Rushdie begins teaching world literature at Emory

Atlanta – Salman Rushdie can again add “professor” to his resume.

The award-winning author has joined Emory University for a five-year stint teaching world literature to graduate students. His appointment is coupled with the donation of his literary archive to the college’s library, a collection that includes manuscripts, journals, letters and photographs from his writing career.

Rushdie, 59, said Tuesday that this will be his only long-term commitment with a U.S. university because he wants to focus on writing more novels.

He chose Emory “because they asked me and nobody else ever had,” he said at a news conference.

Rushdie has lectured at campuses across the globe and been an honorary professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Rushdie held his first class at Emory on Tuesday, the day before the 18th anniversary of the death threat that catapulted him to worldwide fame. Rushdie was forced into hiding in England for a decade after the Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran issued a 1989 fatwa, or religious edict, ordering Muslims to kill Rushdie because of charges that Rushdie’s book “The Satanic Verses” insulted Islam.

Albom’s ‘For One More Day’ to become TV movie

Detroit – Mitch Albom says he’ll work with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Films Inc. for a TV movie based on his best-seller “For One More Day.”

Albom told the Detroit Free Press for a story Tuesday that Winfrey saw the book in manuscript form and expressed early interest. He wrote the teleplay and will serve as an executive producer. Lloyd Kramer will direct.

“For One More Day” tells the story of a former baseball player who plans to end his life but finds redemption when he gets the chance to spend another day with his dead mother.

Casting is under way, and filming is expected to begin in July. The two-hour movie is tentatively scheduled to air in December on ABC-TV.

Spike Lee helps give a voice to young Katrina survivors

New Orleans – Spike Lee handed video cameras to New Orleans area high school students and told them to capture their lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina for the world to see.

“Let them know what’s happening down here, that everything isn’t okey-dokey,” said Lee, who directed “When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts,” a four-hour documentary chronicling the Katrina disaster.

The teens’ footage will air monthly as part of a special CNN series “Children of the Storm.” The first segment, in which Lee and host Soledad O’Brien handed cameras to 11 students, aired last week.

The series will run until the second anniversary of Katrina in August.

Students will document how the hurricane affected their lives and neighborhoods while also sharing their thoughts about the city’s recovery and their future in New Orleans, O’Brien said.

“You’re doing this for the world,” Lee said in the first segment. “Remember it’s not just for yourself.”