Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Film Deal -- DOUBLE EXPOSURE headed for Big Screen


Michael Lister’s Award-Winning Novel,
DOUBLE EXPOSURE, Headed for Big Screen


In association with The Garden, Bruce Dawson, Jason Hreno, and Amy Moore-Benson are excited to announce their option of the exclusive film rights to MICHAEL LISTER's explosive novel DOUBLE EXPOSURE.

Published in September 2009 by Tyrus Books, DOUBLE EXPOSURE is the story of a wildlife photographer who, after unwittingly capturing a murder with his camera traps deep in the swamp of North Florida’s Apalachicola River Basin, must fight and find his way out of the woods with the evidence while being pursued by a dangerous sociopath and his pack of soulless killers.

The novel immediately grabbed the attention of readers and reviewers alike, being described as “A Hitchcockian thriller and spellbinding page-turner” by Booklist, and praised for its “Lyrical, evocative prose, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy‘s 'The Road” by the Panama City News Herald.

The thrilling story has also being championed by bestselling author, Michael Connelly (THE LINCOLN LAWYER), who said, “With elegiac prose, insightful characterization and a wonderfully ingenious plot, Michael Lister has squeezed every ounce of terror and thrills out of a dark night in the woods.”

The novel won a prestigious Florida Book Award in 2010, and was produced as a stage play by Jason Hedden with Gulf Coast Community College.

The author, who Ellerry Queen Magazine called “one of the most individual and talented newer writers on the crime-fiction scene, with vivid style, ready wit, and a marriage of plot and theme,” grew up in North Florida near the Gulf of Mexico and the Apalachicola River, in a town world famous for tupelo honey.

Truly a regional writer, Lister’s canvas is North Florida’s small towns (THUNDER BEACH), river swamps (DOUBLE EXPOSURE), massive state prisons (THE BODY AND THE BLOOD). In the early 90s, Lister became the youngest chaplain within the Florida Department of Corrections, where he served until he began writing full-time in 2000.
Lister will co-write the script based on his novel with Jason Hreno, who will also direct.

Hreno is a trilingual (English, French and Spanish) Canadian writer-director, who following the international acclaim of his short film WANDERING EYES, began to direct commercials and music videos, and later emerged as a prolific cable feature director. As well as being attached to direct several features, he also has a series in development with The Nightingale Company.

The deal was arranged by Amy Moore-Benson, of AMB Literary Management, a former editor and elite literary agent and manager, who is also serving as the film’s co-producer.

The dark, pulse-pounding, art house thriller aims to go into production in the fall 2011.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Double Exposure a Work of Art


Sitting down to read Michael Lister's Double Exposure, which recently received the Florida Book Awards Bronze Medal for General Fiction, I expected a crime novel so well written it bridges the gap between popular fiction, where crime novels are usually categorized, and literary fiction. What I got was a fantastically penned work of literature that happens to focus on crime.

The story centers on Remington James, who returns to North Florida to take over the family business, a gun and pawn shop, following the death of his father.

Photography, once a hobby he pursued purely for the love of capturing nature's beauty, is now only an afterthought for Remington, an ad agency executive. His choice of career over vocation has led to resentment and depression that have caused his wife, Heather, to separate from him.

Back at home in the woods that make up a majority of his family's property, Remington's love for photographing all things natural is rekindled, thanks in part to his reunion with his dying mother, Remington's original muse. The isolation also causes him to reevaluate his relationship with Heather. Hoping to capture an image of a Florida panther, an endangered species the locals claim does not inhabit the Apalachicola River Basin, Remington sets up motion-activated cameras near ponds and other spots where the predatory cats might stop for water. Unfortunately, his camera instead captures images of a murder in horrifying frame by frame detail.

Remington soon becomes the prey of the sadistic killer and his team of hunters, who seem all too familiar with the surrounding swamplands, as they track him, trying to surround and smother him as they would wild game. Unsure whether to head to the river that flows through the woods and follow its banks to possible freedom or to circle back to his truck, risking a face-to-face encounter with the hunter determined to prevent him from ever leaving the woods, Remington must hone his survival instincts if he is to reach his goals of mending his damaged relationship and returning to his mother's side before it's too late.

Lister's style of prose is poetic. His repeated use of alliteration evokes the tension that James is experiencing as he tries to elude the hunters' dogs:
Barks. Bays. Yelps. Howls.
Closer now. Much.
The pawn shop had been a supporter of the sheriff's K-9 unit since its existence, and Remington had watched several tactical tracking exercises over the years. He pictures what is taking place not far behind him.
Big black snouts on the ground.
Ears and jowls flapping, drool dangling.
Nearly a yard tall, weight of an adult woman.
Running.
Remington's scent.
Relentless.

Or as he faces imminent death as bullets fly all around him:
Rounds continue to ricochet around him, but he doesn't move. He can't.
Numb.
Despondent.
Lost.
He can't think, can't move, can't—what?
Death.
Despair.
Distance.

The writing is so dramatic that it comes as no surprise that one of Lister's colleagues at Gulf Coast Community College, where Lister teaches classes in religion and writing, adapted Double Exposure into a play.

This book is a work of art and well deserving of its award. As far as its classification goes, it could be called literature, general fiction, even crime fiction. At a scant 204 pages, it could also be considered prose poetry. Whatever you call it, Double Exposure is a great read.

by Edward Irvin.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Michael Lister's DOUBLE EXPOSURE Wins Florida Book Award


North Florida Author Michael Lister’s “Double Exposure” won a Bronze Medal for General Fiction in the 2009 Florida Book Awards.

The Florida Book Awards –the nation’s most comprehensive state book awards program– was established in 2006 to recognize, honor, and celebrate the best Florida literature published the previous year. It is coordinated by The Florida State University Libraries, and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, State Library and Archives of Florida, Florida Historical Society, Florida Humanities Council, Florida Literary Arts Coalition, Florida Library Association, “Just Read, Florida!,” Florida Family Literacy Initiative, the Program in American and Florida Studies at Florida State University, Florida Reading Association, Florida Association for Media in Education, Florida Center for the Literary Arts, the Friends of FSU Libraries, and Florida Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America.

“This is a real honor,” Lister said. “I’m a Florida writer. Florida is the landscape I’m painting with my palette of words, my actual and spiritual home, so to win a Florida Book Award is extremely gratifying. And of all my books, “Double Exposure” is the one most centered in this land. It’s my love letter to wild North Florida.”

Following his dad’s death, Remington James returns to the small North Florida town where he grew up to assume his father’s life—taking care of his dying mother and running the local gun and pawn shop.

Picking up a camera again after a long hiatus, Remington returns to his first love, pursuing in earnest his lifelong dream of becoming a wildlife photographer.

One fateful fall evening, as the sun sinks and the darkness expands, Remington ventures deep into the river swamp to try out some new equipment and check his camera traps.

Encountering the kind of wildlife that made him want to be a photographer in the first place, Remington gets some of the best shots of his life, but he’s about to happen upon the most dangerous animal of all—A feral, patient, sociopath who wants Remington dead.

While checking his camera traps, scanning the eerie images of overexposed deer and bats and foxes, Remington comes across the most haunting images of his life — the frame-by-frame capture of a shocking crime.

By exposing the criminal, Remington has exposed himself to danger, even possible extinction. Hunted like an animal, by the predator and his psychotic friends, Remington must do two things: make it through the night and make it to the river — and the odds of doing either are slim to none.

Lyrical, literary, and told in poetic photographic impressions, Double Exposure is filled with far more than just exciting adventure and suspense. It’s a meditation on life and death and art and meaning you won’t soon forget.

This is the fourth year of competitions in the Florida Book Awards, which has seven categories for books published in 2009. “The culture of books in the Sunshine State continues to prosper,” notes FBA Director Wayne A. Wiegand. “These FBA winners clearly prove it.”

Submissions were read by seven juries of three members each nominated from across the state by cosponsoring organizations. Jurors were authorized to select up to five medalists in each of the seven categories.

“From the very beginning, “Double Exposure” has been a very special book for me,” Lister said. “So many wonderful things have and continue to happen with it—from critics and readers responses to environmental education and conservation efforts to the brilliant play director Jason Hedden produced to foreign sales to feature film interest. I’m so very grateful.”

When asked why “Double Exposure” was submitted in the general instead of popular fiction category, Lister said, “It’s true, “Double Exposure” is a literary thriller that can be classified broadly as crime fiction, but my publisher and I thought that by submitting the book in the general fiction category we were letting it stand on its literary merits.”

In his introduction to “Double Exposure,” #1 New York Times Besteslling Author, Michael Connelly, calls the book “Elegiac, like a two-hundred page poem, with words that skip on the waters of the imagination like well-polished stones.”

Lister and the other winners will be recognized at a banquet during the Florida Library Association Conference Banquet on April 8 in Orlando.

For more information about Michael Lister or his books, go to www.MichaelLister.com

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Gloria Feit's Review of DOUBLE EXPOSURE


"Mr. Lister's eloquent evocation of the beauty of the area and its non-human inhabitants makes clear to the reader what has drawn his protagonist back and easily explains James' return to the profession on which he had turned his back. The threats to the region's ecosystem are made equally vivid.

The novel is thought-provoking, while at the same time the author deftly maintains and steadily builds suspense.

Mr. Lister's writing is stylistically fresh, frequently alliterative, and distinctive. "Double Exposure" is a wholly original and ultimately haunting work, and it is highly recommended."

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Double Exposure Comes to Stage and Gallery This Week


There comes a time in every parent’s life when he must entrust the care of his child to another. Babysitter, daycare worker, school teacher—eventually, we give up control.

If you’re like me—more maternal than anything else—this is a frightening proposition. No one will care for my baby the way I do.

As with most things, when looking for someone to share my most treasured treasure with, I use intuition. Sure, I observe character revealed in unguarded moments, but how I feel about the person—what I know without knowing anything is how I make my final decision.

Recently, I entrusted my novel, “Double Exposure,” to Jason Hedden, an actor, producer, director, and a professor at Gulf Coast Community College. This fruit of my loins (and other parts of me) that had gestated inside of me for so long, that I had carried and labored over and had given birth to, this truly beloved child of mine, I gave to Jason.

Jason took “Double Exposure,” a novel, and turned it into “Double Exposure,” an extraordinary theatrical experience. I was right to give Jason my book, and I couldn’t be happier with what he’s done with it.

Jason Hedden is a theatrical genius.

With an amazing vision from the very beginning, Jason carefully, thoughtfully, magnificently adapted a book into a play—a play that honors the book as much as another art form can, one that uses the strengths of theater to lift the story off the pages and set the characters and events twirling across the stage.

I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to watch Jason work, to witness firsthand his enormous effort, his respect for the book, his dedication and determination.

Each night I’ve attended rehearsals, I’ve had the experience of encountering people and places and events from my dreams. It’s a singular, surreal phenomenon.

“Double Exposure,” the theatrical experience, presents the book in a way that combines the best of the original text with the best of staged drama. Characters speak narration as well as dialog, bringing a literary quality to the play unlike any I’ve ever seen. The use of minimalist sets encourages, even forces, the audience to use its imagination in a way not unlike the book.

In the book, I mention that a prominent voice inside the main character’s head is that of his dead father’s. Genius Jason took that and used it to dramatize the experience—for the characters and the audience—by having the deceased father on stage talking to his son.

One more example of genius: In the book, the main character, a photographer, thinks about the greatest photographs ever taken, in an attempt to calm himself in a severely stressful situation. It would have been easy to project the iconic images onto a screen on the stage, but Jason staged them with actors—bringing them to life and preserving the poetic descriptions of them from the book.

Jason Hedden’s play, “Double Exposure,” has my highest recommendation. I hope you’ll see it. Of course, I hope you’ll read the book first, but if you decide not to, it wouldn’t bother me nearly as much as usual because of how much like reading a book Jason’s remarkable production really is.

Here’s more information about the play from the college:

Tickets have gone on sale for GCCC’s latest theatre production, “Double Exposure,” the world premier stage adaptation of local author, Michael Lister’s newest novel. “Double Exposure” is a suspenseful tale of life and death set in the swamps of the Apalachicola River Basin.

The performances will take place in the GCCC Theatre Lab, also known as the black box, which is extremely popular with local audiences. However, due to limited seating, advance purchase of tickets is strongly recommended.

“Double Exposure” will show from Wednesday, November 18, through Saturday, November 21, at 7:30 p.m. On Saturday and Sunday, November 21 and 22, there will be matinee shows at 2:30 p.m. Please be advised that this production is for mature audiences only. Tickets can be purchased at the GCCC Visual and Performing Arts office in the Amelia G. Tapper Center. Box office hours are Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and from 12:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. until all tickets are sold out. Any remaining seats will be sold at the door. Doors open 30 minutes prior to curtain time and no one will be admitted once the performance starts.

Tickets are on sale for $10. Gulf Coast Community College students, retirees, faculty, staff and dual-enrolled students may pick up their free ticket at the Visual and Performing Arts Division office (ID required). Alumni get a 50 percent discount when presenting their alumni membership card.

For more information, call Sherri Renfroe at 872-3886.
(Picture by Jordan Marking)


ALSO . . .

The Visual & Performing Arts Division at Gulf Coast Community College is proud to present “Adaptation,” a collection of photographs inspired by Michael Lister’s latest novel, “Double Exposure.” The exhibit focuses on black and white photography techniques.

Gulf Coast Community College’s photography I and II students created the photography which represents a wide range of visual interpretations of the text. The artists have endeavored to create thoughtful works that reflect a variety of the novel’s themes, both literal and otherwise.

The exhibition will be held at Gulf Coast Community College’s Amelia G. Tapper Center in the Main Gallery. The Opening Reception will be on Wednesday, November 18, from 5:00 - 7:00 p.m. The event is free and open to the public. The Exhibit will remain open until November 20.

If you have any questions or would like to visit the gallery, please contact Tammy Marinuzzi at tmarinuzzi@gulfcoast.edu or call 769-1551, ext. 2890.

Thursday, October 1, 2009

DOUBLE EXPOSURE a Riveting Page-Turner, Poem in Prose!


by Jackie Minniti, The Island Reporter

Michael Lister is a writer whose roots go deep into Florida soil. He was born and raised in Wewahitchka, a small town in the Panhandle where his great-grandfather settled after leaving Mississippi. After earning his graduate degree in theology from Oral Roberts University, Lister returned home and took a job as a prison chaplain, the youngest in the Florida Department of Corrections. But he had already been bitten by the writing bug. “I always knew I wanted to write,” Lister says. “Since I had to do a lot of writing in graduate school, I decided to continue after graduation.” By 1997, he had completed his first novel, Power in the Blood, the story of John Jordan, a prison chaplain whose career, reputation, and life are imperiled when he witnesses the bloody death of an inmate. Praised as a “Taut, highly readable story that manages to deliver a few surprises and a unique hero” (Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel), this was the first in what would become a critically-acclaimed series of John Jordan jailhouse mysteries.

In 2000, Lister decided to follow what he calls his “passion and obsession” and become a full-time writer. “I love writing so much, I can’t imagine anything better. I’m so grateful to be doing this. There’s something mysterious about the process, about tapping into something transcendental.” And much of his inspiration comes from his surroundings. “The pace of small town life is conducive to writing. My hometown is like my little Walden.” He calls the Panhandle “the undiscovered part of Florida, an area that’s special and unique.”

The Panhandle plays an integral part in most of Lister’s works, particularly in his latest novel, Double Exposure. The story of a wildlife photographer who unexpectedly captures images of a young woman’s murder, Double Exposure is what Lister describes as “my heart on the page.” In addition to being a riveting page-turner, the book is a poem in prose about the wild beauty of the Florida Panhandle. The story resonates with Lister’s reverence for the land. “I’ve always been connected to the land. I think we lose something when we separate from it. It’s good for us to reconnect to the earth that we come from.” He hopes the Panhandle will learn from the mistakes made in other regions of Florida and will take care of its resources. In fact, Lister intends to donate the book’s proceeds to the Mother Earth Fund, an environmental group dedicated to preserving the area.

In addition to volunteering as a prison chaplain and spending time with his wife and three children, Lister is putting the finishing touches on his next novel, Thunder Beach, a mystery/thriller set at the Panama Beach motorcycle rally. Lister hopes his books will give readers a good reading experience on all levels. “There’s a place for entertainment, but I aspire to more than just that. I want to inspire my readers in some small way; to leave something lasting that will remain with them after the last page is turned.”

Monday, September 14, 2009

DOUBLE EXPOSURE is HERE! Order today. Please!



Be sure to use these numbers when you order:


Paperback | ISBN 978-0982520925 | $14.95

Hardcover | ISBN 978-0982520932 | $24.95



“Double Exposure” is absolutely riveting! Elegiac prose, insightful characterization and a wonderfully ingenious plot." Michael Connelly

"A Hitchcockian thriller. A spellbinding page-turner .” Booklist

"Lyrical, evocative prose, reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy‘s 'The Road.'” Panama City News Herald