PKD fan site contributor Dave Hyde (a.k.a. Lord Running Clam) has announced an exciting new event - a festival devoted exclusively to the work of Philip K. Dick appropriately titled "Philip K. Dick Festival" to be held in Colorado in summer 2010. He's still working on the exact date (August or September) but the web site is live and has more details. Thanks Dave for making this happen!

• Visit the Philip K. Dick Festival web site
• Check out Dave Hyde's PKDweb on this site

This late-breaking news comes from Skylaire Alfvegren of Los Angeles who is leading a tour of PKD's Fullerton, CA tomorrow.

"Come discover Philip K. Dick's Fullerton, with our gracious host and tour guide, the venerable Robert Larson, this Monday, September 21st. Convene at 3pm at the corner of Chapman and State College, or contact me as soon as possible to iron out carpooling options from Lost Angles. (Feel free to forward this invite to any PKD enthusiast you may know in town.)

Bring a favorite PKD quote, passage or story to share at the last stop, which is, thankfully, a bar. One that PKD drank in (and wrote a scene or two about). Email me directly for more info: Skylaire@gmail.com . "

A new, expanded and affordable edition of Anne Dick's excellent memoir about her life with Philip K. Dick, "Search for Philip K. Dick, 1928-1982" is now available. Highly recommended as one of the best secondary books about PKD and a critical component of any PKD collection. Enjoy and thanks Anne! From the promotional materials:

"Anne Dick's book is part memoir, and part a kind of detective novel, as she sifts through the details of her life with Philip K Dick, a prolific genius whose books and novels are being recognized as significant works of literature. Much of Dick's work, currently being celebrated in college courses and prestigious anthologies like The Library of America, consists of a kind of surreal autobiography and Anne's memoir helps us connect his fictional characters to his life. Philip K Dick was quite a character himself, both on and off the page, and Anne's memoir bravely explores her tumultuous relationship with this mercurial man in an attempt to better understand him and his writing. A touching aspect of this memoir is that it represents Anne's search as well."

• Visit Anne Dick's web site to find out more and order online

Linda Levy (now Castellani), who claims to be the inspiration for Philip K. Dick's enigmatic "Dark-Haired Girl" is offering a large set of correspondance and original Dick materials from 1972-1975 for auction. (Low estimate: $20,000). This is a unique and personal glimpse into the last few years of Phil's life. Linda has also set up a rather remarkable and detailed web site chronicling the often tumultous relationship and the materials. Happy bidding! Check it out here:

• PBA Galleries: PKD Letters Archive Auction
• Linda Levy's Dark-Haired Girl web site

From MovieWeb:

It seems that yet another adaptation from Philip K. Dick's library is moving forward. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Halcyon is bringing Flow My Tears, said The Policeman to the silver screen.

Halcyon signed a first-look deal in 2007 to adapt the remaining literary works from Dick that have not yet been adapted, and this 1974 Dick novel is the first film they will develop under that deal. Like most of Dick's works, the story is set in a dystopian future and centers on a celebrity who wakes up after an assassination attempt, only to realize that nobody knows who he is anymore.

No writer has been attached to the project as of yet. Dick's adaptations include the blockbusters Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report, which have grossed over $1 billion at the worldwide box office.

• Movieweb.com

Celebrate the life and work of Philip K. Dick at the third annual PKD Day/Readers and Researchers at England's Nottingham Trent University. From the web site:

The English Team at Nottingham Trent University invite you to the third of our annual days of discussion and celebration of Philip K. Dick�s remarkable writings. As in previous years, it is an informal event, designed to bring together enthusiasts and academics in a day of papers and discussions.

• Visit the PKD Day 3 web site

Paul Williams was a friend and early champion of Philip K. Dick before anyone had ever heard of him. He wrote the famous 1975 Rolling Stone article that launched PKD into the public eye. He was PKD's literary executor for many years after Dick's death in 1982. Paul is also a music critic who has been around the music scene seemingly forever. What a career and a tragedy that he suffered in this accident. Here's news about a benefit that has been organized on his behalf. If you're in Portland, please try and make it. He can use your help. Here's the news:

"Right now, Paul Williams, one of the pioneers of rock criticism, is in very serious trouble. As a 17-year-old college student in 1966, Williams founded the gloriously anarchic Crawdaddy! magazine, which predated both Rolling Stone and Creem. After he left Crawdaddy!, Williams sang in the background on the Plastic Ono Band's "Give Peace a Chance", published a series of books about Bob Dylan, and wrote a Rolling Stone article that helped repopularize the work of the cult sci-fi author Philip K. Dick.

In 1995, Williams suffered a traumatic brain injury in a bicycle accident, which may have caused early onset Alzheimer's. Last year, Williams' wife Cindy Lee Berryhill had to move him to an assisted living facility when she couldn't care for both him and their eight-year-old son. Right now, Williams' family is taking donations to help with his care. And given that Williams was working as a freelancer before his accident, their need is particularly great."

Paul Williams Benefit featuring
Dear Ether, Naming Names, Soft Tags & Lookbook
at Someday Lounge (125 NW 5th Ave)
May 9th. $6
Portland, OR

• Someday Lounge for tickets
• Paul Williams web site

Victoria Stewart's 800 Words: The Transmigration of Philip K. Dick plays May 28th - June 7th in a limited run in Minneapolis, MN. The theatrical production stars Luverne Seifert as the legendary science fiction author.

800 Words: The Transmigration of Philip K. Dick is based on the life of ground-breaking science fiction author, Philip K. Dick, complete with secret agents, Dick's dead sister and a talking cat. The play begins just as Philip's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep is about to be released as the Hollywood film Blade Runner. (Later films like Minority Report, Paycheck, Total Recall, A Scanner Darkly, and more, are also based on his work.) But Philip can't stop obsessing about visions he had years earlier when an extraterrestrial God spoke to him using artificial intelligence. Award-winning playwright Victoria Stewart uses uniquely theatrical conventions to create a surreal landscape where memories of these seminal events bleed into each other, fusing and merging in a funny, dark trip - not unlike a Philip K. Dick novel - where his recurrent obsessions of God, art, madness, time, fiction and reality come alive on stage.

Thursday, May 28 - Sunday, June 7
Thursday-Saturday @ 8 pm; Sunday @ 7 pm

@ The Playwrights' Center
2301 East Franklin Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55406
www.workhauscollective.org

This is a real treat for PKD fans. I'm looking forward to adding this series to my collection. Much better than the comic of Blade Runner!

BOOM! Studios, in partnership with Electric Shepherd Productions, proudly announces that worldwide best-selling sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick�s award-winning DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? is coming to comics this June. Called �a masterpiece ahead of its time, even today� and having served as the basis for the film BLADE RUNNER, BOOM! Studios is honored to present the complete novel transplanted into the comic book medium, mixing all new panel-to-panel continuity with the actual text from the novel in an innovative, ground-breaking 24-issue maxi-series.

�We are thrilled that DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? is being adapted for this audience by such a talented team. We�ve been incredibly impressed with BOOM!�s ability to create such a faithful interpretation of the original work without sacrificing their own original instincts and artistic sensibilities,� said Laura Leslie and Isa Dick Hackett of Electric Shepherd Productions. �Through this medium, readers will now have visual access to parts of the novel not explored in the film adaptation BLADE RUNNER.�

• Read the Press Release from the PKD estate
• Check out the Boom! Studios web site for preview artwork and more

The last two weeks have brought us news of two new Philip K. Dick film adaptations in the works.

The first is a remake of Total Recall (based on PKD's short story "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale). Since it's a remake of a movie from 1990, it's unclear how much (or little) of the source material will be part of the story. No news about casting or creative talent. Hopefully they'll keep the ambiguity of the ending. Here's the article from Hollywood Reporter.

The other movie is based on Dick's short story "The Adjustment Team". It's being called "The Adjustment Bureau" and is based on a script by George Nolfi ("Ocean's Eleven") who will also direct. Matt Damon will star in the movie about an organization that can change reality similar to Alex Proyas' Dark City. This version will have a strong love story. Should be interesting.

Here's the article from Variety.
And info from PKDWeb about the original short story .

Here's a new interview on Self-Publishing Review with PKD's last wife Tessa Dick about her reworking of his outline "The Owl in Daylight" (available now from Amazon.com), A Scanner Darkly, the Valis visions and other revelations about their lives together. She's also posted news about her revised PKD biography called "Philip K. Dick: Remembering Firebright" due in a few weeks on her blog It's A Philip K. Dick World.

• Tessa Dick Interview
• It's A Philip K. Dick World blog by Tessa Dick