Adult Newsletter: January 2019

Up And Coming For Submission

NON-FICTION

Indian food offers exactly what many Americans desire: plant-centric cooking with nuanced, soul satisfying flavors, and thousands of years of health and wellness wisdom behind it. The long lists of spices that used to intimidate cooks are now embraced. Indians have known how to unlock the magic of spices for a long time and now the West is catching up. Award-winning cookbook author and food entrepreneur, Maya Kaimal has tracked these changes closely. Her successful multi-million dollar namesake brand was built with the goal of making it easy for Americans to enjoy Indian food. With her father’s South Indian roots and her mother’s New England ones, Kaimal has an instinct for how to bring genuine Indian home cooking to the American table. Her new book INDIAN DELICIOUSNESS reflects her comfort with bringing appealing Indian ingredients like yogurt, lime, turmeric, toasted cumin, coconut milk and ghee into foods we already enjoy, like salads, grilled meats and desserts. She also shares her time-tested favorites that every cook will want in their repertoire, like Chana Masala, Kerala Coconut Shrimp, and Lamb Vindaloo. The time is right for a cookbook that brings the best ideas of Indian cooking into our busy lives.

Leadership is an elusive concept. Companies, non-profits, and even the military often mistake other things—seniority, title, privilege—for leadership. But we all know a great leader when we come across one. George Christie certainly does. He spent decades as one of the most powerful Hells Angels leaders in the world. Where “leader” is another word for “target,” and where top dogs often wind up dead, in prison, or betrayed by their club brothers, Christie survived and thrived. Along the way, he kept a leadership journal, a record of his own leadership experiences and observations of other exemplary leaders from industry to politics, noting what worked, and what didn’t. THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO LEADERSHIP is the culmination of all that. It will be filled with actionable advice derived from the hard-won lessons George Christie gathered over a lifetime. From his stint as a Marine, to his experiences building successful businesses, to his long-term role as an outlaw club president, international spokesperson, and peacemaker, Christie honed his set of real-world, boots-on-the-ground codes of conduct. Readers will find unique, concrete guidance on essential leadership challenges, from how to negotiate to win, to effective strategies for truly inspiring followers, and techniques for dealing with the rare bad apples inside their organizations. Each “code” is illustrated with actual examples from George’s colorful life and the dangerous outlaw world. THE OUTLAW’S GUIDE TO LEADERSHIP will be a road map for leaders and aspiring leaders alike, one drawn by a man who made the journey with his life and freedom on the line.

If you were to take the average cost of a wedding in 2017—$34,000—invest it, and wait 10 years, you'd be able to travel to Paris for a week every year for the rest of your life. That's one good reason to bench a big wedding and, in fact, in recent years there’s been a surge of couples seeking an alternative to the traditional, overblown event, citing money as a primary factor. A 2017 survey of married couples showed that money was the top stressor while planning a wedding, with nearly 50 percent reporting they wish they had eloped. LET’S ELOPE is an update on the original 2001 book—the first and only of its kind on the market, co-authored by Scott Shaw and Lynn Beahan, who both eloped and are happily married to their partners today. Now, Shaw is joined by co-author Kim Olsen (who is considering eloping) for a new edition geared toward millennials, who, shouldering the burden of student loans and a challenging housing market, are avoiding the big traditional wedding in favor of a stable financial future. With themes of love, money, and travel, LET’S ELOPE offers comprehensive guidelines on the logistics of how exactly to prepare for an elopement, which, as Merriam-Webster acknowledges, has become shorthand for “a small wedding that is not financially insane.” The book shares tips on where and how to wed, providing insight on nitty-gritty details such as marriage laws by state and country; the etiquette of sharing the news with family and friends; the history of eloping, which goes back hundreds of years; and stories from couples who’ve eloped, including advice and anecdotes about how they spent the money they saved.

What if the trait you inherited was an urge to kill? Gene Lincoln and his grandson Luke Chang are killers. Were they prompted by DNA, or did they act out of their own volition? In 1973, Nancy Laws, a college coed, left her Wisconsin home and headed out on a Memorial Day camping trip. She arrived at the lake later than planned but was pleased when a neighboring camper offered her a hand setting up her tent. A friendly soul, Nancy accepted. Gene Lincoln would be the last stranger she’d ever meet. Four decades later, on a blinding summer’s day in 2012, Luke Chang, walked out of the public library, crossed the City Hall parking lot, and headed for the Pendleton, Oregon Travelodge. Without attracting anyone’s attention, the Marine entered Room 231, which the maid had previously unlocked. Amyjane Brandhagen, a 19-year-old local girl who had started work at the motel only a few days prior, would be found hours later splayed out on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood. By then Luke Chang was long gone. THE MURDER GENE by journalist Karen Spears Zacharias will be a riveting and thought-provoking book that examines the genetic predisposition for murder, and explores the markings of a violent brain, asking if it’s possible that society could turn to science to help stop our most heinous crimes.

Say you’re in a job that isn’t right, or a relationship that feels wrong. You have a problem you can’t solve or a mountain you can’t climb. Maybe you’re facing a transition such as a new job, a change in marital status, a baby, or retirement. If you feel stuck, ask yourself this question: What other choices can I imagine? Then listen to your answers. There’s nothing complicated about asking a question. There’s no 10-step process to memorize, no mantra to chant, no checklist to follow. The power of a question is not limited by language, culture, education, age, or IQ. Anyone can summon that power, to help solve any problem. If you ask yourself the right question, at the right time, you can change your life at the speed of thought. Questions feel like magic. Even scientists don’t know what happens in the brain when we ask ourselves a question. Choices are the key to change, but questions are the key to choices. MAGIC QUESTIONS: HOW TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE AT THE SPEED OF THOUGHT by Keith Ellis, now a nationally-renowned speaker, and an e-learning evangelist for Microsoft, is the first self-improvement book that provides what we crave from Google and Facebook: instant gratification.

The year 1940 was a time of uncertainty and fear in France, as the Nazis gained control of Europe, and anti-Semitic laws were introduced in Germany and beyond. The Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall, living in the South of France with his family, was desperately trying to find a way to escape before the Germans took over the country. So were Vladimir Nabokov, his Jewish wife, and their child. Hannah Arendt, widely considered one of the most important political philosophers of the twentieth century and her husband, were also frantically trying to flee to safety. They might all have perished in concentration camps if it weren’t for two brave men: Varian Fry, a 32-year-old American journalist, who was sent there by the Emergency Rescue Committee with $3,000 in cash and a list of 200 people to try and save, and Hiram Bingham, a U.S. diplomat who chose to challenge the State Department’s indifference and anti-Semitism, and defied his superiors’ direct orders at the cost of his own career. Fry later became known as the “American Schindler.” In THE REFUGEES, New York Times contributing writer Jacqueline Mroz tells the gripping story of how these two men saved more than 2,000 famous writers, artists, and scientists from the Nazis and certain death, using black-market funds, fake visas and passports, and secret mountain passages and sea routes, spiriting these refugees out of France. By rescuing these men and women, Fry and Bingham transformed the intellectual and cultural life of the U.S. and the world. Using letters, books, and first-hand accounts written by these artists and their rescuers, Mroz tells the spellbinding story of one of the most culturally significant and dangerous, yet least known rescue missions of World War II.

For more than 27 years, Seattle’s iconic award-winning vegetarian restaurant Café Flora has been at the forefront of utilizing local and sustainable produce to create imaginative vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free cuisine. In 2018, Café Flora’s second restaurant, Floret, opened at Seatac International Airport, to bring fresh, delicious food to the millions of travelers who pass through the airport each year. Now CAFÉ FLORA THROUGH THE SEASONS by Nat Stratton-Clarke, will bring their well-loved dishes into the home. The cookbook will be divided by the seasons, highlighting market produce, and provide a yearlong glimpse into life at Café Flora. This cookbook will have a broad appeal, as more and more people are giving vegetarian, vegan and gluten free cooking a try. Many are cutting back on meat as a practical compromise to benefit their bodies and the environment, with over seven million vegetarians, a growing number of flexitarians, and large numbers of people who are taking gluten out of their diet. A recent study showed that 43 million Americans regularly choose plant-based meals, whether or not they identify as vegetarian or vegan. CAFÉ FLORA THROUGH THE SEASONS will bring together those interested in eating locally and seasonally with those interested in meat-free or gluten-free cooking, on a delicious culinary exploration.

Joanna Franklin Bell’s daughter is a sociopath, and Joanna worries she made her that way. Her unease begins when toddler Cordelia whacks her grandmother in the head with a coffee mug. A toddler swinging a mug isn’t the concern—it’s the flat, blank look in her eyes while she does that gives Joanna, then a 21-year-old single mother, a chill. Fast-forward two decades and the mother-daughter relationship has gone from troubled to destroyed, with Cordelia living on her own in Miami, torturing boyfriends as she once tortured her family, and lambasting her mother on popular social media posts. Meanwhile, Joanna has married, had two more sons and reconnected with her long-lost college love: a man on the autism spectrum whose bluntness Joanna both craves and resents. In UNLOVABLE, an assembly of thirteen brutally vulnerable and stunningly fierce braided essays, Joanna unpacks her lifelong struggle to love an unlovable daughter alongside her all-consuming, unconsummated, and unreciprocated love for a man who is not her husband. As Joanna drills into these laden relationships, laying out her own worst transgressions, she uncovers fraught questions of nature vs. nurture vs. the unknown, inviting the reader’s judgment even as she generously offers an unforgettable portrait of the bounds—and boundlessness—of unconditional love. (Please note, this project is represented by Sharon Pelletier.)

Volcanologist, natural hazards expert, and founder of Blueprint Earth Jess Phoenix has dedicated her career to making scientific exploration accessible to as many people as possible. That work has taken her to jungles and glaciers across the globe as well as to university classrooms and Discovery Channel studios; she’s found herself at glittering cocktail parties in Manhattan’s elite Explorers Club and fixing a flat tire on the side of the world’s largest volcano with a ballpoint pen, bubblegum, and duct tape.  MISS ADVENTURE is the story of how she earned acceptance into the extraordinary world of exploration—and how her curiosity shoved her headlong into deep-sea submersibles, congressional races, and numerous pairs of Caterpillar work boots in the quest to open up the birthright of exploration and science to every human. Jess Phoenix has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Popular Science, Earth, Nature, Science, on CNN, NBC, CBS, PBS, Seeker, AJ+, The Verge, NPR, and more, and has built an active social media platform of 90k+ followers. MISS ADVENTURE is a hybrid of WILD and LAB GIRL that offers a much-needed kick in the pants for each and every one of us to get out of our comfort zones and start exploring our rapidly changing world. (Please note, this project is represented by Sharon Pelletier.)

The population explosion is over. The dominant demographic story of the twenty-first century will be progressive population decline on a global scale.  In THE HUMAN DIVIDEND: DISRUPTION AND OPPORTUNITY IN THE AGE OF POPULATION DECLINE, economist, professor and author Philip Auerswald and venture capitalist and physician Joon Yun argue the implications of this epochal shift are all around us. The global financial crisis. The refugee tsunami. The global surge in populism. All are consequences of the transition from population growth to population decline. Over forty percent of the world’s population already lives in nations with sub-replacement fertility, defined as a fertility rate below 2.1 children per woman. This list includes all of North America, all of Europe, all of East Asia (notably including China), and additional populous countries including Brazil and Iran. For some developed countries, including the U.S., sub-replacement fertility rates are masked by the influx of immigrants from developing countries whose populations are still growing. Yet, sub-replacement fertility rates are spreading rapidly to developing countries as their economies advance. Why is this happening? Simply put, because the world is becoming more prosperous. For over two centuries, people in country after country have displayed the same aggregate inclination: as they get wealthier, they have fewer children.  The bottom line is clear: The transition to global population decline is not a long-term, wait-and-see factor. It is a right-now, first-order, in-our-faces driver of capital movements and change on a global scale, and it has been for some time. Whether we’re ready for it or not, population decline is here. THE HUMAN DIVIDEND allows readers to harness the possibilities of what comes next. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)

Inequality in America manifests in many ways, but perhaps nowhere more so than in how we eat: the higher someone’s income and education, the higher quality their diet. But why does being rich or poor impact how we eat? For years, researchers, policymakers and foodies argued that rich and poor families eat differently because of their different access to healthy food. We now know food access explains 9 percent of socioeconomic differences in Americans’ diets. So, what accounts for the other 91 percent of the nutritional gap? In THE TASTE OF INEQUALITY, sociologist Priya Fielding-Singh draws on her years of ethnographic research on Americans families’ diets to tell the little-known story of that 91 percent. She shows that that being rich or poor in America doesn’t just impact people’s access to food. It impacts something even more fundamental: the meaning of food itself. Food holds tremendous meaning to families, but families’ different worlds imbue food with diverging meanings to them. These diverging meanings lead to dramatically different diets. Driven by vivid stories and voices of the families Fielding-Singh spent years interviewing and observing, THE TASTE OF INEQUALITY offers an on-the-ground account alongside a bird’s eye view of nutritional inequality in America. Short on judgment and long on empathy and evidence, the book will leave readers feeling less judgmental of how others put food on the table and with a deeper understanding of how they do too. Priya Fielding-Singh, Ph.D., is a Research Fellow at Stanford University’s School of Medicine, where she teaches, researches, and writes about diet and health disparities. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)

In 2015, twenty-one kids across America sued the federal government over climate change, arguing their constitutional rights to life, liberty and property were being violated. Theirs was to be the civil rights trial of our century. But it hasn’t happened. Instead, their day in court – Oct. 29, 2018 – slipped by while the Trump Administration deployed rare legal tactics to stymie the case, leaving our nation’s courts in a tangle and legal scholars aghast. Now, the plaintiffs’ lives describe a different story. From 11-year-old Levi Draheim, the playful beach comber from a barrier island in Florida, to 21-year-old Alex Loznak, the Columbia University student whose Oregon farm is threatened by wildfire, to Avery McRae, animal empath, each has a unique role. But they all hate it, they say, when people tell them they are America’s last hope to halt climate change. Why, they wonder, has our nation abdicated this responsibility to them?  AS THE WORLD BURNS is a story of the drastic consequence of the convenient half-measures of our time. Beginning with the trial that wasn’t, their tale intersects a year of cataclysm: the Dakota Access Pipeline, hurricanes battering the south, and the ravages of the unprecedented wildfires in California. Granted unparalleled access to the kids and reporting on the disasters that form an urgent backdrop to her story, investigative reporter and award-winning author Lee van der Voo raises critical questions of responsibility, both for a president and administration at war with the truth, and for the press and activists who hail these youth as saviors, shrugging off their own grown-up failures. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)

What makes a champion? Is it merely defeating all comers? Or is it something less quantifiable, an amalgamation of one’s habits, behaviors and attitudes? CHAMPIONS WITHOUT A RING tells the story of the famous New York Knicks teams of the 1990s who prepared, practiced and competed like champions, but fell agonizingly short of reaching their ultimate goal. The Knicks of the ‘90s were an eclectic group who took divergent, and in many cases, fascinating paths to New York, where they forged an identity as a rugged, relentless basketball team. Led by a superstar center, Patrick Ewing, and two seemingly dissimilar, but equally captivating coaches, Pat Riley and Jeff Van Gundy, the Knicks played David to Michael Jordan and the Bulls’ Goliath. Despite falling short of winning a championship, they were embraced as champions by New Yorkers, and their rivalries with the Bulls, Pacers and Heat helped define the NBA for a decade. Readers will thrill to rediscover the brilliance of Ewing and his colorful supporting cast—the indomitable Charles Oakley, Xavier “X-Man” McDaniel, and Latrell Spreewell, who famously found a home on the Knicks after attempting to choke his former coach. Through original interviews with players and coaches, author Paul Knepper (a former featured columnist for Bleacher Report) creates a lively narrative that celebrates the long-gone glory days at Madison Square Garden and shows how the Knicks’ unique brand of power and finesse changed how the game is played today. (Please note, John Rudolph is the agent on this project.)

The world today is incredibly stressful and millions of Americans are suffering from various anxiety disorders as a result. But what if we could flip the script and transform negative stress into positive stress? What if instead of headless chickens, stress could turn us into racehorses about to burst out of the gates -- brimming with energy, power, and potential? And what if we could do it without drugs and side-effects? High-performance coach Allison Task has spent more than a decade preparing people to perform at their best. believes Americans are on the cusp of a cultural shift in how we deal with stress and anxiety: she wants to empower people to shift their mindset and experience life with more joy. In DISTRESS TO EUSTRESS, Task reveals the strategies and secrets she’s used to help thousands of clients turn negative stress into positive stress, transforming their lives in the process. She shares academic research proving this is possible, illustrated by lively client success stories and effective takeaway suggestions for readers to easily implement these skills into their own lives. Task’s book will turn “eustress” into a mainstream concept that can transform millions of lives with simple tools and techniques. She has discussed the concept of eustress in outlets like Forbes, and on her regular podcast and national media appearances. DISTRESS TO EUSTRESS will be a welcome addition and major player in the self-improvement space. (Please note, Stacey Glick is the agent on this project.)

City girl Shreve Stockton lands in rural Wyoming after becoming enchanted by the mountain West during a cross-country ride on her Vespa. She trades her wanderlust for a new set of adventures when she adopts a dairy cow named Daisy. Through her bond with Daisy and Daisy's calves, and her work on her partner's cattle ranch, Stockton forges a profound connection with bovines and her extended “farmily”. She milks Daisy by hand, sunbathes on the back of her black Angus bull, tends to the ill and injured within the herd, and midwifes countless births and deaths. MEDITATIONS WITH COWS traverses Stockton's deeply intimate relationships with cattle via raw and visceral stories of the work and wonder of ranch life in modern America. MEDITATIONS WITH COWS is an immersive journey into understanding and honoring these gentle, strong, intuitive, and generous animals. Throughout the book, Stockton shares her personal narrative while she critiques the inhumane and environmentally destructive factory farm and feedlot system, and shares sustainable alternatives for ethical omnivores that prioritize the humane treatment of animals and responsible stewardship of the Earth. Stockton is the author of the bestselling The Daily Coyote: A Story of Love, Survival, and Trust in the Wilds of Wyoming; along with two popular blogs. (Please note, Stacey Glick is the agent on this project.)

In 1932, Roy Chapman Andrews, the president of the Explorers Club, told hundreds of female students at Barnard College that women were not adapted to exploration. Among others, Blair Niles, the founder of the Society of Women Geographers, was incensed, and the society duly invited him to defend his claims (he declined). A few weeks later, Niles watched as thirty members of the Society—women who had climbed mountains, explored jungles, and sunk beneath the ocean’s depths—mingled in the Hall. This was fitting company for Niles, an intrepid explorer, author, and advocate for oppressed and marginalized people in her own right. Yet, history remembers her—if her name is mentioned at all—only as the wife of William Beebe, a popular naturalist who gave unprecedented career opportunities to many women (one opportunity frequently offered was sex). Jayne Zanglein, labor lawyer, law professor, and author, delves into Niles’s story and her achievements in STRANGE JOURNEYS: HOW A GLOBETROTTING WOMAN NETWORKED HER WAY FROM DEVIL’S ISLAND TO GAY HARLEM, and explores why Niles, a fearless advocate, is mostly forgotten while the public regards her ex-husband as a hero. STRANGE JOURNEYS offers a unique look at a woman ahead her time and her contemporary female explorers in the early 20th century. (Please note, Amy Elizabeth Bishop is the agent on this project.)

Everyone loves this blockbuster movie trope: teens joke about a weird glitch on their social media network, then bored employees suddenly notice an Internet outage. Next a group of construction workers, moms at home, grouchy bikers at a bar, all start to experience the same technological glitches in their daily activities. Then, boom…sociopolitical chaos ensues. Except, here’s the irony. We’ve already been witnessing this sort of tech-gone-awry drama in real life as of late and it’s been no fun for any of us. From whispers at the office water cooler about Facebook “listening in” on our personal conversations, to breaking news about our social media data being sold, to…boom: that unprecedented political crisis that shook American democracy with Muslim bans and Confederate support in the White House, technology’s ability to wreak havoc on our society is no longer just the stuff of movies. Tech can now destroy societies through social media, launch attacks as large-scale as Russia’s and Cambridge Analytica’s, and dismantle entire democracies, without ever so much as pointing a gun. Tech has become the mainstay of all politics, and the average American just wants to know what the tech is going on with America’s future as a result. Journalist and cybersecurity expert China Okasi’s WHAT THE TECH IS GOING ON IN POLITICS? A MILLENNIAL’S GUIDE TO SAVING DEMOCRACY FROM HACKERS & TROLLS acutely unpacks hacking, trolling, social media weaponry, and tech’s relevance to American politics in a fresh, digestible way. Okasi warns against the technological shenanigans possible in future elections and provides solutions for shielding American politics from future cyberattacks. Furthermore, Okasi suggests methods for protecting ourselves (and our data) from the increasingly sophisticated and dynamic landscape of cyber warfare.

FICTION

There's a 12 Step Program for everything: alcohol, narcotics, cocaine, overeating, gambling, even video games. But this 12 Step Program, in a cabin hidden deep in the woods in Kentucky with between a dozen and twenty attendees is particularly unusual. A relapse from a member of Serial Killers Anonymous usually means someone other than the addict dies. The serial killer is an addict, chasing the thrill and satisfaction of the kill. When that leaves, he spends the rest of his kills trying to retrieve that feeling. Serial Killers Anonymous operates under the premise that a spiritual program is the only answer and it’s been working for this group for over 30 years. But just one slip up by one of the members could lead the police and the FBI to their cabin, condemning all the members to death row. Orson is one of the members of Serial Killers Anonymous. He hasn't tortured or killed a young woman in over a year and he owes it all to the program and his sponsor, Denver, who has over thirty years in the program. With only a year working the program, Orson falls in love with a woman he meets in Alcoholics Anonymous, which he also attends. Denver fears that a romantic relationship will be the thing that ruins everyone's anonymity, through pillow talk or trust. Things begin to go wrong. The cabin is spotted but not identified by "a stranger." Denver is sure it's because Orson didn't take his advice. Orson wonders if Denver's right. A stark and credibly unusual tale, SERIAL KILLERS ANONYMOUS by author, writer, and stand-up comedian Charley Warady, uses dark humor to convey that serial killers can be people, too. In the end, though…something's gotta give.

On a quiet December morning, Simone Archer cowers in a dark bathroom on the college campus where she works, terrified that the gunman prowling through her office will find her. In this desperate moment, her thoughts flash to one person: Connor. One year ago, when Simone met Connor, she was facing an entirely different terrifying situation: a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. The months that followed held both the excitement of new love and the tension of adjusting to life with an unpredictable chronic illness, as Simone grappled with treatment decisions and struggled to accept Connor’s love for her—until, ultimately, her insecurity broke their relationship. Now, her uncertainty over the future—with or without Connor—pales in the face of a graver crisis, one with many more lives at stake: with the shooter still at large in the building, Simone decides to disregard safety protocols to search for survivors, including her coworker and best friend Nikki, knowing that she’s taking her own life in her hands. As the fight for survival brings Simone face to face with a new kind of unfair, terrifying odds, the things that are worth fighting for stand out in stark relief: her friends, her family, and maybe, if she’s finally lucky, a second chance with Connor. Told in intersecting timelines as Simone’s year with Connor ticks forward to the fateful day that the gunman enters her office, THE SPEED OF LIGHT by Elissa Dickey is the perfect combination of heart-stirring emotion and heart-pounding adrenaline for fans of HOW TO WALK AWAY and ELEANOR OLIPHANT IS COMPLETELY FINE. (Please note, this project is represented by Sharon Pelletier.)

It’s late 1970 when Oliver Desmarais drops dead in his front yard, and in the year that follows, those closest to him search for new anchors. Oliver was a history professor at Clarendon College, a small boys’ liberal arts college with just four women on the faculty, and though his widow Virginia initially carried Oliver’s prejudices against these outspoken, never-married women, she begins to depend on them in the wake of his death. The Gang of Four, as he’d dubbed them, take Virginia under their wing, and soon she finds herself joining their work to bring the women’s movement—and coed students—to Clarendon. Meanwhile right under her nose, Virginia’s daughter Rebecca is adrift in a world without her dad and no longer recognizes the woman her mother is becoming. On campus, junior Sam Waxman is also left reeling from the death of his favorite professor, and allows a crush on a female-guest-student-turned-activist to draw him into a more radical orbit than he ever intended to be a part of. Paths converge one fraught night at a Clarendon frat party, where Sam’s entanglement in a badly planned anti-war action threatens Virginia’s newfound identity—and puts much more at stake for Rebecca. A tender, yet hearty debut in the vein of Meg Wolitzer and Chloe Benjamin, THE YEAR OF THE WOMAN by Sarah McCraw Crow is a story of grief and renewal, of shedding old identities and finding new ways to belong, beautifully woven against the backdrop of the rapid changes of the early Seventies—a time of change that will reverberate with the issues of equality we still struggle with today.  (Please note, this project is represented by Sharon Pelletier.)

Jeb is having a bad night. He’s been having a bad night for the last twelve years—from the moment he accepted a smartwatch implant and joined the Valin crime family. But this is something different. When he made the decision to steal money from his mafioso boss, in a city already filled with gangsters, prostitutes, and drugs, the last thing he expected was to get caught. Except that now he’s been hooked by a federal agent who has managed to hack into his smartwatch and is looking to take down his boss. And it turns out Jeb isn't the only thief. His childhood best friend Booker has gotten ahold of their boss's access key to the darknet—a digital black market, and the lynchpin to the Valin family's success. Jeb is given a choice: get the access key, or both his and Booker's thievery will be exposed—and forgiveness is hard to come by in Felicity Harbour. With no other option, Jeb is forced to accept the deal. He's no stranger to backstabbing, but his more than platonic emotions for Booker make total betrayal complicated. Not helping matters is the rising tension between the city's mob families, a strained relationship with his brother who’s high up in the Valin hierarchy, and the slow collapse of the few things that give Jeb's tenuous life structure. In THE ORPHANS OF FELICITY HARBOUR, a sharp and captivating debut by author Rachel Kellis, Jeb must confront his own moral ambiguity—and reckon with the fact that perhaps it makes him more a part of the family than he thought. (Please note, this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.)

Maybe someday Clay Peterbaugh will be one of those parenting-magazine gay dads, but for now he’s recovering from a severe mental breakdown. To shield his successful husband and pre-teen daughter from the ups and downs of his ever-changing dosages, Clay leans increasingly on his best friend Shannon. That’s why he loans her the twenty thousand dollars—she said she wants to move her children to a safer neighborhood after a shooting on their street. And how could Clay say no?  It’s only until her check comes in, a few days, tops. Which turns into a few weeks. After a month of excuses, Shannon is suddenly jailed for fraud and Clay discovers he’s not the only friend she has burned. As Clay and Mark argue over taking in Shannon’s two troubled kids—and as more and more of her lies unravel—the image Clay has of himself as a good friend, a good husband, and a good man starts to crumble. Playwright Douglas Wood’s debut novel THE WITHDRAWAL is a domestic drama set among the haves and have nots of Los Angeles about a man who might just have it all, if only he could keep it from slipping through his fingers. Darkly funny and full of longing, it’s Andrew Sean Greer’s Less meets Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road. (Please note, Lauren Abramo is the agent on this project.)

Rights Round Up

Audible acquired audio rights to AS DUST DANCES by Samantha Young and FOLSOM and JACKAL by Tarryn Fisher and Willow Aster. Audio rights to SOMETHING ABOUT US by Riley Hart and A GHOST IN THE GLAMOUR and A BOGIE IN THE BOAT by Elizabeth Hunter went to Tantor. Brilliance has rights to CHOKED by Beth Gardiner. Dreamscape acquired audio rights to TO LOVE A DARK LORD, SHADOW DANCE, A ROSE AT MIDNIGHT, PRINCE OF SWORDS, SEEN AND NOT HEARD, AGAINST THE WIND, ESCAPE OUT OF DARKNESS, DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN, AT THE EDGE OF THE SUN and HEARTLESS by Anne Stuart. Audio rights to JACKPOT and HELL-BENT by Jason Ryan went to Blackstone.

 Film rights to BLACK CHALK by Christopher Yates were optioned by Warner Brothers TV and GRIST MILL ROAD was optioned by Alloy. Stampede Development II, LLC optioned film rights to THE REVENGE OF MAGIC by James Riley. Kevin Grange’s DIRT MEDICINE was optioned for film by FOX. Film rights to PERFECTION by Julie Metz were optioned by Molly Ringwald and Danielle Trussoni. Jason Ryan’s HELL-BENT was optioned by Mosaic. AwesomenessTV optioned film rights to THE LAST HOUR by Diana Urban. Neal Bowers’s WORDS FOR THE TAKING was optioned for film by Decoder Media LLC, with Keith McQuirter producing.

 Yellow Kite/Hodder acquired UK rights to 13 THINGS MENTALLY STRONG WOMEN DON’T DO by Amy Morin, while Albatros acquired Czech rights, PRH Mexico acquired Spanish rights, and Eastone Group acquired Slovak rights, along with 13 THINGS MENTALLY STRONG PARENTS DO. Clever Media acquired Russian rights to Amy Harmon’s THE BIRD AND THE SWORD, and Konyvmolykepzo acquired Hungarian rights. German rights to WARDROBE MALFUNCTION and BREAKING HOLLYWOOD by Samantha Towle went to Sieben, while Newton Compton acquired Italian rights to REVVED and REVIVED. V&R Editoras acquired Spanish rights to PLAY ON by Samantha Young, and J’ai Lu acquired French rights to STARS OVER CASTLE HILL and VALENTINE, while Burda acquired Polish rights to AS DUST DANCES. Penelope Douglas’s BIRTHDAY GIRL was sold for Hebrew publication to Ahavot and BIRTHDAY GIRL, CORRUPT, HIDEAWAY, and PUNK 57 were sold for Brazilian Portuguese publication to The Gift Box.  Newton Compton acquired Italian rights for FROM LUKOV WITH LOVE by Mariana Zapata, while IBIS acquired Bulgarian rights. Italian rights to THE PROPOSAL by Katie Ashley were sold to Newton Compton. LITTLE PENGUIN GETS THE HICCUPS, LITTLE PENGUIN AND THE LOLLIPOP and LITTLE PENGUIN STAYS AWAKE by Tadgh Bentley sold for Turkish publication to Sola Publishing. Japanese rights for THE FORBIDDEN DUKE by Darcy Burke went to Hara-Shobo Co., Ltd. SAVE THE CAT! WRITES A NOVEL by Jessica Brody will be published in Japanese by Filmart-Sha Co., Ltd. Cara Brookins’s RISE will be published in Russian by Mann-Ivanov-Ferber. Catherine Bybee’s BINDING VOWS, SILENT VOWS, and REDEEMING VOWS will be published in German by Amazon Germany. Adel Publishing acquired Hebrew rights to REDEMPTION by Georgia Cates. THIEF by Tarryn Fisher went to Ahavot for Hebrew publication. LAST WOMAN STANDING by Amy Gentry went to XXI Szazad for Hungarian publication. Abbi Glines’s MISBEHAVING and BAD FOR YOU sold to Karakter for Dutch publication. Kim Holden’s BRIGHT SIDE and GUS were sold for Russian publication to Eksmo. Hope Edizioni acquired Italian rights to Elizabeth Hunter’s INK. JA Redmerski’s THE SWAN AND THE JACKAL and SEEDS OF INIQUITY were sold for French publication to Bragelonne. PEOPLE IN TROUBLE by Sarah Schulman went to Vintage Classics UK for UK publication.

RECENT SALES

World rights to ALL OUT 2 with Saundra Mitchell editing were sold to Harlequin Teen in a deal by Jim McCarthy.

Sharon Pelletier sold North American rights for THE HABIT OF RISING EARLY by Amy Gentry to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

BRIGHT SHINING WORLD by Josh Swiller went to Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

Harmony bought World rights to EASY KETO by Maya Krampf in a deal by Stacey Glick.

World English rights to Cristen Hemingway Jaynes’s ERNEST’S WAY: AN INTERNATIONAL GUIDE TO HEMINGWAY’S TRAVELS were sold to Pegasus Books.

Kosoko Jackson’s ACT UP went to Sourcebooks Fire in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

Jessica Papin sold THE STATE OF SCIENCE by Marc Zimmer to Prometheus in a World rights deal.

World English rights to Susan Loomis’s PLAT DU JOUR were sold to Countryman/W.W. Norton.

UNTIL GABE by Sydney Landon was sold to Berkley in a World rights deal.

World rights to two UNTITLED MYSTERY NOVELS and two UNTITLED WOMEN’S FICTION NOVELS by Juliet Blackwell were sold to Berkley in a deal by Jim McCarthy.

SPECIAL EDITION UNTITLED BOOKS 1-6 by Tara Taylor Quinn were sold to Harlequin in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.

Bill Greer’s 1872 SMACKDOWN: SEX, SUFFRAGE, AND SCANDAL IN GILDED AGE NEW YORK went to Chicago Review Press in a World rights deal by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.

World audio rights to HELLO LOVELIES by Hayley DeRoche sold to Audible Originals in a deal by Sharon Pelletier.

Lauren Abramo sold World rights to MEDIOCRE: A STORY OF WHITE MALE AMERICA by Ijeoma Oluo to Seal Press.

THE WIVES by Tarryn Fisher went to Graydon House in a World rights deal.

David Montague and Paige Bower’s KICK LIKE THE DEVIL was sold to Chicago Review Press in a World rights deal.

World rights to MAC UNCHEESE by Robin Robertson went to Harvard Common Press in a deal by Stacey Glick.

EVA AND EVE by Julie Metz went to Atria in a World rights deal.

Bryan Hoch’s THE SUBWAY SERIES was sold to Skyhorse for World rights by Stacey Glick.

North American rights to UNMAKING AMERICANS by Amanda Frost were sold to Beacon in a deal by Jessica Papin.

REPARATIONS by Ben Montgomery was sold to Little, Brown & Co. in a World rights deal.

Sara Zarr’s COURAGEOUS CREATIVITY was sold to Beaming Books in a World rights deal by Michael Bourret.

SNOWFLAKE by Dylan Marron went to Atria in a World rights deal by Lauren Abramo.

Nation Books bought World English rights to THE DISORDERED COSMOS by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein in a deal by Jessica Papin.

North American rights to LOCKER 37 and UNTITLED BOOK 2 by Aaron Starmer went to Penguin Workshop in a deal by Michael Bourret.

Stacey Glick sold World rights to Urvashi Pitre’s EVERY DAY EASY AIR FRYER 2 to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Hester Fox’s THE ORPHAN OF CEMETERY HILL and UNTITLED 2 were sold to Graydon House in a World rights deal.

UNTITLED WITCH LOVE STORY by Adrienne Tooley was sold to Simon Pulse in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

Montlake/Amazon bought World rights to THE CONSULTANTS 1-3 by Nancy Herkness.

World rights to I DREAM OF POPO by Livia Blackburne went to Roaring Brook in a deal by Jim McCarthy.

Michael Bourret sold World English rights to Deb Caletti’s A FLICKER OF COURAGE and UNTITLED BOOK 2 to Putnam.

Mike Kanaan’s MANAGING THE METEOR was sold to BenBella Books in a World rights deal.

Kensington bought World rights to THE BROKEN MASTER by Bernard Schaffer in a deal by Sharon Pelletier.

World rights to I DON’T WANT TO DIE POOR by Michael Arceneaux went to 37 Ink in a deal by Jim McCarthy.

Stacey Glick sold World English rights to GENERATION TAGGED by Stacey Steinberg to Sourcebooks.

John Rudolph sold AN ALPHABET OF HUGS by Emily Snape to Feiwel and Friends for North American rights.

Princeton University Press bought World rights to SHOCK VALUE: THE LIFE STORY OF ELECTRICITY by Tim Jorgenson in a deal by Jessica Papin.

North American rights to ALTERNATIVE HEALING METHODS by Vannoy Fite went to Llewellyn.

Sharon Pelletier sold World rights to BEHIND THE RED DOOR by Megan Collins to Atria.

Christine Virnig’s GOAT DUNG FOR DINNER was sold to Holt in a World English rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

Sterling bought World rights to HUBBLE: 30 YEARS OF AMAZING DISCOVERIES AND IMAGES in a deal by Michael Bourret.