Scattershots

• Remember those reports about Janet Evanovich and TV producer-novelist Stephen J. Cannell teaming up to write “a new series of action adventure novels,” with the first installment, No Chance, due out this fall? Well, forget about it. Though Amazon continues to tout this “Cannon and Pickett” novel, Evanovich tells Sarah Weinman of GalleyCat that “Steve [Cannell] and I ran into scheduling problems. We still have an active partnership but the project is on hold right now. As of right now we haven’t a publishing date.” Even for big-name writers, it seems, publishing is hard.

• Why can’t Hollywood come up with some new ideas for a change? Monsters and Critics reports that actor Brad Pitt will take the lead in a remake of the classic (and Edgar Award-winning) 1968 thriller Bullitt, which starred Steve McQueen as a San Francisco police lieutenant charged with protecting a key witness in an organized-crime investigation. To quote those clever souls at Suicide Girls: “McQueen was and is, the coolest. His movies should be left alone, in some place where awesome things go to be awesome. I’d sooner see you remake the bible with a wise-cracking ‘Hay-zeus’ who sports a goatee and drives a jet boat-Ark ... Or re-do the Mona Lisa with indiglo paint, a hidden eye gimmick and Waldo.” To make its point, Suicide Girls cleverly headlines its put-down of this idea: “Steve McQueen’s Corpse Rolls Over, Cocks Loaded .45.” (Hat tip to Clayton Moore of Bang!)

• A few more scrawny tidbits from Sebastian Faulks about his forthcoming James Bond novel, The Devil May Care, can be found in Entertainment Weekly. Click here.

• Recent Agatha Award-winning novelist Sarah Parshall (The Heat of the Moon) interviews Spinetingler Magazine editor Sandra Ruttan for the blog Poe’s Deadly Daughters. Read their exchange here.

• “World famous novelist” Warren Adler, the author of The War of the Roses and Random Hearts, and founder of the Jackson Hole Writers Conference, is holding his second annual short story contest. “[I]n an endeavor to publicize and promote the art of the fictional short story and restore its place as a prime literary format,” Adler reports on his Web site that he “is seeking submissions that capture the essence of New York.” The site goes on to explain:

The first prize winner, to be announced in conjunction with the publication of Warren Adler’s latest short story collection New York Echoes, will be awarded $1,000; all five finalists will also be awarded personalized first editions of Mr. Adler’s novels. As a bonus, the story judged best by Mr. Adler, along with a People’s Choice award chosen from among the finalists via online reader vote, will be published and available for sale on Amazon shorts. All five finalist stories will be featured via “live” readings on Amazon’s Theater on Second Life.

Submissions should run no more than 2,500 words in length. The deadline is January 15, 2008. More details can be found here.

• And Dick Adler is back. Sort of. After giving up his Chicago Tribune gig and generally taking several steps off his pace for health reasons, he’s suddenly opened up a new “blog for lovers of crime fiction” called The Knowledgeable Blogger. His stated intent is to pick “the best of new releases--and a few old ones.” We wish him luck, as always and have added The Knowledgeable Blogger to our blogroll.