SMP Signs PEN Winner; Inks Kelly for Seven
Victor Lodato sold his new novel, Edgar and Lucy, to St. Martin’s Elizabeth Beier, who won the book at auction. Lodato’s debut novel, Mathilda Savitch (FSG, 2009), won a PEN USA Fiction Award and a B&N Discover Prize. The new novel follows eight-year-old Edgar Fini, who has survived an accident that he can’t remember. What Edgar does know is that his father is now absent, and his mother has a limp. When the boy meets a man who has suffered setbacks of his own, Edgar, SMP said, “begins a journey into a secret wilderness where nothing is clear—not even the line between the living and the dead.” Lodato, who is also a playwright (Arlington) was represented by Bill Clegg at the Clegg Agency.
In a separate deal at SMP, mystery author Diane Kelly signed a seven-book world rights deal with associate editor Holly Ingraham. The agreement covers three new books in Paw Enforcement, Kelly’s mass market series featuring a K-9 cop, as well as an original e-novella in her Tara Holloway series. SMP noted that for both series, new titles are being published every seven months. Helen Breitweiser at Cornerstone Literary Agency represented Kelly, a former tax advisor, in the deal.
YouTube Star Bisognin Goes to Atria
In a world English rights deal, Marzia Bisognin, known to YouTube fans as CutiePieMarzia, sold her debut novel, Dream House, to Jhanteigh Kupihea at Atria. Bisognin, who posts videos featuring tips on fashion and beauty, has a YouTube channel with more than 5.4 million subscribers. (She is also the girlfriend of fellow YouTuber Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie, a Swedish producer who maintains, per Atria, the most popular channel on YouTube, with more than 37 million subscribers.) In the YA paranormal work, a houseguest begins having, Atria said, “sinister and surreal” experiences after the person hosting her disappears. The book, which is set for 2016, will be published by Keywords Press, a joint venture between Atria and United Talent Agency that has released a number of other titles by YouTube personalities. Carmen Prestia, at Italy’s Newton Compton, represented the author.
S&S Gets de Botton’s Love
Marysue Rucci and Ben Loehnen at Simon & Schuster acquired two new books by Alain de Botton (How Proust Can Change Your Life). Through the deal, de Botton sold a new novel called The Course of Love, along with a new work of nonfiction. The Course of Love, which marks de Botton’s first novel in a number of years, explores a 13-year marriage and, S&S said, features “a psychoanalytic commentary exploring the process of falling in love.” Rucci will be editing Love, while Loehnen will be editing the nonfiction title. De Botton, who is known for his essays as well as his fiction, is also the founder of two organizations based in London: the School of Life (which uses culture to improve students’ “emotional intelligence,” according to its website) and Living Architecture (which promotes modern architecture by allowing people to rent out cutting-edge homes built throughout England). Zoë Pagnamenta, who has an eponymous agency, brokered the sale for de Botton on behalf of Caroline Dawnay at United Agents.
Lott, Daschle Bring ‘Crisis’ To Bloomsbury
Former senators Trent Lott and Tom Daschle have crossed party lines to write a new book called Crisis Point: Why We Must—and How We Can—Overcome Our Broken Politics in Washington and Across America. Anton Mueller at Bloomsbury acquired world rights to the book, which the politicians—though both are former Senate majority leaders, Lott is a Republican and Daschle a Democrat—are writing with Jon Sternfeld. Mueller said the book is “a remarkable bipartisan collaboration” and has “an urgent message. The book, which is scheduled for January 2016, will, Bloomsbury added, argue that “the health of our democracy is dependent not only on the free exchange of conflicting ideas, but on the imperative of compromise.” Daschle and Lott did not have representation in the deal.
Correction: An earlier version of this article misspelled Jon Sternfeld's name, and Alain de Botton's name. Additionally, Newton Compton is an Italian publisher; not an Italian literary agency.
