DEAL OF THE WEEK
Winslow Sells Trilogy for Seven Figs
Don Winslow signed a seven-figure deal with Liate Stehlik at William Morrow for a new crime trilogy. The world rights agreement, excluding the U.K., was brokered by Shane Salerno at the Story Factory. The first book in the series, City on Fire, is set for fall 2021. Jennifer Brehl will edit the novels. A TV adaptation of Winslow’s Cartel trilogy is currently in preproduction at FX after 20th Century Fox bought rights for $6 million, Salerno said.
FROM THE U.S.
Dey Street Lands Moon
Moon Unit Zappa sold her currently untitled memoir to Carrie Thornton at Dey Street, which preempted U.S., Canadian, and open market rights. Peter McGuigan at Ultra Literary brokered the deal. The memoir, according to the Harper imprint, focuses on the author’s childhood in the 1970s and ’80s. Zappa, the daughter of musician Frank Zappa, describes growing up in an unconventional household, creating a “finely wrought memoir of Los Angeles, family, and coming-of-age.”
Natera Takes ‘Neruda’ to Ballantine
Chelcee Johns, in her first acquisition as an editor at Ballantine, took North American rights at auction to the debut novel Neruda on the Park. Author Cleyvis Natera, a PEN America Writing for Justice fellow, was represented by PJ Mark at Janklow & Nesbit. The novel, Ballantine said, is “a fierce exploration on race, class, community, and the meaning of home, as a Dominican family in New York City who, faced with encroaching gentrification in their neighborhood, take radically different paths.” It was pitched as being “in the vein of Kiley Reid’s Such a Fun Age and Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street” and is slated for spring/summer 2022. Natera, a Dominican immigrant who grew up in New York City, has been published in the Kenyon Review, the Washington Post, and elsewhere.
Viking Wins Book on ‘Black Space’
Elda Rotor at Viking Books bought world rights, at auction, to Seizing Black Space by Michelle D. Commander, in a deal brokered by Deirdre Mullane at Mullane Literary Associates. Viking said the book, subtitled A New History of Race and Mobility in America, “chronicles African American struggles to make claims on the American landscape—from vibrant slave communities and early free urban enclaves to thriving Black Wall Streets and the ghost towns of communities razed by fear and violence—across four centuries of displacement and renewal.” Commander is the associate director and curator of the Schomburg Center’s Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery in New York City.
Woodward, Costa Tackle Trump Transition
Washington Post staffers Bob Woodward and Robert Costa sold a book to Jonathan Karp at Simon & Schuster about the transition from the Trump administration to the Biden administration. Robert Barnett, a lawyer at Williams & Connolly, handled the world rights deal for both authors. Karp will edit the currently untitled book, which, S&S said, will focus on “the last days of the Trump presidency and the first phases of the Biden presidency.” No publication date has been set.
Ballantine Sets Scene with Burrows
Emmy-winning director James Burrows sold North American rights to a currently untitled book about his long career in television to Ballantine’s Pamela Cannon. Burrows has worked on a host of iconic sitcoms (including Taxi and Will & Grace) and cocreated Cheers. Mel Berger at William Morris Endeavor brokered the deal. The publisher said the book will “look at the art of directing shows—from the initial pilot to the 100th episode—and offer insight into the many stars who rose to meteoric fame in the process.”
