Tom Hanks to pen book of short stories inspired by his typewriter collection

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Tom Hanks loves typewriters so much that he's planning a book of short stories inspired by them.

The 58-year-old actor, who recently released a typewriter app, inked a book deal with New York City-based publisher Knopf.

Hanks said in a release on Monday that he would publish short stories that seem like they were written on an old-fashioned manual typewriter.

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

Hanks described typewriters as "beautiful works of art" in a September interview with NPR. Last month, The New Yorker published his first-ever short story, "Alan Bean Plus Four."

"I've been around great storytellers all my life and, like an enthusiastic student, I want to tell some of my own," Hanks told The New Yorker. "And I read so much nonfiction that the details stack up in my head and need a rearranging sometimes."

Knopf has yet to announce a release date.