Boudreaux Nabs Yapa for LB Imprint
For her new eponymous imprint at Little, Brown, Lee Boudreaux preempted North American rights to the debut novel by Sunil Yapa, Your Heart Is a Muscle the Size of a Fist. Yapa received his M.F.A. from Hunter College in 2010, the same year he won the Asian American Short Story Award; he has also been a writer-in-residence at the Norman Mailer Writers’ Colony in Massachusetts. The novel, which Boudreaux bought from P.J. Mark at Janklow & Nesbit, is scheduled for 2016 and is set in Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization protests there. In it, homeless-by-choice teen Victor sets out to sell marijuana to the protestors, only to find that his estranged father is heading the police force corralling the insurgents. The novel, LB said, brings together the lives of seven people over the course of a single day, including this father-son pair and a Sri Lankan who traveled to Seattle to secure his country’s seat in the WTO. Yapa, who has a Sri Lankan father and an American mother, grew up in Pennsylvania.

King Does Double at Dutton Kids
A.S. King signed a two-book, world English rights deal with Andrew Karre at Dutton Children’s Books. The deal, Karre’s first as executive editor at the imprint, was brokered by agent Michael Bourret at Dystel & Goderich. The novels, scheduled for 2016 and 2017, respectively, are currently untitled. King, who used to live in Ireland and now resides in Pennsylvania, won the L.A. Times Book Prize in 2012 for her YA novel Ask the Passengers (LBYR) and received a Michael L. Printz Honor in 2011 for her YA novel Please Ignore Vera Dietz (Knopf).

Johnson Goes to Mars for Crown
Planetary scientist and Georgetown University professor Sarah Stewart Johnson sold North American rights, at auction, to The Sirens of Mars. Crown’s Amanda Cook acquired the book from agent Jill Kneerim at Kneerim, Williams & Bloom. Sirens, the agency explained, is “an intimate exploration of our centuries-old fascination with Mars.” Johnson, who is also a former White House Fellow, had her essay “O-Rings” appear in Best American Science and Nature Writing 2014.

Waclawiak Brings ‘Invaders’ to Regan Arts
Believer editor Karolina Waclawiak sold her sophomore novel, The Invaders, to Ron Hogan at Regan Arts. Kirby Kim at Janklow & Nesbit brokered the North American rights deal for Waclawiak, whose debut, How to Get into the Twin Palms (Two Dollar Radio), was released to critical praise in 2012. Invaders, Kim explained, offers a portrait of an upper-class beach community in Connecticut, viewed from the perspectives of a wife and stepson “whose lives slowly unravel in concert with their growing disillusionment with the paranoid, cloistered environment in which they reside.” The book is set for a July 2015 release.

Former Editor Jae-Jones Sells Debut
Jill Grinberg Literary’s Katelyn Detweiler sold world English rights to the debut novel by S. Jae-Jones, a former YA fiction editor at St. Martin’s Press. Jennifer Letwack at Thomas Dunne acquired the novel, The Goblin King, which the agency described as a “dark and lyrical historical fairy tale.” In the book, a young woman sets out on a dangerous journey to save her sister from the titular creature, “only to discover she might be the one who needs saving.”

Briefs
For Disney-Hyperion, Stephanie Lurie acquired world rights to Queen Dog, a picture book by Bridget Heos. Kelly Sonnack at Andrea Brown Literary represented Heos (Mustache Baby). The book, set for winter 2017, is about a pampered canine who must deal with a new baby in his family. Alejandro O’Kif, who was represented by Justin Rucker at Shannon Associates, is illustrating.

Correction: An earlier version of the article misstated that Lee Boudreaux's purchase of Sunil Yapa's novel marked her first acquisition for her new imprint at Little, Brown.