Chronicle Gets the Goods
Humorist, blogger, and contributor to GQ and Parents Jason Good signed a two-book deal with Lorena Jones at Chronicle Books. Courtney Miller-Callihan of Sanford J. Greenburger Associates sold world rights to We Swallow Food in This House and a follow-up, Just Wait Until Your Father Grows Up. Miller-Callihan said We Swallow Food, set for a spring 2014 release, is “a collection of lists that capture the hilarious, absurd, and sweetest moments of parenting young children.” The second book, to be released a year later, “explores the meaning of fatherhood with wit and heart,” noted Miller-Callihan, who is handling film rights.
It Books Takes Cobain Bio
With the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death on April 5, 1994, a year away, Carrie Thornton, executive editor at It Books, bought world rights to a new work about the late Nirvana frontman. The bio is by Charles R. Cross, author and coauthor of several New York Times bestsellers, including the previous Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven, which was published by Hyperion in 2001. According to Thornton, the currently untitled project will explore, in short form, the legacy of Cobain and address “why Kurt Cobain matters.” Sarah Lazin, of Sarah Lazin Books, brokered the deal; It Books is aiming for a spring 2014 publication.
Two Dollar Radio Gobbles Up ‘Crystal Eaters’
Two Dollar Radio publisher Eric Obenauf acquired world rights to what he calls “an incredibly ambitious new novel” by Shane Jones, author of Light Boxes and Daniel Fights a Hurricane, both of which were published by Penguin. Crystal Eaters follows a young girl named Remy who lives in a village that believes in “crystal count”—that there is a set number of crystals inside each person that relates to how long he or she will live. When the expansion of a nearby city threatens to displace the village, Remy’s mother illness gets worse, and Remy sets out to discover some way to increase her mother’s crystal count. The deal was unagented and Two Dollar Radio controls film and television rights, which will be handled by its representatives at the Gotham Group.
Graywolf Wins Immunity
Executive editor Jeffrey Shotts at Graywolf Press bought North American rights to the next book from the press’s award-winning author Eula Biss. On Immunity: An Inoculation is described as “a cultural exploration of vaccination, parenthood, and public health.” A portion of the book appeared in the January 2013 issue of Harper’s. The deal was brokered by Matt McGowan at the Frances Goldin Literary Agency. Biss is the author of Notes from No Man’s Land: American Essays, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism and the Graywolf Nonfiction Prize; the publisher recently went back for a seventh printing of the book. On Immunity is scheduled for release in fall 2014.
HC Takes ‘The Taking’
Kimberly Derting has had commercial and critical success with two previous young adult trilogies and she has just sold a third to Sarah Landis at Harper Teen. Laura Rennert of Andrea Brown Literary Agency brokered the world-rights deal, which was for a strong six figures. The new series is tentatively called the Taking, which is also the title of the first book. The series will follow the story of a teen who wakes up after one lost night, to find that five years have passed and everything about the life she remembers has changed, even though she’s still the same 16-year-old that she was when she vanished. Publication of The Taking is planned for summer 2014, and film and television rights are being handled by Alicia Gordon, Ashley Fox, and Erin Conroy of William Morris Endeavor Entertainment. Derting’s earlier series the Body Finder has been published in 12 foreign territories, and the Pledge, another series, has been published in nine.
A Good Thing for Putnam
Kerri Kolen at G.P. Putnam’s Sons bought world rights for a book by Jill Nystul, based on her blog, www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com. Steve Troha of Folio Literary Management did the deal, and Putnam has set hardcover publication for Mother’s Day 2014, with the paperback to follow from Berkley. In One Good Thing, Nystul will provide readers with more of the tips and projects for each day that have made her blog so popular, while also telling the story of how she came to focus on one good thing per day, in order to overcome a failing marriage, postpartum depression, and alcoholism.
Knisley, First Second Re-Up
First Second senior editor Calista Brill took world rights to cartoonist Lucy Knisley’s graphic memoir New Kid in a deal brokered by Holly Bemiss of the Susan Rabiner Literary Agency. Aimed at the young adult reader, New Kid is a memoir-in-comics of Knisley’s high school years, detailing her experiences with friends, drugs, sex, and her desire to make art in a school system that seemed determined to prevent her from doing so. Knisley’s graphic memoir Relish: My Life in the Kitchen is being released this month by First Second.
