Beiruting News

An actor, director and producer, Tom Hanks now has an additional job description: author.

Hanks is writing a collection of short stories that will be published by Alfred A. Knopf.

In a statement, Knopf said the stories will be "loosely connected to photographs of typewriters from Hanks' personal collection." The New Yorker published Hanks' first work of fiction - "Alan Bean Plus Four" - in October.

"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. "The stories are not about the typewriters themselves, but rather, the stories are something that might have been written on one of them."

No publication date has been set for the book, which hasn't been given a title.

Born in Concord, Calif., in 1956, Hanks is joining a growing group of actors who are taking up fiction writing. Others who have recently published books include James Franco, B.J. Novak and Molly Ringwald.

As to why he is writing fiction now, Hanks told The New Yorker that "I've been around great storytellers all my life and, like an enthusiastic student, I want to tell some of my own."