Penny Re-ups at Minotaur
Bestselling author Louise Penny signed a new deal with Andrew Martin and Hope Dellon at St. Martin’s Minotaur Books imprint. Minotaur, which has long published Penny—the imprint is releasing her 10th Chief Inspector Gamache novel this fall—inked the author to a three-book North American rights deal. Agent Teresa Chris, who has an eponymous shingle and is based in London, represented Penny.
Viking Explores Bishop With Travisano
Kathryn Court at Viking took world English rights, at auction, to Thomas Travisano’s Love Unknown: The Life and Worlds of Elizabeth Bishop. Agent Wendy Strothman, at the Strothman Agency, brokered the deal for Travisano, who edited FSG’s 2008 book, Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell. In Love Unknown, Travisano will, MacLeod said, paint a picture of the famous poet as a woman who “lived a singular and adventurous life” while creating a “magnificent” body of work.
‘CT’ Editor Talks Women, Christianity and Work
Managing editor of Christianity Today, Katelyn Beaty, sold Co. Creators: The Christian Call for Women to Work to Becky Nesbitt at Simon & Schuster’s Howard Books. Beaty is the youngest, and first female, managing editor of the evangelical publication, and cofounded the popular Christian blog Her.meneutics.com (hosted by Christianitytoday.com). The book, explained Foundry Literary + Media’s Chris Park, who represented the author, is “a timely, incisive, and biblically robust look at the relationship between Christian women and work.” Park, who sold world rights, said Beaty argues that “the historical exclusion of women from spheres of influence does not reflect God’s intention for humanity” and picks up on the debate started by books like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men.
Liveright Signs Astor-Focused Graphic Memoir
Bob Weil and Will Menaker, at Norton’s Liveright imprint, took world English rights to illustrator/cartoonist Edward Sorel’s graphic memoir, Mary Astor’s Purple Diary. Amanda Urban at ICM Partners represented Sorel, a noted political satirist who has contributed to, among other publications, the New Yorker and Vanity Fair. The book explores a strange obsession that took hold of Sorel after he found, in an apartment he was renting in the 1960s, old newspaper reports covering the 1936 divorce of the actress Mary Astor (who began her career in silent films and later appeared in talkies). Norton said Sorel’s discovery of the salacious details of the split “began a lifetime pursuit of the real story of Mary Astor and her infamous ‘Purple Diary’—the only copy burned in 1952—which allegedly documented her many affairs in great detail.”
Melville House Taps ‘Ghost Network’
In a deal for world rights, Kirsten Reach at Melville House acquired Catie Disabato’s debut novel, The Ghost Network, about a journalist and an assistant searching for a lost pop star. Disabato, who did not use an agent, has contributed to the Millions and the Rumpus, and writes for the N.Y. Daily News’ book blog, Page Views; the book is set for spring 2015.
George Gets In Nero’s Head
Margaret George sold a new novel about the Roman Emperor Nero to Claire Zion at NAL. Jacques de Spoelberch at J. de S. Associates represented George, selling North American rights in the deal. (Macmillan acquired rights in the U.K.) The book will be told as a first-person narrative from Nero’s perspective; de Spoelberch noted that the author has tackled first-person confessions from historical figures before in works like The Autobiography of Henry VIII (1987) and The Memoirs of Cleopatra (1997).
