Adult Newsletter: September 2020

Up And Coming For Submission

 FICTION

Bestselling author, Dr. Jewell Parker Rhodes, returns to adult novels, re-imagining Harriet Jacobs's INCIDENTS IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE GIRL (1861) and giving voice to Jacobs’s resilience. “Slavery is hard; harder, for a woman,” her character writes. “The body knows; the soul remembers.” Forbidden by her master and sexual predator to marry a black man who wanted to purchase her freedom, Jacobs rebelliously chooses a white lover and births two children. To protect herself and her children, she escapes, living for seven years in her free grandmother’s crawlspace. Educated and sensitive, Jacobs daringly (and, for the time, scandalously) tries to inform abolitionists about the unique horrors of a woman’s enslavement and degradation. Facing racism, sexual assault and repression, she fiercely uses her resources of body and mind as weapons. Rhodes’s re-imagining of Jacobs’s narrative will emphasize how nineteenth century slave trauma extends to twenty-first century racial and gender biases. Her novel will celebrate a black woman’s voice in an era when silence was bought by patriarchal threats to sell her or her children “down river.” Combining slave and fugitive escape narratives with nineteenth century romance/seduction tales, Rhodes illuminates the humanity of a young black woman’s forbidden hopes, dreams, love, and desire. Refusing to be defined as “property,” Harriet heroically declares her unique, womanly identity.  

Dr. Helena Rossi is an ex-nun, a retired forensic archaeologist, and heavy smoker who is facing her own mortality when an Israeli colleague asks her to come to Tel Aviv for one last scientific task: identify the skeleton of a crucified man. Two thousand years earlier, the wedding night of a minor Roman official named Pontius Pilate is cut short when Emperor Tiberius himself orders him to leave for Judea. Millennia apart, Helena and Pilate are caught up in the tangled politics of their times, when simply doing their jobs may change the world. With CORPUS CHRISTI, Mary Doria Russell returns to questions of faith and science that made The Sparrow a Science Fiction classic. She draws on her experience as a biological anthropologist for the portrayal of Helena, who must balance her integrity as a scientist against the faith of Christian believers. Russell's research places the Crucifixion in its pre-Christian, Judeo-Roman context, when the most important man alive was thought to be Pontius Pilate's friend and patron, Lucius Sejanus. Sure to be both controversial and unputdownable, CORPUS CHRISTI will delight Russell’s passionate fan base.

 An eleven-year-old in need of honey discovers a swarm of bees in the piano after being abandoned by her parents. An anxious young mother contends with climate grief as her daughter begs to walk a path which is swallowed twice daily by the sea. Dreams of dental trauma portend a dermoid cyst. A disgraced pastor turns to competitive chicken breeding in search of perfection. On their long drive to an abortion clinic, teacher and student crouch together in a gas station bathroom as tornadoes rage outside. A geologist struggles to homeschool her daughter in the land of fire and ice, where myth blends into reality. Blending the plausible magic of Karen Russell and Carmen Maria Machado, the wry humor and vivid settings of Kristen Arnett, and the ecological lens of Andrea Barrett, Kate Finegan’s debut collection, INVASIVES teems with stubborn, reckless life as characters grapple with their own unruliness. This work situates the often-grotesque and bewildering experience of living in a female body against the rhythms and disruptions of a changing natural world. (Please note: this project is represented by Jim McCarthy.)

 Eva Reyes is one of the best trained pediatric cardiologists to ever come out of her hospital’s fellowship program. Her dream of becoming a physician at the renowned medical center blocks from the apartment where she grew up with her immigrant parents is about to become real. When Eva’s mamá dies suddenly, Eva makes an impulsive call in the ER that saves a life but flouts hospital rules. Placed on leave–because no matter how many lives are at stake, the bottom line is the bottom line­–she loses herself. Until her best friend offers an opportunity to win back her job by joining a medical mission with her former colleagues. In Chiapas, Mexico, Eva thrives on the whirlwind, pressure-filled situations she has trained for, providing critical care and a once-in-a-lifetime chance for life-saving surgery to desperate children. But the mission also brings her face-to-face with her ex-fiancé, Will, along with a local doctor, Sebas, who helps her navigate her new world. Chiapas presents its own impossible choices: which patients will be treated, how to get her life back on track, and what to do with the loss and loneliness that plague her. Pediatric cardiologist and celebrated YA novelist Ismée Williams’ adult debut, THE MISSION, is a confident, moving work of fiction with a protagonist as impressive as she is flawed. With thrilling scenes of medical daring and an emotional core that is heartfelt and yearning, it is a deeply special novel from a singular talent. (Please note, this project is represented by Jim McCarthy.)

 Set in Depression-era Appalachia, I’LL FLY AWAY by Angel Gunn is a heartfelt coming-of-age story depicting family loyalty, fierce courage and feminism as a mother and her six daughters struggle to survive on a mountaintop farm.  Sixteen-year-old Mira yearns to discover the world and, after she and Mama butt heads one too many times over her mother’s allegiance to her Cherokee ties and resentment at her husband’s abandonment, Mira boards the first train bound for the big city.  Instead of finding the glamorous world portrayed in the tabloids, Mira finds work in a hat shop and lives in a Lower East Side boarding house where she gets involved with a burlesque dancer and her dangerous friends.  Just as the dark clouds of WWII encroach on the city, Mira realizes the alleged Broadway Butterfly killer has targeted her . . . and now there is only one place to turn.  I’LL FLY AWAY is the story of how this mother and daughter ultimately learn from each other about how to reinvent their lives in an era that forever changed women’s roles.  Angel Gunn’s work has been published in a number of publications including Still: The Journal, Appalachian Review, Quail Bell Magazine, Poets Reading the News and Literary Mama; her historical fiction will appeal to fans of Fiona Davis. (Please note: this project is represented by Ann Leslie Tuttle.)

 When thirteen-year-old Kendall discovers the discarded wheelchair of a missing older boy in the woods behind her best friend’s house, she has no idea it will send her down a rabbit hole into an adult world. Kendall begins to believe she alone can find the missing boy and forms an unlikely bond with her best friend’s intoxicating older sister, Carina. Together, they face the reality of dirtbags, drugs, and the dark undercurrents of their small town, leaving scars that will last a lifetime. Set in the backwoods of rural Iowa in the fall of 2005, her investigation of the local disappearance borders on obsession, bringing her into contact with older boys, fraught relationships, and the raucous, violent world of dirt track races. IN THE TIMBER by filmmakers Emily Berge and Spencer Thielmann is a gripping, gritty, and often tender exploration of lonely young girls in the rural Midwest confronted by tragedy and violence for readers of HISTORY OF WOLVES and WINTER’S BONE meets STAND BY ME. Born and raised in rural Iowa, Berge draws on her own experience coming-of-age in the early 2000s against the backdrop of Super Walmarts, MTV, and the stark Midwestern landscape. Berge and Thielmann are currently in pre-production on their first feature film with Wavelength Productions, producers of Won’t You Be My Neighbor and Athlete A. (Please note: this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.)

 NON-FICTION

No one ever teaches us how to look for things, least of all the thing we covet most: an idea. There are no schools to attend, no classes to take, no degrees to earn. But now there is a book to read: NOTICING: HOW SMART PEOPLE LOOK FOR IDEAS. Bestselling author and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Joseph T. Hallinan has spent years studying the habits of people who create or discover things, sometimes very famous things. He has found that great minds not only think alike, they look alike: they see the world in kindred ways even when engaged in vastly different pursuits; they consciously develop, often while young, ways of looking at the world that differ from those around them, and this difference was crucial to their success. Using lively prose and engaging examples, Hallinan shows how the power of observation led to an array of breakthroughs, from inventions like the Weed Eater and the bar code to broader creations like suburbs, motion pictures and mutual funds. NOTICING also carries an empowering message for readers: even in a tech-savvy age, the primary instrument of discovery is still the human eye. Good ideas, after all, don’t begin with a Google search; they begin with an observation.

 There’s no stranger marriage in Washington than the Conways’: Kellyanne, the former White House Counselor and Trump devotee. George, the co-founder of the Lincoln Project and avid Tweeter of all things anti-Trump. Though the current administration has exacerbated their domestic conflict, it didn’t create their political differences. Winning has always been everything for Kellyanne, while George’s ardor for the law has always superseded any party alliance. In many ways, the Conways are a far more powerful and public representation of thousands of conservative American households. Many GOP couples have recently found themselves at political odds as a result of a Republican schism decades in the making — a schism the Conways have helped forge through their political work of the past 30 years. In THE CONWAYS: AN ALL-AMERICAN FAMILY, journalist Jane Recker analyzes this political metamorphosis through the lens of the Conway family. From Kellyanne helping usher in a new era of politics with Newt Gingrich, to George leading the controversial Never Trump movement, to daughter Claudia harnessing the power of TikTok to decry her parents’ morals, THE CONWAYS reflects on a rapidly changing America with juicy tidbits about the most dysfunctional family inside the Beltway.

 Blaming sexual evil on women is age old. In the seventeenth century, a woman was named as a witch in Salem after a young man saw a spectral version of her in his bed. But this blame persists today. What does it do to a Congresswoman to hear a colleague spit the words “Fucking Bitch” on the steps of our legislature? What does it do to us, watching her call that out and then be scolded publicly for amping her "brand"? If you sit with any group of women intimately sharing, you might learn that this woman had once been dragged off a jogging path and gang raped or that one’s daughter had been strangled behind a closed door in college and barely escaped. There are as many such stories as there are women, but they are often made singular, not a forcefield, rendering this exhausting combat invisible. ON HART ISLAND, by bestselling author Dr. Naomi Wolf, explores the gravitational field that is sexual violence; how it reinforces patriarchy, and impacts every part of a woman’s life. Wolf examines what this suppression does to our energy, sense of agency, how this violence plays out in women’s student or professional lives, and how it constructs our sense of self and future. Just as THE BEAUTY MYTH established one powerful "invisible everywhere" that manages women's lives and suppresses their potential, ON HART ISLAND maps, so as to overcome it, a dark and violent corollary. 

 On January 10, 2020, Chinese scientists posted the genetic code of a strain of coronavirus never seen in humans—the first hint of a possible pandemic. When Barney Graham, the deputy director of the government’s Vaccine Research Center, saw the news, he knew the race for a vaccine was on. The Center’s mission is to stop deadly viruses, but since its founding more than 30 years ago, it has never produced a successful vaccine. On a hunch, Graham had already called the CEO of a little-known biotech company, Moderna, to see if he wanted to collaborate as soon as the virus was identified. Graham had the blessing of his boss’s boss, Anthony Fauci. It was a bold gambit fueled by a race against time. Moderna had been around for a decade but had never gotten close to taking a product to market. Even so, it was a company confident that it was poised to revolutionize medical science. Without even having a sample of the virus in their lab, Graham’s team could develop a vaccine candidate in a matter of days using Moderna's resources. If the vaccine worked, the same approach could conceivably lead to new treatments for a host of other diseases. In STOPPING THE PANDEMIC: THE IMPROBABLE RACE FOR A VACCINE, award-winning USA Today reporter David Heath shares the story of the key participants involved in the vaccine race, the history of the science behind Moderna, and a tale of research breakthroughs at Ivy League laboratories.

 Megan Carle was one of the highest-ranking female executives at Nike when she fell victim to corporate bullying and after nearly thirty years at the iconic international brand, left the company in 2016. Carle’s departure triggered a survey among female employees that led to the ousting of six male executives, several of whom had been responsible for the mishandling of her situation and resulted in the 2018 New York Times investigative report. Carle was the unwitting canary in the coal mine. SEE ME is the story of Carle’s career trajectory, rising to a job no woman had ever held: Vice President/General Manager of North America Basketball, working with the likes of Kobe Bryant and LeBron James— and her unlikely departure from Nike. Despite her upbringing, in which winning was a core-family value, Carle learned that quitting doesn’t necessarily equal losing. Sometimes it’s a sign of dignity and courage, an unwillingness to be part of a system that doesn’t play fair. As women still struggle for an even corporate playing field, SEE ME will enlighten, enrage, and inspire readers as it takes them inside the walls of one of the most iconic companies on the planet. 

 The daughter of an Indian physicist father and an American mother with a love for cooking, Maya Kaimal has turned her passion for Indian food into a profession, through cookbooks (earning a Julia Child Best First Book award) as well as a multi-million-dollar namesake brand. In her newest cookbook, TARKA, TOASTING AND MASALA: TANTALIZING FLAVORS FROM INDIA, Maya takes a fresh approach to the cuisine, focusing on three fundamentally Indian techniques: TARKA, blooming whole spices in oil; TOASTING ingredients to maximize their flavor; and MASALA, the blending of ground spices. Through over 100 easy-to-prepare recipes, Maya shows cooks how these methods can bring deep flavor to both familiar Indian dishes and lesser-known gems from her Keralan (South Indian) heritage. She also invites the reader into her American kitchen where meals are a mix of Indian spices and her local Hudson Valley produce, so that recipes in TARKA, TOASTING AND MASALA are both personal and adapted to the life of a busy entrepreneur, wife, and mother. Maya carefully tracks changing North American tastes through her business, noting that Indian food offers what conscientious consumers crave: authentically flavorful, global foods that are plant-centric and uncomplicated to prepare. This cookbook satisfies those appetites, whether vegetarian, vegan, or simply hungry for it all.

 Sleep is a universal activity. It’s also an important part of maintaining physical and cognitive well-being. Yet, in our modern, frenetic world, people never seem to get enough sleep, though they desperately seek ways to squeeze in a few extra minutes or hours. Workers have followed offbeat routes to find rest midday in rented napping “pods,” or in special nap rooms provided by corporate management. In the name of sleeping better, people buy pharmaceuticals, mattresses to fit our bodies, and masks and earplugs to block out light and noise. They listen to soundtracks to reach Nirvana, wear scientific gadgets for sleep apnea, and go to sleep clinics. In short, ours is a nation in dire need of a nap. Renowned photographer Mark Chester’s LET ME SLEEP ON IT is a collection of black-and-white photographs featuring people catching zzz’s the world over.  His images of men, women and children transcend age, gender, culture and race.  They are napping wherever they might be sitting—on a train, airplane, subway or ferryboat. Unconscious people, surrounded by strangers, are seemingly unfazed as they become lost in their fantasies. Through poignant and amusing photographs, Chester depicts humans in their most unguarded state as they try to get some quality shut-eye.

 In 1985, a white man walked into a historically Black church on the Georgia coast and killed a beloved couple during Bible study. It happened in Camden County—a marshy and rural community where the white power structure had long claimed racism wasn’t a problem. In STRANGER IN THE VESTIBULE, award-winning Atlanta Journal-Constitution writer and South Georgia native Joshua Sharpe exposes how that myth led police to discount racism as a motive in the killings. That mistake ultimately led to tragic results as an innocent man went to prison and a purported white supremacist who bragged about committing the murders went free. Dennis Perry, a white construction worker, feared he’d die in prison—and then the myth started to die. In gripping, fast-paced narrative, Sharpe details how retired police investigators, attorneys, activists and Sharpe himself proved Perry’s innocence. Sharpe’s recent reporting led to Perry’s freedom after decades behind bars and prompted police to launch an investigation into the white supremacist, whom Sharpe helped connect to the crime scene through DNA. The story unfolds against the backdrop of an American reckoning on racism, a movement spurred by cell phone video of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery, the Black jogger who was shot in a confrontation with white men just five miles from the church where Harold and Thelma Swain were murdered. While tragic and galling, the story told in STRANGER IN THE VESTIBULE becomes hopeful as the myth that has allowed racism to flourish in a rural Southern community crumbles and justice finally arrives.

 Economic anxiety and political uncertainty dog the nation as unemployment surges to unfathomable levels (one in four Americans can’t find a job), distressed banks foreclose with abandon and landlords toss out tenants who can’t pay. And now, amid a natural crisis of Biblical proportions, a political decision looms: A presidential election that will shape the future of the nation and, indeed, lay bare its soul. The year is not 2020, but 1932, the nadir of the Great Depression, and Scott Martelle—an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times—brings that pivotal time into focus with 1932: FDR, HOOVER, AND THE DAWN OF A NEW AMERICA. While the election that would send Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal to the White House anchors 1932 in history, the year also saw social upheaval with Father James Cox’s poor people’s march on Washington, followed by the Bonus Army march of World War One veterans that ended in a violent sweep by U.S. Army troops under Gen. Douglas MacArthur. Farmers also went on strike in Iowa, dust storms began scouring the soil from farmland in Oklahoma and Texas, and across the nation more people were wondering if communism might hold the answers to the clear weaknesses of American capitalism.

 In 1976, the chemist Alexander Shulgin swallowed 120 mg of MDMA, sat back, and waited. As the experience played out over the next four hours, he struggled to find words to describe it. Since Shulgin unwittingly unleashed one of the most controversial drugs in history, MDMA has transformed from a breakthrough therapeutic tool to the world’s most popular—and vilified— club drug, known first as ecstasy and now as molly. But there is much more to the Schedule 1 substance than ecstatic partygoers, worried parents and fans of HBO’s Euphoria realize. A small, tenacious group of top scientists believe that the molecule could be key to everything from unlocking the mysteries of the brain and effectively treating a host of mental health illnesses—and even to bettering the whole of society. In I FEEL LOVE: THE NEW SCIENCE OF MDMA, award-winning investigative journalist Rachel Nuwer takes readers on a journey through the scientific, social, political and cultural story of MDMA, from its tumultuous rediscovery in Shulgin’s lab to its misguided banishment by federal authorities. Nuwer brings readers into laboratories where leading scientists are convinced of the molecule’s potential for good—from revealing the neurological origins of the experience of love, to providing breakthrough treatments for a host notoriously persistent, widespread disorders, including PTSD, depression, anxiety, alcohol addiction and anorexia. While MDMA does not come without dangers, ultimately, many experts believe that it could provide an antidote for the increasing divisiveness in our world by promoting happiness, compassion and love for each other, ourselves and the planet.

 Valentine’s Day, 1972. Grease opened Off-Broadway at the Eden Theatre in NYC. It went on to become the longest running show in Broadway history, giving rise to the careers of John Travolta, Richard Gere, Patrick Swayze, and a legion of your favorite film and television stars. GREASE! TELL ME MORE…TELL ME MORE! FROM COMMUNITY THEATER TO GLOBAL PHENOMENON BY THE FAMOUS AND NOT SO FAMOUS WHO MADE IT HAPPEN grew from a Zoom reunion meeting of the original cast. They exchanged stories that made them laugh and made them cry, and made them realize these stories needed to be shared with Grease fans throughout the world. Did you know that Grease was in imminent danger of closing the day after it opened?  Or that as Grease was moving to Broadway, Alexander Cohen, producer of the Tony Awards, threatened that the only way the musical would be eligible for any Broadway Tony nominations was over his dead body? Grease went on to garner seven nominations, and Alexander Cohen continued to live, but he wasn't happy about it.  Edited by director Tom Moore, producer Ken Waissman, and star Adrienne Barbeau, Greasers recall their auditions, rehearsals, preview snafus, opening night terrors, and backstage love affairs, how they felt when it was time to leave the show and what life had in store for them afterwards. GREASE! TELL ME MORE…TELL ME MORE! is a compilation of funny and touching memories, as well as in-depth interviews with everyone who made Grease a resounding, worldwide success.

 CJ Taylor took all the right steps to an idyllic life. She finished college, got married, had a nice house in the Los Angeles suburbs, eight cars, three beautiful children, and long-term financial stability. But when an abusive marriage forced her to escape, Taylor was tested everywhere she turned. She found herself living in a house where the water didn’t always run. She fed her kids on the Dollar Menu while putting herself through law school and trying to evade a man who spent years threatening her life before eventually murdering another woman. She suffered the horror of sexual assault in a hospital after heart surgery and found healing from the depression that followed in the unlikeliest of places—the football field. Bad things happen to good people, but BREAKING GLASS is the uniquely inspiring story of a strong African-American woman who refused to let those hardships define her or her children. Taylor raised three college graduates, two Big 12 football players and a Rhodes Scholar. In BREAKING GLASS, she recounts navigating numerous challenges as a single mother, an aspiring attorney and as a pioneering coach in the ultimate male sport, who made her mark in the Snoop Youth Football League and at the high school and college levels. Taylor's personal insights spotlight how women have the strength, resolve and unshakable spirit to overcome some of life's most difficult circumstances and help not only themselves but those around them.

 Progressives used the media brilliantly—and to dramatic and wildly successful effect—in the 60s. But as corporate forces built an extensive network of think tanks and their own media institutions, the Left did not, and instead let their understandable rage against oppression obfuscate the need for smart tactics to gain broad support, paid insufficient attention to language and framing as the other side mastered it, failed to create a narrative of common oppression to appeal to majorities, allowed progressive institutions to become bureaucracies, and lost touch with the majority of people. Now, the pendulum is shifting back with the George Floyd protests marking the beginning of a new era of progressive agitation, and the leaders of this movement can learn some new tricks from an old dog. In ACTIVIST, leading progressive PR expert—who’s worked with everyone, from George Soros to Al Gore to Meryl Streep—David Fenton will offer specific lessons learned to help today’s activists avoid clear historical minefields, like sectarianism, the cult of personality, and the trap of orthodox rhetoric and ideological rigidity. He will also pass on lessons in progressive communications, like the use of sticky symbolism and language, the urgency of simple repetitive messages, how to appeal to the culture of the media, and even how to work with your enemies—all while telling some great stories about fighting fracking with Yoko Ono and getting Castro to leave the Army greens at home. (Please note: this project is represented by Michael Bourret.)

 “I’m still in love with my husband, but I’m curious about opening our relationship...how do we begin?” “My partner is starting to talk about us moving in together, but I don’t know if I ever want to live with anyone…how do I say this in a way that doesn’t cause a break-up?” “I have a suspicion that my new partner makes significantly more money than I do, and we’re supposed to start planning a vacation together…how do I tell them I can’t afford it, and is it too early to be talking about money?” 
These are the sorts of questions the hosts of the popular relationship podcast, Multiamory, get asked every day. Through their work on the show, they discovered that the existing relationship tools don’t always apply, that conventional wisdom is sorely lacking, and that many of the primary resources for relationship advice are frustratingly religious, unapproachable and academic, or extremely traditional and heteronormative. They no longer work for modern-day relationships. By poring over research, reading up on evidence-based relationship advice, and listening to the personal struggles of hundreds of their listeners eager for help, they have adapted commonplace communication tools to fit modern-day relationships, and when there was no existing tool that fit, developed their own. In REAL TOOLS FOR RELATIONSHIPS, Dedeker Winston, Emily Matlack, and Jase Lindgren—hosts of Multiamory—give readers advice, ideas, data, and exercises to help them navigate modern, progressive, healthy, fulfilling, equitable—and sexy—relationships. (Please note: this project is represented by Michael Bourret.)

 Black women carry the worst prognosis, and suffer the least successful healthcare outcomes, for diseases many other women survive. As if that decades-long burden isn’t enough, now comes the COVID-19 pandemic that likewise affects Blacks and other minorities in disproportionate numbers. Despite the abundance of medical data that those most afflicted need to know, there is a dearth of books written for Blacks, by Blacks, or by Black physicians, especially as it pertains to Black women’s health. Authored by obstetrician-gynecologist and media contributor, Dr. Melody T. McCloud, BLACK WOMEN’S WELLNESS: THE GUIDE TO HEALTH, SEX & HAPPINESS fills that void. Written in conversational tone, with shaded text boxes, illustrations, and schematics about head-to-toe medical conditions, the book presents the ever-present physical challenges of killer diseases such as diabetes, cancer, hypertension, heart disease, maternal mortality, HIV/AIDS and more. It also provides the often-overlooked linkage to the psycho-social factors—the micro-aggressions—that, in turn, cause elevated stress hormones such as cortisol and catecholamines that adversely affect Black women’s hearts, and result in physical maladies that can even lead to death. The book’s goal: To help Black women not be like White or Asian women, but to be happier, healthier Black women. Filled with professional medical advice, sexology, sociology, psychology, dashes of pop culture and doses of personal responsibility, this is a book that will be the indispensable resource for Black women everywhere. (Please note: this project is represented by Stacey Glick.) 

 To most people, decorating a home or throwing a dinner party is stressful, costly and takes up a lot of time. To Leslie Saeta, creator of My 100 Year Old Home (@my100yearoldhome) with over 300,000 Instagram followers and three million weekly impressions, it’s all about creating an experience so warm, inviting and memorable that residents and guests never want to leave. Drawing from her twenty-five years as a corporate event planner and her successful home makeovers, her first book, MY 100 YEAR OLD HOME, brings together all she has learned and more – from cooking and crafting to decorating and entertaining in ways that look stunning but are affordable. The book has tips for everyone including creative do-it-yourself projects, delicious recipes and unique dinner party settings. The author shares her best decorating tips and party ideas that her readers can easily replicate. Leslie puts her creative touch on aspirational decor by using often overlooked and unexpected areas of her home. She creates fabulous floral arrangements with grocery store flowers as well as handmade paper flowers that can be used all year long. Her recipes are refreshing but also include the “go to” classics. Her unconventional DIY lighting ideas help create an unforgettable and magical ambiance. With her thoughtful, step-by-step approach Leslie gives her readers the tools and confidence to set up their perfect home space and plan their own unforgettable events. MY 100 YEAR OLD HOME is not about just one home. It’s about creating memorable experiences that can happen in any home. (Please note: this project is represented by Stacey Glick.) 

 From Fatimah Gilliam, founder and CEO of The Azara Group, a strategy consulting firm specializing in Diversity & Inclusion, comes RACE RULES, an innovative guidebook and practical manual of the unwritten “rules” as they relate to race.  Drawing on decades of expertise and her experience as a Black female entrepreneur advising Fortune 500 companies, individuals, and institutions – she meets readers where they are, offering best practices and “race etiquette” on how to discuss race, apologize, forgive, and navigate through real-life “incidents” in people’s personal and professional lives.  With refreshing candor and clarity, she concentrates on the actionable and interpersonal, and offers high-profile examples of the consequences of breaking the rules.  Oriented toward helping readers not only understand racism, but to alter behaviors, RACE RULES is essential reading for our workplaces, homes, and schools, with practical advice from someone whose family has been in the U.S. for nearly 400 hundred years.  Fatimah Gilliam holds a JD from Columbia Law School, a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BA from Wellesley College.  She began her career as a corporate attorney on Wall Street, went on to work for Citigroup overseeing its campus diversity recruiting for all its U.S. businesses, and oversaw corporate partnerships as the Head of Finance and Fundraising for North America for the United Nations World Food Programme.  Since founding The Azara Group, she has advised companies such as Aetna, JPMorgan Chase, among others.  She is a seasoned, sought-after speaker.  For further information about her visit:  http://www.theazaragroup.com/about/our-team/fatimah-gilliam/ (Please note: this project is represented by Jessica Papin.) 

 Tim Koeth peered into the crumpled brown paper lunch bag; inside was a surprisingly heavy black metal cube. He recognized the mysterious object instantly – he had one just like it sitting on his desk at home. It was uranium metal, taken from the nuclear reactor that Nazi scientists had tried —and failed—to build.  This unexpected gift, wrapped in a piece of paper with a few cryptic but crucial lines, would launch Koeth, a nuclear physicist and professor, and his co-author Miriam Hiebert, a Smithsonian fellow and cultural heritage researcher, on a years-long odyssey to trace the tale of these cubes—two of the original 664 on which the Third Reich had pinned their nuclear ambitions. Part treasure hunt, part historical narrative, THE URANIUM CLUB winds its way through the back doors of World War II and Manhattan Project histories to recount the contributions of the men and women at the forefront of the race for nuclear power. From Werner Heisenberg and Germany’s nuclear program to the Curies, first family of nuclear physics, to the Alsos Mission’s infiltration of Germany to capture Nazi science to the renegade geologists of Murray Hill scouring the globe for uranium, the cubes are lodestars that illuminate a little-known--and hugely consequential—chapter of history.  Tim Koeth is a professor of materials science and an avid collector of nuclear history.  Miriam Hiebert is a conservation scientist who uses scientific techniques to answer historical questions. NPR’s Morning Editionoffers a preview of the story. (Please note: this project is represented by Jessica Papin.) 

 When Lisa Bailey joined the FBI’s elite forensic art unit in the aftermath of September 11, she never imagined that she would work in an office lined with human skulls, ride in an armored van, or attend a meeting with Director Robert Mueller. As she quickly learned, this wasn’t your typical vocation. It’s one of the most fascinating, misunderstood jobs in forensics, and a world away from anything depicted in CSI or Bones. Using actual case examples of homicides, assaults, kidnappings, and terrorism, Bailey shows you the hidden world of her macabre profession, and explains the role of forensic art in providing justice to victims of crime. Through her eyes, you’ll travel to crime scenes, interview traumatized witnesses, and see how she reconstructs a face, muscle-by-muscle, on an unidentified victim’s skull. You’ll follow Bailey as she rises through a competitive, male-dominated field to become the FBI’s only female forensic sculptor, and then, learn how it all almost came to an end. When Bailey’s casework was sabotaged at the hands of her own supervisor, she took a stand against the agency’s ingrained culture of discrimination, harassment and abuse of power, risking her entire career in the process. In MOSTLY DEAD: MY LIFE AS AN FBI FORENSIC ARTIST, Bailey tells her incredible story with unflinching honesty, grit, and humor, while giving a shocking account of what happened when she took on the most powerful law enforcement agency in the world, and won. (Please note: this project is represented by Jessica Papin.) 

 When Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Higher Education Act into law, he described America’s first broad student loan program as the key that would unlock “the most important door that will ever open — the door to education.” Just fifty-five years later, that well-intentioned program has ballooned into one of the biggest consumer-finance burdens of our time: America’s student debt is roughly $1.5 trillion, affecting more than forty-four million borrowers. Having accrued multiple honors for her reporting on student debt and education for MarketWatch, author Jillian Berman tells the story of how we got to this point in SUNK COST: THE STORY OF AMERICA’S $1.5 TRILLION (AND GROWING) STUDENT DEBT CRISIS. Berman takes readers from America’s early attempts to expand education with the Land Grant College Act and the GI Bill up through the present day with first-hand interviews of students attempting to escape the student debt trap. Along the way, SUNK COST will illustrate how noble policy objectives became muddled by corporate greed, delivering devastating consequences for student loan borrowers and taxpayers, and how we can find a way out of this seemingly intractable problem. (Please note: this project is represented by John Rudolph.)

 It was Christmas Eve when Hayley DeRoche found out that the two-year-old foster son she expected to adopt would instead begin a process of returning to his biological family. The news was devastating, yet, DeRoche’s journey in fostering had been an ongoing lesson in opening herself to loss, recognizing her own racial and economic privilege, and acknowledging that fostering also brings shattering loss for the mothers whose children are taken from them. In SUMMONED: FAITH, FOSTER PARENTING, AND FINDING JUSTICE IN A BROKEN WORLD, DeRoche explores the beliefs about adoption and foster parenting that her early life in evangelical circles instilled and the abolitionist approach to faithful fostering that she is now pursuing. With unflinching vulnerability, she shares how she idealistically and good-heartedly expected foster care to be the map out of her own struggle with miscarriage and infertility and instead discovered a radical new understanding of social justice and faith. Drawing on wells of both anger and compassion, DeRoche asks hard questions about how evangelical orphan theology cooperates with American racism and the criminalization of poverty to glorify white middle class foster parents at the expense of biological families—and offers the social justice outlook she’s now embracing as an alternate anchor for both faith and fostering. Hayley DeRoche is a librarian in Virginia where she also runs an unconventional writing retreat; her work has appeared in in McSweeney's, MUTHA Magazine, and The Good Men Project. (Please note: this project is represented by Sharon Pelletier.) 

In the 21st century, the Victorian concept of “the angel of the house” seems antiquated. Yet Sara Petersen, a familiar voice in motherhood writing, argues that the angel’s specter lives on in perceptions of contemporary motherhood. This persistent glorification of beautiful, white, domestic maternity forces all mothers to struggle to live up to an impossible standard and distracts our culture from the fact that the work of motherhood and caregiving is still invisible, undervalued, underpaid, unprotected, and culturally disrespected. The global pandemic has shown with unrelenting clarity that things never got much better for mothers—especially mothers of color—we just got better at covering the problem up. In KILLING THE ANGEL OF THE HOUSE: HOW MOTHER WORSHIP ERASES MOTHERS, Sara argues that idealization of white domesticity and motherhood is almost always in in diametric opposition to enacting concrete change that directly contribute to improving mothers’ lives, using criticism of 19th and early 20th century literature and pop-cultural criticism of the performance, politics, and aesthetics of modern motherhood on Instagram and elsewhere. KILLING THE ANGEL OF THE HOUSE is not just a timely and urgent book that mothers want and need now, more than ever, it’s a call to action to burn down racist, sexist stereotypes of self-sacrificial motherhood and raise the value, worth, and respect of mothering in its place. Sara’s work has appeared in the New York Times, In Style, The Washington Post, Glamour, and Longreads, among other places. (Please note: this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.)

At the age of 40, Helena Rho abandons medicine. She was an assistant professor of pediatrics at a Top Ten children’s hospital, married to another doctor with two beautiful kids, a midnight-blue Victorian house, and a silver Mercedes Benz. Her life seemed perfect. But there was darkness underneath: her mother tried to commit suicide; her father was incarcerated for Medicaid fraud; her husband is an emotionally and physically abusive white man. LEAVING MEDICINE is Rho’s story of leaving pediatrics after sixteen years—her destined field as a Korean immigrant, model minority, and daughter of a surgeon—and becoming a writer who recovers her Korean identity. Over her transformative journey, Rho learns to speak Korean, a language she lost when she left Seoul at age six, cook Korean food, and reunites with her Korean family. Rho explores the complicated and entwined elements that led to her abandonment of medicine—including some of her gut-wrenching stories about her pediatric patients, which took an emotional toll, excruciating stories about her suicidal mother, and her own peculiar immigrant experience. But Rho goes further than that in LEAVING MEDICINE, weaving narrative strands of disease, sorrow, family, joy, rediscovery, homeland, and belonging from a woman, a mother, and a new American to create a compelling narrative with a deeply human story. (Please note: this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.)

 #MeToo may have originated in the United States, but hundreds of thousands of women across the world took up its slogan and made it their own. In South Korea, tens of thousands of women and girls took to the street for months and many more brave individuals took a stand to end a decades-long abortion ban and bring down powerful sexual predators—including the most popular potential presidential contender. Though South Korea is the world’s 12th-largest economy, boasting cutting-edge technologies, Samsung smartphones, and K-pop stars with global followings, it also remains a deeply patriarchal society with a lower percentage of women in parliament than Saudi Arabia and fewer women in corporate boardrooms than Pakistan. FLOWERS OF FIRE: A STORY OF SOUTH KOREA’S FEMINIST REVOLUTION by Hawon Jung, a former Seoul correspondent for Agence France-Presse details a rare success story of #MeToo in Asia and provides a glimpse into the lives and struggles of these incredible women, drawing on firsthand reporting and interviews with many trailblazers. From an elite prosecutor who ignited the country’s #MeToo movement to a teenager who led war against spycam porn, a powerful tale in Asia is woven about a homegrown feminist movement with its own unique history and raucous energy. Part literary nonfiction, part firsthand reportage, FLOWERS OF FIRE will serve as a testament to the strength and tenacity of Asian feminists, whose fight for gender equality has long been overlooked and unknown in the west. (Please note: this project is represented by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.) 

Rights Round Up

Audible acquired audio rights to FINALLY by RL Mathewson and BLACK TANGLED HEART by Samantha Young. Audio rights to NIGHTFALL by Penelope Douglas and TWISTED, PLAYING WITH FIRE, and LOVE HER TO DEATH by John Glatt went to Tantor. Workman audio has rights to MS. ADVENTURE by Jess Phoenix and AS THE WORLD BURNS by Lee van der Voo.

 Ben Adler optioned film rights to Amber Hunt’s SEE HOW MUCH YOU LOVE ME. Passionflix optioned film rights to Georgia Cates’s BEAUTY FROM PAIN series. Tehlor Kay Mejia’s PAOLA SANTIAGO AND THE RIVER OF TEARS was optioned for film by Disney with Jeremy Sunderland producing. Kelly McWilliams’s AGNES AT THE END OF THE WORLD was optioned for film by Max Hirschman. Killer/Concordia optioned film rights to LET THE RECORD SHOW by Sarah Schulman.

 Lovebooks/L&R acquired Danish rights to MAKING FACES by Amy Harmon and Sakam Knigi acquired Macedonian rights, while Yabanci/Ithaki acquired Turkish rights to her THE BIRD AND THE SWORD and THE QUEEN AND THE CURE. Record acquired Brazilian rights to Colleen Hoover’s LAYLA, Pegasus acquired Estonian rights to her VERITY, and Epica acquired Romanian rights to her REGRETTING YOU. DeGeus acquired Dutch rights to WHITE FRAGILITY by Robin DiAngelo and Natur & Kultur acquired Swedish rights. Yilin Press acquired simplified Chinese rights to SUPER FLY by Jonathan Balcombe, while Newton Press acquired Japanese rights. German rights to DROP DEAD SEXY by Katie Ashley were sold to Plaisir d’Amour. Yousef Bashir’s THE WORDS OF MY FATHER was sold for Slovakian publication to Hadart. CONCLAVE by Penelope Douglas will be published in Russian by AST. Abbi Glines’s SWEET LITTLE BITCH went to Karakter for Dutch Publication. BLIND DATE COLLECTION and LOVE LETTER COLLECTION edited by Heather B. Moore went to Cappelen Damm for Norwegian publication. Wandler Verlag acquired German rights to David Morrell’s THE HUNDRED-YEAR CHRISTMAS. Russian rights for Kendall Ryan’s PLAYING FOR KEEPS and ALL THE WAY went to AST. ALL YOUR TWISTED SECRETS by Diana Urban was sold for Spanish publication to Obscura. GLASS CASTLE PRINCE by Nicole Williams went to LYX/INK Digital for German publication.

RECENT SALES

 JC Peterson’s BEING MARY BENNET and UNTITLED STANDALONE went to HarperTeen in a North American rights deal by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.

 World rights to LUCHA and UNTITLED BOOK 2 by Tehlor Kay Mejia went to Make Me a World/Knopf in a deal by Jim McCarthy.

 John Rudolph sold World rights for PEACEFUL PROTESTOR by Michael G. Long to Little Bee Books.

 Razorbill bought World rights to BLACKHEART and UNTITLED BOOK 2 by Morgan Rhodes in a deal by Jim McCarthy.

 World rights to Hannah Morrissey’s HELLO, TRANSCRIBER and UNTITLED BOOK 2 were sold to St. Martin’s Press in a deal by Sharon Pelletier.

 Tarryn Fisher’s next two UNTTLED books went to Graydon House in a World rights deal.

 Stacey Glick sold THE MONTCLAIR BREAD COMPANY COOKBOOK by Rachel Wyman Crampsey to Andrews McMeel in a World rights deal.

 World rights to Amy Harmon’s A DREAM IN FADED COLORS were sold to Lake Union/Amazon.

 World rights to WHAT ARE WORDS, REALLY? illustrated by Carlos Aponte, text by Alexi Lubomirski sold to Candlewick in a deal by John Rudolph.

 MIRROR GIRLS by Kelly McWilliams went Little, Brown Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by Michael Bourret.

 Christie Matheson’s SHELTER was sold to Random House Books for Young Readers in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.

 World English rights to THESE TWISTED GAMES by Diana Urban went to Wednesday Books in a deal by Jim McCarthy.

 Jonathan Balcombe’s A BOY AND A FISH was sold to The Gryphon Press for World rights by Stacey Glick.

 JOURNAL OF A PANDEMIC YEAR by Margaret Peacock and Erik Peterson was sold to Beacon Press in a World English rights deal.

 Kristina Gaddy’s WELL OF SOULS was sold to W.W. Norton in a World rights deal by John Rudolph.

 MISEDUCATED by Brandon Fleming went to Hachette Books in a North American rights deal by Jessica Papin.

 World rights to PAPER BOATS and UNTITLED BOOK 2 by Wendy Swore went to Shadow Mountain in a deal by Stacey Glick.

 Stacey Glick sold North American rights to Jeanne M. Zulick’s STARDUST AND OTHER STUFF to FSG Books for Young Readers.

 Kate Wood’s HER DAILY BREAD was sold to HarperOne in a World rights deal by Stacey Glick.

 THE RED PALACE by June Hur was sold to Feiwel and Friends in a North American rights deal by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.

 Ann Leslie Tuttle sold World English rights to Jenna Kernan’s KILLER VIEW and KILLER PREY to Bookouture.

 Helen Elaine Lee’s POMEGRANATE was sold to Atria in a World rights deal.

 St. Martin’s Press bought World rights to PAY DIRT ROAD by Samantha Jayne Allen in a deal by Sharon Pelletier.

 World rights to RACE AGAINST TIME by Keith Boykin went to Bold Type Books.

 Ann Leslie Tuttle sold four untitled romances by Tara Taylor Quinn to Harlequin for World rights.

 St. Martin’s Press bought North American rights to UNTITLED VALLOW MURDER CASE by John Glatt.

 Dr. Kelsy Burke’s THE P***OGRAPHY WARS was sold to Bloomsbury in a North American rights deal by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.

 World rights to MAMA by Nikkya Hargrove went to Algonquin in a deal by Stacey Glick.

 FSG Books for Young Readers bought World rights to FOREVER IS NOW + UNTITLED BOOK 2 by Mariama Lockington.

 Margaret Willson’s THE SEA REBEL was sold to Sourcebooks in a World English rights deal by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.

 Michael Bourret sold IN THE SAME BOAT by Holly Green to Scholastic for North American rights.

 North American rights to the GAME ON anthology, edited by Laura Silverman went to Philomel in a deal by Jim McCarthy.

 Montlake bought Catherine Bybee’s five next untitled books in a World rights deal.

 Diana Biller’s HOTEL OF SECRETS was sold to St. Martin’s Press in a World rights deal by Amy Elizabeth Bishop.

 World rights to FROM CAULDRONS TO CRYSTALS: A WOMAN’S HISTORY OF THE OCCULT by Lisa Kroger and Melanie Anderson were sold to Quirk Books in a deal by Ann Leslie Tuttle.

 Michael Bourret sold HIDE AND DON’T SEEK by Anica Mrose Rissi to HarperCollins Children’s Books/Quill Tree at auction for World rights.

 St. Martin’s Press bought BEST OF ALL TIME— FAVORITE COLLECTION OF ARTISAN BREAD IN 5 MINUTES A DAY RECIPES by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë François in a North American rights deal.

 Klancy Miller’s FOR THE CULTURE was sold to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in a World rights deal.

 Stacey Glick sold LOW CARB YUM QUICK & EASY MEALS FOR BEGINNERS by Lisa MarcAurele to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in a World rights deal.

 THE DARKEST FLOWER and a second UNTITLED book by Kristin Wright went to Thomas & Mercer in a World English deal by Sharon Pelletier.