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Hot Deals: From Small Press to S&S
Judy Quinn -- 8/3/98
California-based novelist and short story writer Catherine Ryan Hyde just got a significant commitment to her career in the form of six-figure, film/ book deals with Simon &Schuster and Warner Bros., respectively, for her upcoming second novel, Pay It Forward. Hyde's first novel, Funerals for Horses, and her story collection, Earthquake Weather, were published by Russian Hill Press. Funerals (1997), about a woman's search for a missing brother who is her only lifeline in a dysfunctional world, was particularly praised. Her new book is also set within a dysfunctional family, but young protagonist Trevor's mission is positive: given the charge to "do good" in social studies class, he comes up with the idea of "pay forward," or returning favors to others rather than to the original favor giver. Hearing about the good coverage of the book on the film side from Viacom sister Paramount, S&S editor-in-chief Michael Korda and executive editor Chuck Adams acquired world rights to the book from Hyde's agents, Anne Sheldon and Michael Vidor of the Hardy Agency in Sausalito, Calif. The film deal -- the typical five-figure option with six-figure purchase -- is a bit more complex: Jonathan Treisman of Flatiron Films had snapped up the film option on the book a few weeks ago; he and his partner for this project, Tapestry Films, agreed to sell the option to Warner, which bought it for director Steven Reuther (Face-Off; The Client) and his company Bel Air Entertainment. No pub date for the book is set.

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