Middle Spoon. (Viking, September 9, 2025. Editor: Ibrahim Ahmad. Agent: Robert Guinsler, Sterling Lord Literistic.) Alejandro Varela’s debut novel, The Town of Babylon, was a finalist for the National Book Award. His short story collection, The People Who Report More Stress, was one of Publishers Weekly’s best works of fiction in 2023, a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards, and longlisted for the Aspen Literary Prize, the Story Prize, and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Varela is an editor-at-large of Apogee Journal, holds a master’s degree in public health, and is based in New York. How did you find […]
Archives for September 2025
People of Publishing Discuss Lawsuits, Foreign Rights, Finance, and More
The inaugural People of Publishing conference, hosted by the Association of American Literary Agents, brought together speakers from around the industry to demystify the business. During a panel about the year in publishing, Authors Guild ceo Mary Rasenberger and AALA general counsel Jaime Wolf discussed the biggest recent news: Anthropic and Meta lawsuits. On the ever-evolving Anthropic settlement, Rasenberger noted that by September 22, Alsup wants to know how publishers and authors will allocate the funds, which the AG is helping to navigate. “We have been very busy working with many other groups, with publishers, trying to come to terms […]
People 9/18
Judge In Anthropic Case Has More Questions, and Suggestions
District Court Judge William Alsup continues to drive the process of explaining how the proposed Anthropic copyright infringement settlement would work, following last week’s list of 17 questions for the attorneys with a fresh list of 17 more “further questions.” Among them, he is still concerned with the situation in which multiple claims are submitted for the same work: “Assume a writer, an employer of writers, an old publisher, and a new publisher each submit a claim for the same work, making incompatible ownership claims. When and how is each notified of the others’ claims (if at all), and what […]
Karp, Shelley, and Yaged Address People of Publishing
During the opening panel at the People of Publishing conference, hosted today by the Association of American Literary Agents, ceos Jonathan Karp (Simon & Schuster), David Shelley (Hachette Book Group and Hachette UK), and Jon Yaged (Macmillan) discussed the current state of publishing, including AI, getting kids to connect with books, and agent relationships. When asked about his pet peeve about the connections between agents and publishers, Karp said that he knows that editors ghosting agents is a big issue. He has asked S&S editors to respond to agents within three weeks–and, in turn, encouraged agents to accept “it’s not […]