Stelter Goes to GCP
Brian Stelter, a New York Times staff writer and noted presence in the new documentary on the paper, Page One, sold a book to Grand Central Publishing about the world of morning television. Ben Greenberg pre-empted North American rights to Top of the Morning from Kate Lee at ICM and plans to publish the title in 2013. The book, GCP said, offers "a candid look at the surreal lives of the surrogate families that we invite into our homes each morning—and why the shows matter so much to the fragmenting television business."

'Believer' Editor Lands at Two Dollar Radio
Eric Obenauf at Ohio indie Two Dollar Radio bought world rights to Karolina Waclawiak's How to Get into the Twin Palms. Waclawiak, an assistant editor at Dave Eggers's literary magazine The Believer, has a screenplay adaptation of Sam Lipsyte's novel Venus Drive in development and Twin Palms marks her debut novel. The book follows a woman named Anya who lives in a Russian enclave of Los Angeles and struggles to assimilate while also maintaining her Polish roots; Obenauf called the novel "a really funny and often moving portrait of the immigrant experience." Waclawiak did not use an agent.

Thomas Dunne Goes to the 'Seals'
Brendan Deneen and Peter Joseph, at Thomas Dunne Books, bought world rights (along with dramatic rights for Macmillan Films) to Weston Ochse's Seal Team 666. Deneen and Joseph came up with the concept in-house and attached Ochse, a retired Army officer who's won both a Pushcart Prize and a Bram Stoker Award, to write the novel. The book offers a supernatural twist on the story behind the squad that took out Osama bin Laden—the publication is planned to coincide with the one-year anniversary of bin Laden's killing next spring—and follows a Navy Seal trainee (who was demonically possessed as a child) recruited into a government unit confronting a wave of otherworldly attacks on the U.S. Robert Fleck at Professional Media Services represented Ochse in the deal.

Stohl Launches SF Series at LBYR
Margaret Stohl, co-author of the bestselling YA series Beautiful Creatures, sold North American rights to two books in a new series called Icons to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Julie Scheina acquired the novels from agent Sarah Burnes at the Gernert Company, and book one is slated for spring 2013. The YA science fiction series, which is set 16 years after an alien invasion, follows a group of teenagers who become swept up in a resistance movement looking to unseat the extraterrestrials who've taken control of the planet.

S&S Wins Two by Gale
Beating out a number of other bidders, David Gale at Simon & Schuster bought world English rights to two YA books by Andrew Smith, Winger and Once There Were Birds. Laura Rennert at the Andrea Brown Literary Agency brokered the deal for the books; Winger is set for a spring 2013 publication, with Once There Were Birds to follow in spring 2014. Smith, who's written three YA novels including The Marbury Lens (Feiwel and Friends), deals with subjects like love and friendship in Winger, about a boy at a boarding school living in the dorm for troublemakers, who plays against his mostly bigger and, tougher, dorm mates on the varsity rugby team. Once There Were Birds is set postapocalypse and focuses on a teenage boxer who escapes his all-boys school and goes on a journey with a younger classmate; Rennert called the book a "hair-raising action-adventure" coming-of-age tale.