Augusten Burroughs sells film rights to not-yet-written memoir

Variety reports that out author Augusten Burroughs (Running With Scissors, Dry) has sold the rights to his next memoir to Universal. The upcoming work is part of Burroughs's multimillion-dollar, three-book deal with St. Martin's Press. Burroughs says the new book will be about his relationship with his father. "It's a story that I've wanted to write for years and years," Burroughs told Variety, "but it could not be written until my father passed away. It has two narratives. One of the narratives are stories from when I was young with my dad, and he displayed emotionally distant and very curious and very sadistic behavior." The author added that the as-yet-untitled tome, which he expects to publish in 2007 or 2008, would have a humorous and heartbreaking tone similar to Scissors. Producing the film version--which Burroughs will write himself--will be Lucy Fisher and Douglas Wick of Red Wagon, the company currently producing the screen adaptations of the bestsellers Jarhead and Memoirs of a Geisha. Openly gay writer-director Ryan Murphy (TV's Nip/Tuck) recently wrapped shooting on the film version of Scissors, starring Annette Bening as Burroughs's mother.