the films for Apple Original Films.

I don’t know anything about the Gilead novels, but Publishers Weekly describes them as an “examination of faith and rural life set in the fictional plains town of Gilead, Iowa”. Home is the second of four novels, with the other three being Gilead, Lila, and Jack.

Publishers Weekly also notes that this will be Scorsese’s third adaptation of a book dealing with or rooted in Catholicism or Christianity, with the first being his adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s 1955 novel The Last Temptation of Christ and the other being Shūsaku Endō’s 1966 novel Silence.

Chooseco to reprint the first book in the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ series

People from a certain generation — mine — grew up with the Choose Your Adventure books. Publishers Weekly reports that the very first book in the series, The Cave of Time, will be reprinted on August 5 and will feature the book’s original cover art and line illustrations by Paul Granger. Check out the Publishers Weekly article for a brief history of Choose Your Own Adventure as well as some quotes from author Edward Packard and publisher Shannon Gilligan.