People
Piggies novel makes the big screen
Website manager and novelist Keith Brooke’s first
children’s novel Piggies will be made into a film by the production
company behind Bridget Jones’s Diary, Into The West and A Man of No
Importance. Production company, Little Bird has bought up the exclusive
rights to make the chilling and intriguing tale into a film, and are
confident about starting production next year.
Keith, who has been writing professionally for a more than a
decade said: ‘Little Bird are buying the exclusive option to make the film
and have the final say over production. I won’t be so heavily involved in
writing the screenplay as book and film are different media, and
screenwriters sometimes have to rework the original novel to make it work
on screen.’
In the novel, a freak storm transports Ben to a parallel world
inhabited by vampires. He manages to escape to the woods where others like
him (called ferals by the vampires) hide. As he begins to give up hope of
ever getting home, Ben meets Rachel, a vampire more human than some of the
ferals who treat him with suspicion. Rachel takes Ben to her farm in an
attempt to prove that she's not like the other vampires, but that is when
he discovers a terrible secret.
Keith’s novel, published by Penguin in January 2003, received literary
acclaim and became a children’s best seller. It was also selected by
Waterstone's Books Quarterly as one of their Faces of the Future.
Fellowship honour for Computer Scientist
Professor Riccardo Poli, of the Department of Computer
Science, was recently elected a Fellow of the International Society for
Genetic and Evolutionary Computation (ISGEC) at the Society's annual
conference in Chicago.
Professor Poli was among five Computer Scientists elected by their
peers in recognition of their significant and sustained contributions to
the field of genetic and evolutionary computation. This particular field
of Computer Science looks towards Darwinian evolution, natural selection,
genetics and related biological principles in the development of computer
programs that perform many types of search, design, machine intelligence
and optimization functions.
Erik Goodman, Chair of the Executive Board of ISGEC awarded the
Fellowships and said of the new Fellows: 'These pioneers, their students
and their colleagues have created a new field in which thousands of
computer scientists, engineers, physical and biological scientists,
economists, and others around the world now participate.'
Professor Riccardo Poli
Also in the printed October edition of Wyvern:
- Top honours five years running
- Top award for statistician
- Essex lecturer in top court reform in NZ and UK
