Farrar, Straus & Giroux has announced that it is starting its first adult personal imprint: Sarah Crichton Books, which will concentrate on the kind of serious but sales-generating nonfiction she's known for (and that FSG president Jonathan Galassi acknowledges the house hasn't done much of lately). Crichton will also publish some fiction, creating a list of 12 to 15 titles per year; the first books are due out in late 2005.
Crichton, who left Little, Brown in January 2001, has been working as a ghostwriter (her book with Daniel Libeskind is due in November from Riverhead; her Marianne Pearl project became a bestseller), but said she's happy to be getting back to publishing. "I've had wonderful and interesting work. But I really love editing and publishing. I've missed it a lot," she told PW.
Sarah Crichton Books is currently FSG's only line to be named after its editor, and its staff consists of just its namesake and her assistant. "Basically, she's a new, very senior editor here—she's going to shape her own list, but we're not starting a new company or anything," Galassi said.
Crichton's appointment won't affect the search to replace Becky Saletan as editorial director at North Point, a position spokesperson Jeff Seroy said will soon be filled "in an interesting and very forward-looking way."
