Other demonstrations are taking place on Wednesday in New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Mexico and France, supporting the strike by the Writers Guild of America (WGA). WGA members began their strike on November 5 over payment for work broadcast on new media platforms. Writers want more money when TV shows and movies are sold on internet sites such as iTunes, or via mobile phones. Wednesday's rallies in Australia coincide with re-opened contract negotiations in the US aimed at settling the dispute. The executive director of the AWG, Jacqueline Woodman, said Australian scriptwriters shared the concerns of their US counterparts.

"The independent film and television industry in Australia needs to fight hard to preserve an Australian screen culture," Ms Woodman said in a statement. "Standing up for the principle of sharing the massive profits of multinational media conglomerates with the people who create the products they profit from is an essential part of that." Speakers at the Sydney rally, to be held at 4.30pm (AEDT) at Town Hall, will include Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jan Sardi (Shine, The Notebook), Craig Pearce (Strictly Ballroom, Romeo+Juliet, Moulin Rouge) and AFI-nominated writer Rick Kalowski (Comedy Inc, The Honourable Wally Norman).

King: I'm afraid of everything. It shows in my work. Elevators. Cars. One of the things ... the thing that started the new book was basically a combination of an accident that I had and a truck that was backing up, and the beeper was broken and somebody said, "Look out!" And a whole big long novel came out of that. But I'm with Frank on this, and that's one of the reasons why I love this movie, because it was a little bit like having somebody scratch a place on the middle of my back that I couldn't reach myself.

I mean, every night when I go to bed and nobody's popped a rogue nuke somewhere in the world, I feel this sort of combination of "I don't believe we escaped for another day," and gratitude because we did escape for another day. Because there's so much of that stuff out there. And I've written a lot of different things about that, from The Stand to The Mist, where you say a lot of people out there, they're afraid, they're angry, because fear and anger go hand in hand. They're the original-sin version of the Bobbsey Twins, you know, fear and anger.

And when they do there's always somebody to say, "Well, we had the answer, we had the only answer," because whatever the religion might happen to be, they're the ones who say, "We have the only answer, so let's get down on our knees and pray about it," and then on your way out there's guns in the vestry.

The newly revealed letter, written by Wharton herself, seems to point to the suicide theory. It is dated Dec. 26, 1904, or just a month before The House of Mirth began appearing in monthly installments in Scribner's Magazine, and is addressed to Dr. Francis Kinnicutt, a well-known society doctor who specialized in the mental ailments of the well-to-do. At the time of the letter, in fact, he was treating Wharton’s manic-depressive husband, Teddy, who was beginning to behave in ways — eventually embezzling her money, setting up a mistress in Boston - that would lead to the dissolution of their marriage.

The letter begins by resorting to the timeless disguise of the advice-seeker. "A friend of mine has made up her mind to commit suicide," Wharton writes, "& has asked me to find out ... the most painless & least unpleasant method of effacing herself."

Only on the second page does Wharton reveal that her "friend" is in fact a fictional character appearing in the pages of Scribner's, explaining, "I have heroine to get rid of, and want some points on the best way of disposing of her." Later she asks: "What soporific, or nerve-calming drug, would a nervous and worried young lady in the smart set be likely to take to, & what would be its effects if deliberately taken with the intent to kill herself? I mean, how would she feel and look toward the end?"

Warner Bros. called off a February production start on "Shantaram," the Mira Nair-directed adaptation of the Gregory David Roberts novel that was to star Johnny Depp. The Weinstein Co., meanwhile, postponed "Nine," the Rob Marshall-directed musical that was slated to start production in March with Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, Sophia Loren and Marion Cotillard starring. Delays were caused because the scripts weren't ready. Sony previously delayed the Ron Howard-directed "Angels & Demons," and United Artists halted the Oliver Stone-directed "Pinkville," citing the same reason.

In all four cases, the sponsoring studios decided they couldn't overcome logistical and script problems exacerbated by the Writers Guild strike that is preventing rewrites, along with the looming expirations of the Directors Guild and Screen Actors Guild contracts in June. Other films are struggling to avoid the same fate.

Depp, who is producing "Shantaram" with Graham King, planned to spend the winter in India, playing an Australian heroin addict who escapes a maximum-security prison, reinvents himself as a doctor in the slums of India and eventually uses gun-running and counterfeiting skills to fight against the invading Russian troops in Afghanistan. Abhishek Bachchan was also set to star.

Sylvester Stallone is currently busy finishing up work on Rambo IV, and may even end up doing a Rambo V, but the Sly project I'm most interested in is the one he's doing after Rambo, a film about tortured poet Edgar Allan Poe. The movie's traveled a rocky road to get going, but it's starting to look like Poe will actually get made. If the film finally does happen, we may know who Stallone is casting as his Edgar Allan.

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Our source says, "Stallone has recently met with Viggo Mortensen and has offered him the role of Edgar Allan Poe in the film. Mortensen is considering the role although he wants some slight revisions in the script."

At one point Robert Downey Jr. was rumored to be up for this part, but that was so long ago he's almost certainly moved on by now. Viggo Mortensen is currently shooting a movie called Appaloosa for Ed Harris, but after that he may be free to squeeze something like Poe in. Of course with the strike on, who knows when they’ll be able to start filming Poe anyway, so scheduling wouldn't be a problem. And if what our source says is true, then it sounds like he's not only been offered it, but he's at least a little interested in it.

"I thought it was hilarious," said Daniel Radcliffe, who has played the lead role in all five Harry Potter films. He said actor Michael Gambon, who has played Dumbledore since the third film, had been "really camping it up for the last three weeks ever since he found out"..... Radcliffe told BBC News: "JK Rowling is an incredibly intelligent woman. She can't have thought for a moment that that would go down well in the Bible Belt of America, but she put it brilliantly herself: 'He's my character - I can do what I want with him.' Which I think is fair enough."

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Filming on the sixth film in the franchise, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, began in September, with Yates again at the helm. But he said not to expect any changes to the way Dumbledore is portrayed on film. "Michael Gambon hasn't changed his approach. A person's sexuality is just one part of who they are, and so it hasn't really shifted where we're taking him." Producer David Barron confirmed that Dumbledore would remain "the character Michael Gambon has already established". But he added: "Michael's camped it up a bit off-camera, he's just been amused by it."

Emma Watson, who plays Harry's friend Hermione Granger, said: "It never really occurred to me before, but now JK Rowling's said that he's gay it sort of makes sense." She added: "I think what surprised everyone was the amount of media attention it's received. I think it's nice that the story has ended but there are still things that people don't know."

As one reviewer has reported, 'baby-sick lit' has taken over from chick lit as 'publishing's latest craze'. Polly Williams' previous novel, The Rise and Fall of a Yummy Mummy, delved into the turmoil of new motherhood and its corresponding loss of a sex life/decent wardrobe/sense of identity. It's all quite sharp and entertaining, with some funny insights about the weirdness of postnatal groups and the disorientation facing the onetime girl-in-PR when forced to adapt to a life of tracksuits and buggy-pushing. Like Fiona Neill's Secret Life of a Slummy Mummy, which projects the struggle with maternal identity further forward into life with school-age children, Williams' brand of baby-sick lit abounds with the contradictory impulse to love one's child and escape from it; suspicions of one's partner having an affair and temptations to have an affair oneself; and a rather peculiar obsession with personal grooming.

To the extent that it connects with a new generation of career-girls-turned-mummies, to whom babies are alien creatures and coffee mornings foreign lands, baby-sick lit has its place, just as Chick Lit does in the life of the busy commuter girl. (As Chick Lit author Jenny Colgan once famously remarked: 'We do actually know the difference between literature and popular fiction. We know the difference between foie gras and Hula Hoops, but, you know, sometimes we just want Hula Hoops. But when it comes to what we might call piss-stick lit, in honour of the ubiquitous home urine tests for ovulation and pregnancy, things become rather more uncomfortable.

Attorney Larry D. Drury had urged U.S. District Judge Richard J. Holwell to approve the deal, which offered a refund to anyone who bought the book before Frey's falsehoods were acknowledged. The Manhattan jurist said he would bestow final approval on the settlement because it was "most fair, adequate and reasonable." Although the book was a huge hit that exploded in sales after Oprah Winfrey chose it for her book club, only 1,729 readers came forward to benefit from the settlement, Drury said.

In January 2006, the website The Smoking Gun revealed that Frey's memoir of addiction and recovery contained numerous fabrications. Frey and his publisher then acknowledged that he had made up parts of the book. Drury noted that 93,738 copies of the book were sold in the seven months after the controversy erupted. The various lawsuits filed by readers were consolidated before Holwell, and a settlement was reached. It called for refunds for readers who felt duped by the book, which earned its author more than $4 million.

Although Random House set aside $2.35 million in a fund to cover costs related to the lawsuits, advertisements in 962 newspapers and elsewhere drew only the 1,729 claims for reimbursement by the deadline, costing just $27,348. Another $783,000 will be paid out in legal fees, as will $432,000 in costs associated with publicizing and carrying out the settlement. As part of the settlement, Random House agreed to include a warning in the book that not all portions of the book may be accurate. In addition, an author's note about the subject was to be included in copies of the book until this December.

The settlement also calls for roughly $180,000 to be divided among three charities: the American Red Cross, the Hazelden addiction treatment center and First Book, a non-profit that gives children from poor families a chance to read and own their first book.

Writers want:

Residuals for shows and movies streamed over the Web and on cellphones.

A doubling of residual payments from home video sales.

Extension of guild pay and benefits to writers on reality TV programs.

Producers say:

DVD sales are needed to offset rising marketing and production costs.

It's too early to lock into pay formulas for online shows because technologies are changing rapidly.

No pay for streaming of TV shows on the Web because it is a form of promotion.