Korda Stays ‘Alone’ at Norton
For W.W. Norton’s Liveright imprint, Robert Weil took world English rights to a new work of nonfiction by former Simon & Schuster editor-in-chief Michael Korda. Alone, which was sold by Lynn Nesbit, at Janklow & Nesbit, chronicles a five-week period in 1940 just after Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain. This stretch, from May to early June, Liveright explained, was a crucial turning point in history, as Hitler began his attack on Western Europe. The imprint elaborated that the book “interweaves the stories and experiences of political leaders at the top... with those of ordinary soldiers and their generals on both sides.” Korda has written a number of bestsellers, including Charmed Lives (1979). Alone is set for spring 2018.

Dickerman Lands Debut at Auction
Flatiron Books’ Colin Dickerman won North American rights, at auction, to Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich’s debut, Any One of Us. The book, by the NEA fellow and Harvard Law School graduate, is described by the publisher as a “memoir/true-crime” story. When Marzano-Lesnevich was a young intern with a Louisiana attorney, she stumbled upon a case her boss was handling that closely overlapped with aspects of Marzano-Lesnevich’s own difficult childhood. Flatiron said the book has “the intimacy and vivid reporting of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and the compulsively addictive pacing of [the podcast] Serial.” It chronicles the author’s journey to understand how “everyone—attorneys, jurors, the public, victims, and even the perpetrators of crimes—judges people through the lenses of their own experiences.” Robert Guinsler at Sterling Lord Literistic represented Marzano-Lesnevich in the deal.

Radtke Gets Illustrated at Pantheon
Kristen Radtke, an Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate and publicity director at Sarabande Books, sold a currently untitled graphic memoir to Dan Frank at Pantheon. The book, explained Gelfman Schneider’s Victoria Marini, who brokered the North American deal, is a travelogue about Radtke’s “experience of loss through her obsession with ruins and abandoned places.”

Ebola Survivor Speaks for WaterBrook
Kent Brantly and his wife, Amber, sold North American rights to a currently untitled book about Kent’s brush with Ebola in 2014 to Penguin Random House’s WaterBrook Multnomah imprint. Kent, an American missionary and doctor, was diagnosed with the deadly disease in July 2014 when he was in Liberia and then flown to Atlanta for treatment. Chris Park at Foundry Literary + Media brokered the deal for the couple, who have been in the headlines since the medical emergency. Among other notices, Kent appeared on the cover of Time’s 2014 Person of the Year issue as one of the “Ebola Fighters.” At WaterBook, where Bruce Nygren and Alex Field jointly acquired the title, the book is being touted as “an extraordinary story of medical advancements in conjunction with God’s grace.” David Thomas (whose credits include Mark Schultz’s book Foxcatcher) is cowriting the book with Kent and Amber.

Vestal Follows Park to Penguin
For Penguin Press, Ed Park has acquired world English rights to Shawn Vestal’s debut novel, Daredevils. Park acquired a short story collection by Vestal called Godforsaken Idaho for Little A when he was an editor at the Amazon imprint, and that book went on to win the 2014 PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize. Daredevils is a coming-of-age story set in Arizona and Idaho during the 1970s that follows a fundamentalist Mormon teenage girl forced into a polygamous marriage with a member of the church. According to Penguin, the book also involves “Jason, the teenage boy who loves her, and their mad dash for freedom, punctuated by visions of Evel Knievel.” Renée Zuckerbrot, who has an eponymous agency, sold the book, which is set for spring 2016.

Harper Teen Gets ‘Liberty’
Kristen Petit at Harper Teen took world rights, in a three-book, six-figure deal, to the YA spy thriller Liberty, by Andrea Portes (Anatomy of a Misfit). Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio represented the author. Liberty, which was co-created with screenwriter Joel Silverman, introduces readers to an 18-year-old girl who, Stimola explained, is “caught up in her family’s past and international espionage and recruited by the CIA.” The other two books in the deal are currently untitled YA novels.

Landis Gets Crafty at Scholastic
David Landis sold an adventure book with a crafting element, called Papercuttables, to Celia Lee at Scholastic. Lee took world rights to the project from Jennifer Rofé at Andrea Brown Literary. The book, Rofé explained, is a “paper craft adventure” that “empowers users to build monsters and magical creatures without the need for glue or tape.” Landis created the paper craft website Desktop Gremlins with funds generated by a Kickstarter campaign.