John August

Los Angeles

Summer Reading

Author, Books, Los Angeles

On Saturday, I hosted a group of local authors to celebrate Chevalier’s Books, LA’s oldest independent bookstore, which recently reopened for pick-up orders.

Chevalier’s is our neighborhood bookstore, hosting many of our launch parties — including Arlo Finch — so we’re excited to see its doors semi-open.

The theme for our Zoom conversation was “summer reading.” We gave our picks for kids, teens and adults, with special focus on books about understanding race in America.

Guests include Stuart Gibbs, Leslie Margolis, Aline Brosh McKenna, Thomas Lennon, Sarah Mlynowski, Julie Buxbaum, Kayla Cagan and Julia Claiborne Johnson.

You can see their reading lists on Chevalier’s site, with links to order directly from Chevalier’s or bookshop.org.

My picks are below, along with a few additions I made as we were recording.

Support your local indie bookstore! Like Chevalier’s, many are partially open, and can easily get any book you’re looking for.

Young Readers:

– Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems
– Raccoon Sick Day by C.E. Miller
– Hair Love by Matthew Cherry

Middle Grade:

– My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
– The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
– Marvel Encyclopedia by Stan Lee (DK)
– Incredible Cross-Sections by Stephen Biesty

YA:

– Dune by Frank Herbert
– Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
– Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
– Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension by Matt Parker

Adults:

– Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston 
– The Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley
– Trick Mirror: Reflections on Self-Delusion by Jia Tolentino
– Free-Range Chickens by Simon Rich
– Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel
– Atrocities: The 100 Deadliest Episodes in Human History by Matthew White
– The Hardest Job in the World: The American Presidency by John Dickerson
– Raising White Kids by Jennifer Harvey

Come to the Arlo Finch launch

Arlo Finch, Los Angeles, Projects

If you’re in the Los Angeles area, please come to the launch event for Arlo Finch in the Lake of the Moon. I’ll be signing books and answering questions about the series. I may even be allowed to share some cool news.

Invite for LA book signing

The LA event is at:

Chevalier’s Books on Larchmont
Saturday, February 9th at 12:30
website

You can also order the book online or purchase it at many US bookstores.

First week sales are a wonderful thing, because they help more readers discover the book. So does sharing it on social media (#arlofinch) and leaving a review on GoodReads. (The review page for book two is pretty light because it just came out today.)

As I post this, I’m in St. Louis, where I just finished two days of school visits. Tonight, I fly to Seattle, for two more days of school visits and a live Scriptnotes. Then it’s a day in San Francisco before heading home.

The second half of the tour comes in April, when I’ll be headed up and down the East Coast for events at schools and bookstores. For more details, you can check out my Arlo Finch page.

Hiring a coder

Apps, Bronson, Geek Alert, Highland, Los Angeles, Weekend Read

We’re bringing in a new person to help us update some of our older Mac and iOS apps. Maybe that’s you!

Requirements:

  • Experience with Mac and iOS development (either professionally or on your own)
  • Familiarity with web APIs
  • Proficiency in Swift
  • Ability to read (and understand) Objective-C

For the right candidate, it should be an interesting assignment. You’ll be rewriting existing Objective-C code as Swift, and bringing a 2019 perspective (and technology) to previously-solved problems. You’ll be working beside Nima Yousefi, who coded Highland,1 Weekend Read and a lot of other useful apps for writers. He’ll show you the ropes and help guide you through the process.

This is a contract gig, maybe 40 hours of work altogether, but there’s always the possibility of future projects. We’re looking for someone in Los Angeles who’s available on Tuesday and Friday afternoons for some in-person discussion.

The right person might be transitioning from another field, a college student, or someone on a gap year. You can look at this as an educational experience, intern-like, but definitely paid. If you’re a hobbyist coder considering becoming an indie app developer, it would be a good introduction. That’s how Nima got started.

Interested? Drop us a note to introduce yourself and your work. Please include links to stuff we can check out, especially Github and sample code.

  1. Fun fact: Highland 2 is almost entirely Swift, except for some very low-level stuff dealing with PDFs which goes all the way back to the original Highland. ↩

Becoming a Professional Screenwriter

Episode - 381

Go to Archive

Education, Film Industry, Los Angeles, QandA, Random Advice, Scriptnotes, Transcribed, WGA

John welcomes Tess Morris, Christina Hodson, Nicole Perlman, and Jason Fuchs to discuss their paths to becoming a professional screenwriter. They track the progression from glass bead day jobs to navigating general meetings to planning inconsistent finances to actually calling oneself a writer and even getting paid.

We also answer audience questions about career longevity and leaving writing behind.

Links:

Email us at ask@johnaugust.com

You can download the episode here.

UPDATE 1-9-18: The transcript of this episode can be found here.