Tom Hanks to publish short story collection with Knopf

Tom Hanks -- yes, Oscar-winning movie star Tom Hanks -- will publish a short story collection with Knopf, the publisher announced Monday. The book of short fiction is still untitled, and its release date has not yet been set.

One thing is known about the book: Its stories will be inspired by Hanks’ collection of typewriters.

In a release, Hanks said, “I’ve been collecting typewriters for no particular reason since 1978 – both manual and portable machines dating from the thirties to the nineties. The stories are not about the typewriters themselves, but rather, the stories are something that might have been written on one of them.”

Last month, Hanks published his first short story ever in no less than the New Yorker. “Alan Bean Plus Four” was said to be inspired by Hanks’ film and television work around the space program -- “Apollo 13” and “From the Earth to the Moon” -- and not a typewriter. (Maybe a typewriter too. We will see).

Asked by New Yorker Fiction Editor Deborah Treisman about why he decided to write a short story, Hanks replied, “I’ve been around great storytellers all my life and, like an enthusiastic student, I want to tell some of my own. And I read so much nonfiction that the details stack up in my head and need a rearranging sometimes.”

Hanks’ long Hollywood career includes blockbusters and critically-acclaimed films, spanning humor and drama, performing television roles and voicing animated film characters. His movies include “Captain Phillips,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Splash,” “Forrest Gump,” “Toy Story,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Philadelphia,” and the literary adaptations “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” “Cloud Atlas” and “The Da Vinci Code.”

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