The songwriter/singer/actor/athlete/activist Kris Kristofferson, who has been a fixture in the national consciousness for more than 30 years—and whose "Me and Bobby McGee" is one of the all-time great country songs—is writing a memoir for Hyperion publisher Bob Miller. Miller signed the book from Coast agent Amy Rennert for world rights and aims to publish in fall 2005, with the house's Leslie Wells editing. The Grammy Award—winning artist will tell his story without benefit of coauthor.
Another, more current, figure has also just signed to do a memoir, this one with Kensington, where senior editor Jeremie Ruby-Strauss, newly arrived from Regan Books, signed TV and movie star Jamie Kennedy to a six-figure, hard/soft world rights deal that includes book club and electronic; Alan Nevins of The Firm in Hollywood negotiated the deal. The book, called Wannabe: A Hollywood Experiment, will be rushed out as soon as August, to coincide with the new season of the comic's hit TV show The Jamie Kennedy Experiment. The book will recount Kennedy's efforts, many of them hilarious, to break into show business. The star, who was also in Malibu's Most Wanted, will sign galleys at BEA this week.
