Adult Newsletter: January 2023

Up And Coming For Submission

FICTION

For fans of Where the Crawdads Sing comes MIDDLETIDE, a sparkling debut novel that is as much an ode to the deep beauty of the Pacific Northwest as it is a page turning literary thriller. Out of money and motivation, thirty-three-year-old Elijah returns to his empty childhood home to lick the wounds of his failed writing career. Hungry for purpose, he throws himself into restoring the ramshackle cabin his father left behind and rekindling his relationship with the extraordinary girl from the reservation he was never able to forget. But, his new life is turned upside down when the town’s beautiful doctor, with whom Elijah shares a tumultuous past, is found dead on his property in a crime ripped straight from the pages of his book. As the small, Puget Sound town of Point Orchards turns against him, Elijah must fight for his innocence against an unexpected foe who is close and cunning enough to flawlessly frame him for murder. Known for her accomplishments as a professional marathon runner, Sarah Crouch is a fresh voice in the writing world who lends a literary twist to the commercial plotline of this compelling novel. 

What does it mean to be free? A white-collar job and a 401k, fancy preschool and organic kale, access to modern medical care? The ability to choose a doctor, a school, a political party? Or something else entirely: the power to give birth, live, and die completely on your own terms? Virginia, a pregnant millennial woman working an underpaid job in publishing and facing an uncertain future, largely believes in the system. Yet after a series of humiliating prenatal appointments in which she is bullied for wanting a home birth, Virginia becomes riddled with doubts. Browsing Instagram, she discovers Ella: a polarizing influencer and mother of nine who advocates for free birth. Ella is starting a revolutionary community of free birthers on the remote Pacific coast of Oaxaca, Mexico. Captivated by Ella’s posts excoriating the miseries of motherhood in the system, Virginia, at 16 weeks pregnant, flees to Oaxaca. There, she discovers a world of women who reshape her understanding of herself and her culture – and force a devastating reckoning with what it means to be free. FULL BODY YES, the debut novel from acclaimed nonfiction writer Sarah Menkedick – whose essay collection Homing Instincts was longlisted for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, and whose second book Ordinary Insanity received stellar reviews– takes the reader on a wild ride to Mexico, with a diverse, fearless group of women who are willing to risk everything to escape the clutches of a dehumanizing system.

Surgeon Vivi Jensen and her husband, business exec Rolly Farrow, enjoy an idyllic marriage — at least to the degree that any marriage can be described as idyllic. They disagree on topics both small (the likability of Rolly’s closest friend Everett) and large (the ethics of Rolly’s biotechnology company) but initially maintain a united front when a long-forgotten figure from the past emerges to torment them. After Rolly is accused of murder, his life unravels in brutal fashion: their children are at risk, his career is threatened, and he faces imprisonment, even as it becomes clear that he is concealing one of the most spectacular secrets of all time. Known for complex and nuanced characters and propulsive storylines, Kimmery Martin is the acclaimed author of previous novels. Set in the same fictional universe as her most recent book Doctors and Friends, THE AMORTALS is a breathtaking, genre-bending narrative combining science, friendship, marriage, immortality, revenge … and impulsive, unreliable billionaires.

Bianca Goodwin-Chen is a 39-year-old married mother of two, a yoga instructor, and an all-but-dissertation graduate student planning to finish up her PhD…one of these days. Her best friend from college, Jenny Yamamoto, is a former attorney who finds herself broke and pregnant with no idea who the father is. One possible baby daddy? Jonah Garcia, her off-again-on-again love interest since he, Jenny, and Bianca all met working on their college newspaper twenty years earlier on the verge of Y2K. Bianca hates getting sucked into Jenny’s chaos yet again but, against her better judgment, she agrees to be her friend’s birth partner. But when Jonah’s ex-wife shows up in their hypnobirthing course and guesses that the baby might be his, Jenny’s pregnancy becomes the catalyst for the past repeating, forcing Bianca to confront her feelings about Jonah and envy of her frenemy’s seemingly easy but accidental pregnancy. Set in Los Angeles in 2019, Emi K. Benn’s ONE MORE TIME is a madcap, contemporary comedy of manners that takes on love, female friendship, Asian-American identity, infertility, geriatric pregnancy, capitalism, nostalgia for the 1990s, and the Great Recession of ‘08 with biting humor and crackling dialogue. Calling to mind the friendship story of Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by way of Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings and Sally Rooney’s Beautiful World, Where Are You, it is a thrilling comedy with teeth from a debut novelist with a delightfully assured voice. (Please note, Jim McCarthy is the agent on this project.)

Nikki Serafino is enjoying the sunset from her boat in her beloved port city of Naples, Italy when she discovers the body of a strangled man in the warm waters of the bay. As an investigator with a security unit tasked with liaison between local authorities and the US military, Nikki is certainly no stranger to violence and organized crime, but this case grows complicated when the victim turns out to be a US Navy captain stationed at the nearby military base—and when the autopsy reveals that his body has been boiled. As she delves into the case, Nikki unearths connections linking the murder and her own complicated history as a daughter of Naples. To catch a killer, Nikki must enter a dangerous world from a difficult past she wanted to leave behind. A richly textured and mercilessly gripping debut, MAY THE WOLF DIE by Elizabeth Heider brings the character-driven crime fiction of Dervla McTiernan and Jane Harper to the streets of present-day Naples, exploring the dynamics of people trapped in the currents of organized crime, in the unyielding gears of the military, and in the pain of their own family legacies. Elizabeth Heider lived in Italy for several years, working as a research analyst for the US Navy. She's currently a scientist at the European Space Agency and her short fiction has earned recognition from the Santa Fe Writer Awards and the New Century Writer Awards. (Please note, Sharon Pelletier is the agent on this project.)

Camille is an obedient zookeeper at the world’s last zoo, an elite theme park on the island of Alcatraz. Life on the mainland—only a mile across the bay but remote as another planet—is disintegrating as the once-wild world teeters on the brink of extinction, and Camille trains her gaze firmly on her beloved creatures, unable to imagine a future without them. Her comfortable routine is rattled when an enigmatic new keeper named Sailor arrives from the now-closed Paris Zoo and Camille is assigned to show her the ropes—and the rules. But Sailor isn’t so easy to tame. As the friendship between the two women grows, so does the danger of the ideas Sailor brings back from her mysterious trips to the mainland.  When she unveils her final, desperate plan to Camille—smuggling the zoo’s prized and ailing crocodile off the island to a mythical Eden where wild animals can live freely— the two find themselves hurtling toward painful sacrifices, staring down the chilling prospect of their own extinction. THE ISLAND OF LAST THINGS by Emma Sloley is a soaring, propulsive, and unforgettably poignant experience in the vein of Emily St. John Mandel and Charlotte McConaghy. Emma Sloley is a two-time MacDowell fellow and Bread Loaf scholar. In addition to her debut novel, DISASTER’S CHILDREN, her work has been published in Literary Hub, Catapult, Joyland, The Common, Yemassee journal, and the Masters Review Anthology, among many others. (Please note, Sharon Pelletier is the agent on this project.)

Pasadena, 2023: Adventure documentarian Perry Wright’s estranged grandmother Marguerite, founder of a cosmetics empire, has died, leaving Perry one last command: read eight letters about Marguerite’s past and then film a documentary about her legacy.   Perry reluctantly agrees—seeing it as a chance to restore her mother’s legacy, whose death she blames Marguerite for. Her plan is to finish the documentary and then leave and never look back, but when the letters become increasingly disturbing, and unsettling things begin to happen in the present day, Perry realizes the question is not whether she will be able to put the past behind her, but whether she will be able to survive it at all. Pasadena, 1947: 19-year-old Marguerite Wright doesn’t know exactly what she wants, only that she wants more than being a poor nobody in a rich town. Wealthy rocket engineer John Cooper seems like her answer to “more”—never mind that he’s married. But when she becomes pregnant and he takes her into his home, she realizes that John’s version of more is actually quite complicated. The “philosophy club” he runs in his basement isn’t discussing philosophy at all—it’s a black magic cult that believes the baby in her womb is the foretold leader who will usher in a new, magical world. Faced with increasing danger, Marguerite must decide whether to stay--or whether to take more for herself. Loosely inspired by true events, BABYLON by Diana Biller is a lush, romantic, thrilling dual timeline historical/contemporary novel about legacy…and consequences. (Please note, this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.)

Inside a small, nameless pawnshop in Tokyo, hidden behind a ramen restaurant’s door, regrets are traded for peace of mind and exquisite green tea and discarded dreams fetch a very good price. Only those who are lost find it. On Hana Ishikawa’s first morning as its new owner, she wakes up to find her father Toshio missing, the pawnshop ransacked, and the shop’s most precious acquisition stolen. Worse, the Shiikuin, beings that come to collect the pawnshop acquisitions are due, and she knows the terrible price of losing any of the vault’s contents all too well. As Hana considers the clues her father has left behind, she begins to suspect that Toshio’s disappearance has something to do with her dead mother. At a crossroads, her choice is made by a young physicist named Keishin Minatozaki, a most unusual client that appears at her door, offering help instead of seeking it. Together, they sink into a mystical world, searching for Toshio in the clues he’s left. They travel through rain puddles, hitch rides on paper cranes and rumors, and dash through a night market in the clouds, all while trying to outrun the Shiikuin. But as they get closer to finding a heartbreaking truth, Hana must make a cruel, secret trade of her own. Samantha Sotto-Yambao’s WATER MOON is a darkly beautiful speculative mystery that explores a hidden Japan where choice is forbidden and fate is a map tattooed on your skin. (Please note, this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.)

Divorced and dispirited, forty-year-old Angelina Lee returns to Seoul to search for the remnants of her Korean family after her mother, Gongju, commits suicide. When she discovers her mother had a missing sister, Angelina embarks on a quest to find her aunt, Sunyuh, who she learns was a victim of the Japanese Imperial Army’s sexual slavery. Angelina’s quest leads her from Seoul to Jeju Island to Bangkok, Thailand, to New York City, while entangled with two men: Lars, a friend from her past, and Keisuke, a Japanese American journalist. In this multigenerational novel spanning the years from World War II to contemporary time, the stories of Angelina, Gongju, and Sunyuh are told from each woman’s distinct point of view. Combining Pachinko’s element of Koreans in the diaspora with Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah gem of a modern love story, THE LIGHTNESS OF STONE ANGELS by Helena Rho asks difficult questions about loss and love and family: How do you go on after you have endured unspeakable trauma? What constitutes forgiveness? Who makes up a family? What is true love? (Please note, this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.)

How did Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald go from being the life of the party in the 1920s to being the unwanted guest by the 1930s?  In those ten years, Zelda’s fragile, artistic spirit has been eclipsed by her celebrated husband, and a host of hardships have undermined her marriage. When Scott announces a move to Asheville, Zelda feels giddy at the prospect of mending their marriage.  Instead, Scott commits her to Asheville’s Highland Hospital -- a sanatorium for those with “nervous disease.”  Scott argues that Highland, with its tennis courts and luxurious amenities, is a resort.  Zelda isn’t fooled. Her husband blames her for their dire financial situation and his writer’s block. This is his way out of their marriage without suffering the stigma of divorce.  But, after a rocky start at Highland, Zelda finds allies in Grace Potter Carroll, a world-class concert pianist, and Anna Hart, who is rumored to be a secret Vanderbilt heir. The only thing the three women have in common is the crime of being inconvenient women—all locked away because society didn’t know what to do with them. With each other’s help, the unlikely trio learns that society’s labels don’t define them and that together they are stronger and more capable than anyone believes. AFTER THE PARTY picks up where Elizabeth Thompson’s first novel, Lost in Paris, ended by portraying a little-known aspect of the original flapper’s life.   (Please note, Ann Leslie Tuttle is the agent on this project.) 

Every baby faces their first milestone at one minute after birth when they are given an Apgar score—the standard that has helped to save the lives of at-risk newborns since the mid-twentieth century and is still used throughout the world. Yet so little is known and written about the woman who created it—Dr. Virginia Apgar. Drawing on letters housed at Mount Holyoke and the Columbia University Hospital, Nancy J. Fagan’s UNDER HER SKIN is a work of historical fiction that provides a fascinating glimpse into what it was like for a single woman living in New York City who defied gender stereotypes in the post WWII, male-dominated medical establishment. Dr. Apgar not only tackled misogyny on a daily basis but also overcame it to become the first female anesthesia professor in America. She provided valuable research into diseases such as asthma and German measles at the March of Dimes. But her personal life as an unmarried woman who was also a concert violist and would-be pilot was out-of-step with what society expected for women at the time, as was her close, long-time relationship with a married woman. Readers who love medical history as detailed in Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict, Women in White Coats by Olivia Campbell, and The Doctors Blackwell by Janice P. Nimura will welcome this historical fiction debut by Nancy J. Fagan, a former obstetrical nurse who used the Apgar score on a daily basis. (Please note, Ann Leslie Tuttle is the agent for this project.) 

A group of VIPs running the gamut from a washed-up 80s rocker, celebrity chef, and a gregarious weatherman to a trend-setting influencer are all invited to an exclusive preview of the newly constructed Zakaryan Museum of Human Nature. One-hundred years in the making, the “müze” is located on a private Aegean island and is the dying gift of Turkish billionaire Hamit Can to his late wife. The patrons expect an indulgent, all-expense-paid weekend getaway that will not only embellish their respective careers but also offer an exclusive first look at this mysterious collection dating back to the Ottoman Empire.  What they don’t expect is murder. As each item on exhibit begins to reflect an eerie similarity to their viewer’s darkest secret, the seemingly random guests start questioning what brought them to this remote Aegean island. Are the chain of strange events being orchestrated by a human hand—indicating a twisted killer in their midst—or by something altogether inhuman linked to the ancient artifacts themselves?  Which is even more evil? And how do they survive their price of admission?   MÜZE by Carolyne Topdjian is a tensely woven Armenian gothic that blends the occultism of Night at the Museum with the atmospheric suspense of The Guest List. (Please note, Ann Leslie Tuttle is the agent on this project.)

NON-FICTION

From Cathryn Michon, co-screenwriter of the blockbuster film A Dog’s Purpose, and talented actress, comic, and author, comes a richly illustrated book narrated by your dog in Heaven. I’M STILL HERE: A POEM FROM YOUR ANGEL DOG will make the perfect gift for dog lovers of all ages, especially those who have recently lost their beloved companions. With a foreword from the author’s husband and #1 NYT bestselling author W. Bruce Cameron, I’M STILL HERE explains what the couple and their vast community on social media believes: sometimes our dogs come back to us, sometimes they send a friend to be with us, but in the end, we all meet again.

When world champion chess master Magnus Carlsen accused American prodigy Hans Moke Niemann of cheating, it didn’t just ignite a global controversy, a $100 million lawsuit and an existential crisis for a classic game. Inside a world of geniuses, jealousy and paranoia, it set off a bomb that had been ticking for years. What had been seen from the outside as a sleepy, stuffy game turned out to be a vipers' nest of competing interests, backbiting, and ego involving some of the sharpest analytical minds on the planet. GRANDMASTERS, by Wall Street Journal reporter Andrew Beaton, takes readers into this rollicking universe because, as spicy as the cheating scandal has been, the backbone of the drama is even more outrageous. From internet celebrity to spiraling financial stakes, the hilarious and petty professional chess scene couldn't be further from the dull afternoon clubs we knew in middle school. GRANDMASTERS creates a world—and then shows how kindling had been amassing for years to eventually light that world on fire. This is a story of how money, technology and suspicion transformed an industry over the course of decades, and how a single allegation sent it into chaos. Where some saw precocious brilliance, others saw brazen fraud as an international audience attempted to solve a mystery: Was teenager Hans Moke Niemann the Elizabeth Holmes of chess?

In March 1971, a gifted Berkeley student named Terence McKenna, grieving over his mother's recent death, plunged into the Colombian Amazon in search of exotic hallucinogens, including what drug enthusiasts were just beginning to call "magic mushrooms.” With him was a ragtag band of friends – “psychonauts," they called themselves, early explorers of powerful psychedelics. Surviving on a diet of wild rice and plantains, they gobbled "heroic doses" of mushrooms and encountered flying saucers, "violet psychofluids" on the forest floor, and James and Nora Joyce disguised as chickens. This was no escapist hippy holiday. A budding scientist at Berkeley, Terence believed hallucinogens would lead to the discovery of a missing link between consciousness and language. "[A]n unbelievable dimension of freedom," he wrote, lay at the end of their journey. In THE PSYCHONAUTS OF LA CHORRERA, John O’Connor takes readers on the wild and strange trip of Terence and his fellow psychonauts in the Amazon. Centered around O’Connor’s journey to La Chorrera, ancestral home to the Witoto people, in search of the mystical mushroom Stropharia cubensis, THE PSYCHONAUTS OF LA CHORRERA explores the fascinating lives of the men and women who took part in this forgotten experiment. Dipping into the “new science of psychedelics,” it investigates whether the “cosmic dimensions” opened by the hallucinogens tendered any real scientific or therapeutic discoveries or were merely figments of the imaginations.

Having managed teams, projects, record labels, a Shaolin monk, a kung fu temple, and some of the greatest talent of our generation, including all three 3-letter members of the Wu-Tang Clan—ODB (RIP), GZA, and RZA—hip-hop legend and author of the memoir The Baddest Bitch in the Room, Sophia Chang finally answers the call to share the pearls, spread the love, and drop the mic. In her new book MANAGING, Chang will share the lessons she’s learned over her dizzyingly diverse 35-year career about getting our lives under control, determining our path, and embarking upon the journey with purpose, passion, and panache. MANAGING will feature her inimitable voice which exists at the intersection of the pithy and the profane as well as personal anecdotes and interviews with her stunning array of profoundly accomplished friends--many of them mentors in Unlock Her Potential, a program she founded that provides mentorship for women of color—including Jim Jarmusch, Pamela Adlon, and Michael Mann. Sophia will illustrate that there are no secrets to managing the lives and careers we strive for: the journey can be hard, but we can come to embrace the steps it takes to get to our destination. (Please note, this project is represented by Lauren Abramo.­)

The police killings of Trayvon Martin, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and other Black men and women evoked painful memories of bygone lynchings and sparked a slew of national and international protests and discussions about anti-Black racism. In PREDATORY GOVERNANCE, Harvard and Yale trained law professor, Bernadette Atuahene, seeks to expand the focus of our nation’s racial justice conversation from the physical violence that state agents exert to the less conspicuous, but intensely damaging bureaucratic violence that they routinely inflict. Based on over five years of ethnographic research, litigation, and community organizing around Detroit’s illegally inflated property taxes and its resulting tax foreclosure epidemic, PREDATORY GOVERNANCE highlights an underreported national phenomenon: public agencies that replenish public coffers through racist policies (or what others sometimes call institutional or structural racism). By following the lives of two grandfathers who migrated to Detroit at the turn of the twentieth century to work at Ford Motor Company—a Black sharecropper from North Carolina and a white sharecropper from Italy—and their grandchildren, Atuahene tells a riveting, braided tale about racist policies, including what they look and feel like, where and how they take root, why they advance and flourish, who they impact, who profits, and, of course, what it takes to dismantle them. Atuahene is the James E. Jones Chair at the University of Wisconsin Law School and her work has appeared in the New York Times, LA Times, NPR’s Democracy Now!, and the Washington Post among others. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)

Our brain is the source of our thoughts, feelings, dreams and actions, and in recent decades, neuroscience has revealed fascinating details about how it works. But how do we know what we know? In CIRCUIT BREAKER: NOTES ON A NEUROSCIENTIST’S APPRENTICESHIP AND THE TOOLS WE USE TO PICK YOUR BRAIN, Dr. Anna Chambers takes us inside a state-of-the-art brain research laboratory. Here, we learn how cutting-edge tools can manipulate memories, make brain cells glow in the dark, and record signals from thousands of neurons at once. From the delicate electrodes that enable a child to hear for the first time, to the genetic engineering techniques that allow us to control the brain with lasers, CIRCUIT BREAKER weaves down-to-earth explanations of the mind-bending instruments of neuroscience with the little-known stories of the scientists who helped to create them. In this rapidly expanding field, unprecedented discoveries may be “all in a day’s work,” and thus it is through the structure of a typical (but altogether wondrous) day--from breakfast with her toddler to peering into “a rig” and marveling at the elegant branches of a living brain cell—that Chambers invites us into spaces where few non-scientists ever venture. Anna R. Chambers is a neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School who specializes in research on the brain’s mechanisms for daydreaming, sleep, memory, and hearing. She most recently led a research group in the Laboratory for Neural Computation at the University of Oslo. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)

In THE LAND OF SCHNITZEL AND STRAWBERRIES, Washington Post journalist Miriam Berger offers a fresh perspective on life and politics in one of the world’s most contested regions by following how food has helped entrench divides and inequalities between and among Israelis and Palestinians.  Drawing from years of reporting from Jerusalem as a freelance journalist and now foreign affairs reporter for the Post, Berger traverses kitchens, fields, factories, kiosks, and supermarkets across Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza to explain how inextricably interconnected the foods of the peoples from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea have become. At the same time, she shows how food policies and practices, intentionally or not, have deepened divisions and systems of inequalities between Israelis and Palestinians.  Part original reportage and part travelogue, Berger uses her rare access as a Hebrew and Arabic speaking American journalist to introduce readers to people, places, conditions, and quandaries they may not otherwise encounter. From Gazan strawberry farmers to Jewish kashrut supervisors, Palestinian dairy factories and Israeli military kitchens, Berger offers timely insight into the trends and tensions that dominate headlines from the region.  Berger has reported for over two dozen publications, including New York Times, Guardian, BBC, Reuters and Associated Press, in addition to the Post. She holds a master’s degree in modern Middle Eastern studies from Oxford University and was a Fulbright research grantee in Cairo. The Overseas Press Club Foundation, International Women’s Media Foundation and Pulitzer Center have also supported her work. (Please note, this project is represented by Jessica Papin.)

In MOVE ON UP: How Black-Owned Record Labels Shaped the Sounds of American Music, music writer Ashawnta Jackson (NPR, Wax Poetics, Bandcamp, and a forthcoming book on soul-folk for the 33 1/3 series) tells the story of America’s Black-owned labels and how they changed the musical landscape in ways that are still felt today. Starting with Black Swan Records, which made history in 1921 as the first, large-scale Black-owned record label, Jackson brings to light the small towns and one-off labels from the early years; nightclub owners like Duke Robey with big ideas and big wallets; women bosses like Carmen Murphy, who recorded a then-unknown Supremes in her beauty shop; latter-day moguls like Berry Gordy who targeted all of young America, not just Black kids; and artists like Curtis Mayfield who used their success to become label heads and fully control their music. From New York to Los Angeles, points mid-west and south, what may have started as a reaction to racist musical tropes and limited opportunities for Black artists became something even more powerful— reclamation and creativity on their own terms. (Please note: this project is represented by John Rudolph)

Prior to the Holocaust, Moshe Gildenman—affectionately known as “Uncle Misha”—had lived a peaceful life as a leader in the Jewish community of Korets, a quaint Ukrainian town not unlike the fictitious village of Anatevka from Fiddler on the Roof. But after the Nazis murdered 2,200 Jews from the Korets ghetto, including his wife and daughter, Uncle Misha escaped to the forest and vowed revenge. Armed only with one revolver and a butcher’s knife, the former civil engineer devised a number of intricate missions to steal weapons for himself, his son, and ten other fugitives from Korets. As their arsenal and membership grew, the brigade known as “Uncle Misha’s Jewish Group” evolved into one of the most successful partisan detachments in the guerilla war against the Nazis, carrying out over 150 operations and liberating over 300 prisoners of war. PARTISAN SONG: A HOLOCAUST STORY OF RESILIENCE, RESISTANCE, AND RETRIBUTION, by National Jewish Book Award-winning author James A. Grymes, follows Uncle Misha on his fascinating and inspirational journey, chronicling both the ruthless military successes of his group and the comradery he forged while singing songs around partisan campfires with his Jewish band of brothers and sisters. (Please note: this project is represented by John Rudolph.)

Part true crime narrative, part procedural, part cultural history, RETURNING THE GODS: Behind the Scenes with the FBI in the Biggest Graverobbing and Stolen Artifacts Case in History recounts FBI Lead Investigator Tim Carpenter’s Art Crime Team’s spectacular discovery of 42,000 artifacts in a secret illegal collection, including nearly 500 ancestral remains – including infants, one still in diapers. For over 50 years, a brazen Midwestern graverobber looted Native American, Chinese, Haitian, and other world cultures, ripping sacred objects and people from hallowed ground. The Lost City of the Monkey God meets Priceless as the team races the clock to return the ancestors, soul jars, and gods to their descendants and original homes. The diverse group of scientific and law experts -- and members of the affected communities themselves -- suffers mysterious accidents after contact with the ancestors even as they build bridges to the people and cultures robbed of their dignity. Ultimately, the team changes the Bureau -- and the course of history -- in their unprecedented repatriation of priceless antiquities and revered ancestors. Lead Investigator Tim Carpenter ran the FBI Art Crime Team for 6 of his 15 years with that division, and 19 in the Bureau, after serving as a sheriff’s deputy and active-duty Air Force Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician. Carpenter oversaw the recovery of hundreds of stolen items from museum heists and Nazi plunder to Superbowl rings, while also working cases of money laundering and international trafficking. (Please note, this project is represented by Leslie Meredith.)

Spiritual Director of Mountain Cloud Zen Center in Santa Fe and renowned mindfulness teacher Henry Shukman presents a groundbreaking new teaching: ORIGINAL LOVE: The Four Inns on the Path of Awakening. Here is what you can actually do to ease your troubles and find the highest possible happiness. Shukman’s four-step instruction provides a path of growth and healing of emotions and mind through meditation for practitioners of any level, as Shukman’s inspiring stories of students of his Original Love program attest. Urgently needed to create peace for ourselves and our times, the program reduces stress, anxiety, and depression; relaxes mind and body; lessens feelings of worry, regret, anger, and irritation; and improves decision-making and executive functioning.  Finding a sense of love is a critical purpose of meditation. Finding your way back to the loving peace that lives at the center of things is Original Love. Rick Hanson, bestselling author of Buddha’s Brain, says, “[Shukman’s] writing is gorgeous, funny, fascinating, and audacious.” At Mountain Cloud, Henry Shukman leads online retreats and courses, and guides students in meditation and Zen koan study. His most recent book is One Blade of Grass, a Zen memoir, a Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year and Finalist for the 2019 MPIBA Reading the West Book Award, for which he appeared on many popular podcasts, including the Tim Ferriss Show and Sam Harris’s “Making Sense.” His essays have appeared in the New York Times, Outside and Tricycle.  (Please note, this project is represented by Leslie Meredith.)

“Brainwashing erases itself,” writes Rebecca Lemov, Ph.D., Harvard professor of history of science. Because brainwashing operates both on the world and on our observation of the world, we often cannot recognize it while it is happening. Unless, as Dr. Lemov argues, you look really hard for it. In her eye-opening new book, THE INSTABILITY OF TRUTH: A Field Guide to Modern Mind Control, Dr. Lemov tours the varieties of ways in which our minds can be controlled against our will and explains how to identify brainwashing as it occurs. As she explores the history of mind-control techniques -- the origin story to the mass manipulation of tech and politics today -- Lemov profiles people who became infamous for being brainwashed, finding that brainwashing is actually quite common: Anyone can fall under its influence – especially if you blithely assume you’re immune. Our collective and individual senses of reality are increasingly data-driven and influenced by mind control, so that we are unable fully to realize what is happening when it is happening and can find ourselves voicing opinions we do not hold. Identifying invasive forms of emotional engineering that home in on trauma and addiction, creating coercion and persuasion in everyday life, Lemov offers lessons learned from past mind-control episodes to equip us for the increasing challenges we face from the continuing global spread of surveillance capitalism. Rebecca Lemov, Ph.D., is author of Database of Dreams and World as Laboratory (NYT Editor’s Choice). (Please note, this project is represented by Leslie Meredith.)

Journalist Kaila Yu grew up in the early 2000s when Asian women had little to no representation in mainstream media. She found validation living up to the sexualized Asian women she watched on film and TV. But there has been a seismic shift for Asian American women during the pandemic and the recent searing wave of anti-Asian hate made her realize the actual harm of yellow fever portrayals, which before, seemed innocuous enough. Reports found that racist attacks on women occurred 2.3 times more than on men, and the perpetrator of the Atlanta spa murders blamed those six Asian women for his sex addiction—in other words: his yellow fever. In in YELLOW FEVER HUSTLER, journalist Kaila Yu examines Asian American women in pop culture and media in the early aughts through the lens of her experience and explores the dangerous psychological effects and cultural repercussions of the invisibility of Asian women in pop culture. Despite the real-world violence, racism, and suffering that Asian women are facing, Yu also highlights the substantial progress gained by Asian women in the past decades and lights the way for the next generation to continue transforming society—and themselves. Yu has been writing for years about culture and Asian American issues for Rolling Stone, New York Times, Conde Nast Traveler, and more, with over 470,000 TikTok followers and 106,000 Instagram followers on her Asian pop culture channels. (Please note, this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.)

For Literary Mama editor Brianna Avenia-Tapper, the journey to motherhood begins when the midnight plane touches down in Moscow during the dead of winter. Raised by a young Catholic mother who prayed to miscarry her, Brianna grows up understanding children as punishment and love as something done through gritted teeth. At 19, she takes a teaching job in Russia, the 'abortion capital of the world', where mothers choose their children. Her journey to womanhood is permanently marked by Russia’s maternal warmth which sees her bikini shopping at the outdoor winter market, crushing on her Russian tutor, watching porn for the first time on cable television, riding the Trans-Siberian, trekking the Tien Shah Mountains, and eventually returning home with a Kazakh yurt hanging from her back as a gift for her mother. Back in the States, an accidental pregnancy, abortion, disastrous birth control experiences, and a miscarriage inspire further research into Soviet sentiments on condoms, choice, and motherhood. Things come to a head when, after her third pregnancy, Brianna suffers a life-threatening postpartum hemorrhage, endures a tense NICU stay, and is told she should not attempt to have more children. Part coming-of-age travel adventure, feminist cultural criticism, and heartfelt motherhood memoir, CARRYING HEAVY THINGS: BABIES, BACKPACKS, AND BOLSHEVIKS shows one woman's international journey to realize that choice is essential for love and motherhood. (Please note, this project is represented by Andrew Dugan.)

Rights Round Up

Audio rights to MOSAICS AND MAGIC by Nancy Warren and TANGLED VINES by John Glatt went to Tantor.  

THE MIRROR SEASON by Anna-Marie McLemore was optioned for film by Exile Concepts, LLC. ONCE THERE WERE WOLVES by Charlotte McConaghy was optioned for film by I Am That. GRANDMA GATEWOOD’S WALK by Ben Montgomery was optioned for film by Spartan Media. REDBONE by Ron Stodghill was optioned for film by Swirl Films LLC. LUDICROUS by Edward Niedermeyer was optioned for film by Exile Concepts LLC. WEST WITH GIRAFFES by Lynda Rutledge was optioned for film by Pioneer Films, LLC. YOUNG RICH WIDOWS by Layne Fargo was optioned for film by Jackie Levine/Audible Originals.  

PERFORMANCE ADDICTION by Dr. Arthur Ciaramicoli went to CITIC Press for Simplified Chinese rights. THE FEELING OF FALLING IN LOVE by Mason Deaver went to Poznanskie for Polish rights. SECRETS IN THE CELLAR by John Glatt went to Filia for Polish rights. GIRLY DRINKS by Mallory O’Meara went to RH Korea for Korean rights. TIES THAT BIND by Sarah Schulman went to Editions B42 for French rights. SAVE THE CAT! STRIKES BACK by Blake Snyder and Jessica Brody went to Guomai Culture and Media Co., Ltd for simplified Chinese rights. THE TWO WEEK STAND by Samantha Towle went to Baronet for Czech rights. THE BODIES OF OTHERS by Naomi Wolf went to Kopp Verlag for German rights. THREADS THAT BIND and HEARTS THAT CUT by Kika Hatzopoulou went to Patakis for Greek rights. BRIGHT SIDE, GUS, and FRANCO by Kim Holden went to Planeta for Portuguese rights. CHECKMATE and TRUCE by RL Mathewson went to Albatros for Czech rights. RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II and RAMBO III by David Morrell went to Naychalna Knyha for Ukrainian rights. PLAYING FOR KEEPS, ALL THE WAY, and TRYING TO SCORE by Kendall Ryan went to Baronet for Czech rights. STOP OVERREACTING by Judith P. Siegel went to Jarir for Arabic rights. THE USES OF DELUSION by Stuart Vyse went to Jarir for Arabic rights and China Times for complex Chinese rights. PUNK 57 by Penelope Douglas went to Ahayot for Hebrew rights. FALLS BOYS went to Newton Compton for Italian rights. TRYST SIX VENOM went to Niezwykle for Polish rights. CORRUPT went to Crossbooks/Planeta for Spanish rights. BIRTHDAY GIRL went to Dogan for Turkish rights. PUNK 57, CORRUPT, HIDEAWAY, KILL SWITCH and NIGHTFALL went to Dioptra for Greek rights. CORRUPT, HIDEAWAY, KILL SWITCH, CONCLAVE, NIGHTFALL and FIRE NIGHT went to Ahavot for Hebrew rights. 13 THINGS MENTALLY STRONG WOMEN DON’T DO and 13 THINGS MENTALLY STRONG PEOPLE DON’T DO WORKBOOK by Amy Morin went to Jarir for Arabic rights. 13 THINGS MENTALLY STRONG PEOPLE DON’T DO went to Renebook for Indonesian rights. ALL RHODES LEAD HERE by Mariana Zapata went to Modan for Hebrew rights. WHEN GRACIE MET THE GRUMP went to Headline for UK & Commonwealth rights. ALL RHODES LEAD HERE and KULTI went to Albatros for Slovak rights. FINDING PERFECT by Colleen Hoover went to IBIS for Bulgarian rights. HOPELESS went to PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama for Indonesian rights and Modernista for Swedish rights. VERITY and REMINDERS OF HIM went to Grandbook Publishing for Mongolian rights. TOO LATE went to Sphere for UK & Commonwealth rights. VERITY went to Magaghat for Armernian rights and Palitra for Georgian rights. HOPELESS, HEART BONES, and LAYLA went to Kinneret for Hebrew rights. LAST NIGHT AT THE TELEGRAPH CLUB by Malinda Lo went to Oceaan/Nieuw-Amsterdam for Dutch rights.  

RECENT SALES 

HERE GOES NOTHING by Emma Ohland went to Carolrhoda/Lerner in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE THINGS by Veeda Bybee went to Shadow Mountain in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.

RULES FOR RULE BREAKING and UNTITLED BOOK 2 by Talia Tucker went to Kokila in a World rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

UNTITLED GREAT PEACH EXPERIMENT BOOK #4 by Erin Soderberg Downing went to Pixel + Ink in a World rights deal by Michael Bourret.

Laura Silverman’s FIRSTS AND LASTS was sold to Penguin Workshop in a World rights deal, by Jim McCarthy.

QUANTUM GALACTIC SPORTS LEAGUE BOOK 1 and QUANTUM GALACTIC SPORTS LEAGUE BOOK 2 by J. Scott Savage went to Penguin Workshop in a World rights deal by Michael Bourret.

SECOND-NIGHT STAND by Karelia and Fay Stetz-Waters went to Forever Yours in a North American rights deal by Jane Dystel.

EVERYTHING GLITTERED by Robin Talley went to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in a World English rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

FEARLESS AUTHENTICITY by Jeanna Sparrow went to McGraw-Hill in a World English rights deal by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.

THE HERETICS AND THE DRAGON by Kate A. Boorman went to Thistledown Press in a North American rights deal by Michael Bourret.

SHORTEST HISTORY OF EUGENICS by Eric Peterson went to The Experiment in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.

OUT AT THE PLATE: THE DOT WILKINSON STORY by Lynn Ames went to Chicago Review Press in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.

HOW TO SAVE BLACK BOYS and UNTITLED BOOK 2 by Neena Viel went to St. Martin’s Press in a World English rights deal by Sharon Pelletier.

13 THINGS MENTALLY STRONG COUPLES DON’T DO by Amy Morin went to Harper/Morrow in a North American rights deal by Stacey Glick.

SOUL-FOLK by Ashawnta Jackson went to Bloomsbury Academic in a World rights deal by John Rudolph.

THE FOUR INTERVIEW STYLES by Anna Papalia went to Harper Business in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.

THE CALCULATION OF YOU AND ME by Serena Kaylor went to Wednesday Books in a World English rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

THE WALL OF WINNIPEG AND ME and ALL RHODES LEAD HERE by Mariana Zapata went to Avon/Morrow in a North American rights deal by Jane Dystel.

WOMEN OF GOOD FORTUNE by Sophie Wan went to Graydon House in a two-book North American rights deal by Michaela Whatnall.

MORE THAN A DREAM by Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long went to FSG Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by John Rudolph.

SELLING SUNSHINE by Mary Fitzgerald went to HarperCollins in a North American rights deal by Jane Dystel.

THE INFLUENCERS by Anna-Marie McLemore went to Dial Press in a North American rights deal by Michael Bourret.

MY NAME IS JACK by Yohuru Williams and Michael G. Long went to FSG Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by John Rudolph.

62: AARON JUDGE, THE NEW YORK YANKEES AND THE PURSUIT OF GREATNESS by Bryan Hoch went to Atria in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.

OCEAN’S GODORI by Elaine U. Cho went to Zando in a World rights deal by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.

UNTITLED by Hester Fox went to Graydon House in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.

THE HEAT AND THE FURY by Peter Schwartzstein went to Island Press in a North American rights deal by Jessica Papin.

FORTUNES OF TEXAS BOOK 5 by Tara Taylor Quinn and Nancy Robards Thompson went to Harlequin in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.

GRIZZLY CONFIDENTIAL by Kevin Grange went to Harper Horizon in a North American rights deal by Jane Dystel.

THE BLUE PLATE by Mark Easter went to Patagonia in a North American rights deal by Jessica Papin.

TRANSFARMATION: A FIGHT FOR FREEDOM AND FARMING IN RURAL AMERICA by Leah Garces went to Beacon Press in a World English rights deal by Stacey Glick.

PYTHONS IN PARADISE by Neil Reisner went to Island Press in a World English rights deal by Jane Dystel.

THE FIRST HUMANS by Suzanne Pilaar Birch went to Princeton University Press in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.

THE OUTLAW NOBLE SALT by Amy Harmon went to Lake Union in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.

UNTITLED ROMANTIC SUSPENSE BOOKS 1-6 by Tara Taylor Quinn went to Harlequin in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.

PATENTING LIFE by Jorge Goldstein went to Georgetown University Press in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.

HANK WORTH MYSTERY #6 by Claire Booth Chapman went to Severn House in a World English rights deal by Jim McCarthy.

UNTITLED COLLEGE ESSAY WRITING TOOLS BOOK by Roy Peter Clark went to Little, Brown & Co. in a World rights deal by Jane Dystel.

PYSCHIC BREAK and THE BOARDERS by Jenna Kernan went to Bookouture in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.

COASTAL: A TRIPPY DREAMY CALIFORNIA COOKBOOK by Scott Clark, Betsy Andrews, and Cheyenne Ellis went to Chronicle in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.

WHILE WE WERE BURNING by Sara Koffi went to Putnam in a World rights deal by Lauren Abramo.

CARCASS by Kristin Hugo went to MIT Press in a World English rights deal by Jane Dystel.

IT HAPPENED ON MAPLE STREET by Tara Taylor Quinn went to Open Road in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.

FROM VIRGINIA: THE STATE THAT MADE A NATION by Mychal Denzel Smith went to Crown in a North American rights deal by Jessica Papin.

INFECTED: LESSONS FROM A PARASITE by John Janovy, Jr. went to Sourcebooks in World English rights deal by Leslie Meredith.

OUR QUEER UNIVERSE by Jessica Esquivel went to MIT Press in a North American rights deal by Jessica Papin.

SHIMMER by Sarah Schulman went to Fordham University Press in a North American rights deal by Michael Bourret.

Lauren Abramo sold Joyce King’s RICH LITTLE PARISH to Amistad in a World rights deal.

COLTONS OF OWL CREEK by Tara Taylor Quinn went to Harlequin in a World rights deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.