Kelvin Smith Library to host panel discussion on translating books to film

Kelvin Smith Library will host a special presentation to celebrate books that have been translated to film Friday, Sept. 27 from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. in Kelvin Smith Library’s O’Neill Reading Room. During the talk, titled “From Page to Screen,” a panel will discuss the nuts and bolts of making a book suitable for film adaptation. Featured panelists include:

  • Michael Heaton is a columnist, author, critic and screenwriter who has worked at the Plain Dealer for 25 years. Heaton is the author of two books of his collected columns and magazine stories, and has coauthored a biography of talk show host Mike Douglas, and the New York Times best-selling memoir of his sister, actress Patricia Heaton, Motherhood and Hollywood. Last year he wrote his first film for the Hallmark Channel called The Christmas Heart, which aired in December. Currently, Heaton is at work on a screenplay about the late Plain Dealer rock critic Jane Scott, titled Sweet Jane.
  • John Orlock is the Samuel B. and Virginia C. Knight Professor of Humanities at Case Western Reserve University. His plays have been produced at several major regional theaters and his screenplay, The End-of-Summer Guest—about Anne and Charles Lindbergh and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry—was awarded third place prize in the 2009 American Screenwriters Association International Screenplay Competition.
  • Brad Ricca earned his PhD in English from Case Western Reserve University, where he currently is a SAGES Fellow. He is the author of Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster — The Creators of Superman (St. Martin’s, 2013) and American Mastodon, a book of poetry, which won the St. Lawrence Book Award. Ricca’s film Last Son won a 2010 Silver Ace Award at the Las Vegas International Film Festival.
  • Robert Spadoni (Moderator) is the author of Uncanny Bodies: The Coming of Sound Film and the Origins of the Horror Genre (University of California Press, 2007), A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films (California, forthcoming), and various articles, most of them about horror films. Spadoni is an associate professor in film studies at Case Western Reserve University.

A book signing will immediately follow the discussion in the Research Commons (Kelvin Smith Library, second floor). This event is free and open to the public and light refreshments will be served.

For more information, call 216.368.2992 or email KSLadministration@case.edu

Visitor and parking information can be found at library.case.edu/ksl/aboutus/visitorinfo/.