Besides being an Oscar-winning actor, Tom Hanks is also known for his love of typewriters. His passion for these old-fashioned mechanisms has inspired him to write a set of short stories, which will be published by Knopf. The stories will be based on typewriters from his personal collection. The actor has had an interest in these devices for over three decades.
"I've been collecting typewriters for no particular reason since 1978-both manual and portable machines dating from the thirties to the nineties," Hanks said in a statement. "The stories are not about the typewriters themselves, but rather, the stories are something that might have been written on one of them."
Hanks released an iPad app for other typewriter enthusiasts called Hanx Writer earlier this year. The app imitates the experience of using a typewriter on a tablet, including the clacking noises of the keys and the paper moving when you reach a new line. The actor has also been in the writing mood lately, publishing the short story "Alan Bean Plus Four" in the New Yorker last month. The story, about a group of friends who travel to the moon, noticeably had no mention of typewriters.
The book doesn't have a title or a release date yet, but the real question is: which typewriter will Hanks use to write it?
