Peggy Boulos Smith has joined the Jane Rotrosen Agency’s subsidiary rights division as global rights director. Previously she was an agent at Miller Bowers Griffin. In addition, Danielle Sickles has been promoted to global rights manager. At Graywolf Press, Marisa Atkinson has been promoted to publicity and events manager. Harper Lee‘s lawyer Gloria Phares issued a statement to us Thursday evening regarding the author’s recent settlement of her lawsuit against former agent Sam Pinkus: “Harper Lee has always been a very private person. Her case has ended as she desired: quickly, with her copyright secured to her, and a return […]
Archives for September 2013
Simsion Tops Librarian List, Too
The new LibraryReads initiative has announced their second monthly list of librarian favorites for October. Their No 1. pick is Graeme Simsion’s novel, also the Indie Next top selection: Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion Longbourn, Jo Baker The Lowland, Jhumpa Lahiri Cartwheel, Jennifer duBois Hawthorn & Child, Keith Ridgway The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement, Nick Saul & Andrea Curtis We Are Water, Wally Lamb The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt The Tilted World, Tom Franklin & Beth Ann Fennelly Hunting Season: Immigration and Murder in an All-American Town, Mirta Ojito You can […]
Musicians’ On-Again Off-Again Stories
Billy Joel‘s one-time co-author Fred Schruers is reportedly writing a biography of Joel for Crown. Newsday reports Joel saying in a statement, “Fred Schruers is free to write whatever kind of book he wants based on the firsthand information he gathered during the time he spent with me.” Crown did not reply to a query for confirmation yet. In 2011 Billy Joel cancelled his planned memoir with HarperCollins THE BOOK OF JOEL about two months before publication, saying, “It took working on writing a book to make me realize that I’m not all that interested in talking about the past, […]
Moonves Likes S&S Under His Dome
CBS ceo Les Moonves spoke to investors at yesterday’s Bank of America Merrill Lynch Media, Communications and Entertainment Conference. The focus of his reported remarks was to underscore that their standoff with Time Warner Cable would have no effect on their earnings. But Moonves did also specifically say what his publisher has told us in the past: “We have no intention of selling Simon & Schuster.” (Yes, we know publishing word parsers will focus on “intention.”) The publisher’s relationships helped contribute to the parent company’s overall success this summer with the special Under the Dome series on CBS, based on […]
NBF Names 5 (Women) Under 35
The National Book Foundation announced their closely-watched list of 5 Under 35 authors — and “for the first time, the group of authors are all women.” Two of the featured authors are not scheduled to publish until 2014: Rona Jaffe Award winner Merritt Tierce’s Love Me Back (Doubleday, fall 2014) and Stegner Fellow Molly Antopol’s The UnAmericans (Norton, February 2014). One title does not have an announced US publisher yet: Daisy Hildyard’s Hunters in the Snow, published by Jonathan Cape in the UK this summer. The other two were both highlighted/excerpted in previous Publishers Lunch Buzz Books collections: Current Booker […]
The Books Are Finished But There Are Still More Potter Movies to Make
J.K. Rowling will add screenwriter to her credits, adapting her short Harry Potter-related book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them for Warner Bros. in an “expanded creative partnership.” The studio came to Rowling with the concept and “I thought it was a fun idea, but the idea of seeing Newt Scamander, the supposed author of ‘Fantastic Beasts,’ realized by another writer was difficult…. As I considered Warners’ proposal, an idea took shape that I couldn’t dislodge. That is how I ended up pitching my own idea for a film to Warner Bros.” She underscores in the announcement, “I always […]