The apple doesn't fall far from the tree

Make that apples in this case, as the offspring of two local writers make publishing deals.

First, 19-year-old Emmett Rensin, son of LAO's own David Rensin, has made profitable use of his required reading list of the classics with the sale of "Twitterature" to Penguin U.K. and U.S. Set for a December 2009 release, "Twitterature" answers the burning question -- what if the likes of Charles Dickens, Charlotte Bronte, William Shakespeare and Jack Kerouac had Twitter accounts?

While Emmett and his co-author were busy compressing the great books of the world into 20 tweets or less, journalist Marc Cooper's daughter quit her job as a union policy analyst to do a bit of writing of her own.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper spent a mere month expanding and expounding on AMC's "Mad Men" on her blog, "Mad Men Footnotes" when Harper Collins came calling. Some emails, some negotiations (hello -- union policy analyst) and voila! A book deal! Details at The Awl.

The kids make it all look so easy.