Latest e-letter from Publishers Weekly has announcement of the following deals:
Fiction by First-Time Novelists:
Marine Captain Phil Klay’s debut story collection, “focusing on the lives of the men and women serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the families on the home front” to Andrea Walker, her first acquisition for Penguin Press, for publication in 2014
Susan Desrocher’s Bride of New France, “about the Fille du Rois, orphaned girls sent from Paris prisons and poorhouses in mid-1600s to marry French soldiers and populate the new colony,” to Norton for publication in 2013
Mystery/ Crime
Dennis Lehane’s September, “in which a cold case detective with a terminal diagnosis investigates a notorious Boston murder and becomes heroic through his final act, to be followed by an October and November trilogy,” to William Morrow for publication in Summer 2012.
General/ Other
Author of Layover and Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Rutgers University Lisa Zeidner’s Love Bomb, “in which a lovelorn woman takes hostages at a suburban wedding where the motley crew of guests . . . swaps darkly funny stories about courtship, marriage, stalkers and the travails of parenthood,” to Farrar, Straus
There were other deal announcements, such as Washington Post Book Editor Steven Livingston’s Little Demon in the City of Light, “about a sensational murder in Belle Epoque-era Paris by a publicity-hungry young woman and her con man partner,” but twilight is falling and the fabulous city awaits self’s further explorations.
Latest e-letter from Publishers Weekly has announcement of the following deals:
Fiction by First-Time Novelists:
Michael Boccacino’s Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling, “a Victorian gothic tale pitched as The Turn of the Screw meets Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell meets Jane Eyre and the love child of Neil Gaiman and Tim Burton, in which a feisty young governess at a dilapidated manor falls in love with her widower employer and discovers a dark alternate world called The Ending, the place for things that cannot die, in which the deceased mother of the two boys under her care has been waiting to pick up where she left off in the ominous House of Darkling . . . ” to Harper Perennial, for publication in July 2012
General/ Other
Michael Kimball’sBig Ray, “the story of a son coming to terms with the sudden death of his obese father, told through 500 brief entries, moving back and forth between past and present, the father’s death and his life, between an abusive childhood and an adult understanding,” to Bloomsbury
Memoir
South Carolina governor and tea party favorite Nikki Haley’sCan’t Is Not an Option, covering everything from growing up in rural south Carolina, doing bookkeeping and taxes for her parents in middle school — an early experience of fighting government red tape . . . ” to Sentinel, for publication on January 3, 2012
There were other deal announcements, such as Gaby Rodriguez’s untitled memoir, “about her experience faking a pregnancy for 6 1/2 months as a high school senior to determine the stereotypes of unwed teen mothers, unveiling the results at a student assembly weeks before graduation,” sold to Simon and Schuster Children’s but, alas, the time has come for self to resume the book she is currently reading, Edith Wharton’s (relatively depressing and mirth-less) The House of Mirth (Sample passage, Everyman’s Library edition, p. 68: “Expansive persons found him a little dry, and very young girls thought him sarcastic; but this air of friendly aloofness, as far removed as possible from any assertion of personal advantage, was the quality which piqued Lily’s interest. Everything about him accorded with the fastidious element in her taste, even to the light irony with which he surveyed what seemed to her most sacred.”)
Latest e-letter from Publishers Weekly has announcement of the following deals:
Fiction by First-Time Novelists:
Irish journalist Kathleen MacMahon’sThis Is How It Ends, billed as “a transatlantic love story for our times,” to Grand Central in a two-book deal (Rights were also sold in Brazil, Germany, Spain, Holland, France, and Denmark)
Stephanie McAfee, whose self-published e-book became a New York Times bestseller, will make her fiction debut with Diary of a Mad Fat Girl, “which introduces the angry Ace Jones and an assortment of her small-town friends and enemies,” to NAL in a three-book deal
General/ Other
Christopher Wakling’sWhat I Did, “pitched as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time meets The Slap, in which a six-year-old boy becomes the center of a social services maelstrom after he runs into the road, his father smacks him, and a passerby intervenes,” to William Morrow for publication in Summer 2012.
Memoir
Actor Ryan O’Neal’s Past Imperfect, “a candid description of his and Farrah Fawcett’s roller coaster of love and loss, from their first meeting in 1979 until her death in June 2009,” to Crown Archetype for publication in Spring 2012
There were other deal announcements, such as UCSF pediatric endocrinologist Dr. Robert H. Lustig’s Fat Chance: Gambling with Our Personal and Public Health, “showing how the changes in our food environment during the last few decades have disastrously affected human biochemistry to cause an epidemic of obesity,” but, alas, the time has come to give self’s furiously typing fingers a rest from the keyboard.
Latest deal announcements from Publishers Weekly :
Mystery/ Crime
Law & Order: SVU Executive Producer Neal Baer’s Kill Switch, “a series featuring a female forensic psychiatrist who joins with a former police officer to look for a former patient turned serial killer, written with co-executive producer Jonathan Greene,” to Kensington, in a three-book deal
General/Other
The follow-up to the debut novel How To Be an American Housewife, Margaret Dilloway’sThe Rose of Galilee, “about a solitary amateur botanist who’s on the path to perfecting a new breed of rose” who has “her world turned upside down by . . . her wayward niece,” to Putnam, for publication in 2012
Academy Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek’s Barefoot Stories, “a memoir told in stories, spanning her childhood in Texas, her arrival in New York City with only a small suitcase and a guitar, and her adult life and distinguished acting career,” to Hyperion for publication in 2012
There were other fascinating deal announcements, such as former Cantor Fitzgerald partner Lauren Manning’s Every Day, A Choice, a “memoir of survival and self-renewal” about how she “survived terrible burns on 9/11, as documented in husband Greg Manning’s 2002 book Love, Greg & Lauren,” but, alas, self has many many things to do today, many relatives to visit and many jeepney rides to take and more adventures to embark on.
The only Asian American writer on the National Book Award fiction shortlist this year is Karen Tei Yamashita. Her book, I-Hotel, published by Coffee House Press, is going to duke it out with:
Karen’s publisher, Coffee House, is an indie publisher (who also publishes M. Evelina Galang and will shortly be publishing Zack Linmark’s new novel, Leche).
Self has never heard of McPherson & Co. before so she looks them up: they’re also an indie publisher.
Great, great news for indie publishers, to get their authors on the shortlist. Best of luck to Karen, self will be rooting for her.
Winners will be announced in New York City on November 17.
Even though self loves the story she is currently reading (Never mind what issue), she has decided: Anyone who gets a story into The New Yorker doesn’t need someone else to trumpet to the world how good they are. (You haven’t heard this particular writer’s name before — it is foreign-sounding — but it’s not as if she needed validation, my God)
Then, self thinks: How lucky to be the fiction editor of The New Yorker. You have all these stories to choose from: hundreds, even thousands, of stories coming in the slush pile every week, and a staff of interns to cull through those stories and offer you the handful that are absolute pearls. And from this handful of pearls you get to choose The One. No wonder the stories are so often brilliant.
The New Yorker was where you first made the acquaintance of Roberto Bolaño. And Tea Obrecht. And Haruki Murakami. And that man who wrote Empire of the Sun (Drat, what is his name now? Self, the car accident must have made you halfway demented). They hardly ever seem to publish science fiction. Maybe Murakami can count as a science fiction writer?
The fiction selections seem to fall into distinct waves. Decades ago, there was the Latin American Wave (Roberto Bolaño is a one-man wave: no other writers of similar background, before or since). There were a few years when you saw a lot of Haruki Murakami stories. Maybe there were one or two Banana Yoshimoto stories? Or maybe you are imagining this, and it was really Yoko Ogawa?
For a period of some years, it seemed like there was a Writers-From-Eastern-Europe Wave.
Self thinks the most current identifiable wave is African Writers. Like that girl with the really long name: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Self wonders if W. G. Sebald was ever published by The New Yorker (He probably was).
She wonders if Haruki Murakami counts as an Asian Wave (No)
There were one or two times when self got a personal letter. The Editor even signed her own name on the letter. After that, self was so stunned that she kept sending to that same editor, who always politely answered with a personal letter, but it simply never worked. After four or five years (which is a really long time to be pestering a single editor on the fiction staff of The New Yorker), self saw the writing on the wall. The thread of the correspondence dropped away. Now, self doesn’t even know if that editor is still with the magazine. Her last letter to self was about 10 years ago.
But she might as well say this now: the story that elicited the personal response was “Picture.” Later, she got another personal response, for “Infected.” (Both are included in self’s Mayor of the Roses).
(Self thinks it is still OK for her to quote from David Denby or Anthony Lane, because they write about movies. And who doesn’t want to read everything in the world about movies currently showing? Self knows she does)
Latest e-letter from Publishers Weekly has announcement of the following deals:
Fiction Debuts
Cornell MFA and former University of Chicago mathematics scholar Catherine Chung’sForgotten Country, “the story of a Korean-American woman sent by her terminally ill father to find her missing sister, leading to a larger journey that forces her to confront her family’s tragic history … ” to Riverhead, at auction
Madeline Miller’s In the Armor of Achilles, “yielding a tender love story and a chronicle of the Trojan War; narrated by Patroclus, best friend and lover of the Greek hero Achilles,” to Ecco, at auction, for publication Summer 2012
History/Politics/Current Affairs
Tony Schwalm’s The Guerrilla Factory, “a narrative of the author’s experiences in the U.S. Army’s legendary training crucible, the Q Course at Fort Bragg, which produces elite Special Forces trainers, also known as Green Berets, and his tour of duty as its Commander,” to Free Press for publication in 2012.
Author of the newsmaking Rolling Stonearticle “The Runaway General,” journalist Michael Hastings’ untitled book, promising “an unprecedented behind-the-scenes account of America’s longest war, with an unfiltered look at … the soldiers, diplomats and politicians who are waging it,” to Little, Brown.
Thriller
David Jack Bell’sCemetery Girl, “in which a couple who seemingly has it all loses almost everything when their twelve-year-old daughter disappears without a trace and then, four years later, is found and returned to them, but refuses to talk about where she was … ” to NAL, in a two-book deal
There were other deal announcements, such as Houston Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy’s untitled book, “tracing how the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is only a part of a larger pattern of corporate cost-cutting and image-making that has compromised safety across BP’s operations for years,” but, alas, self needs to get back to her writing!
Publishers Weekly of 5 July 2010 has announcement of the following book deals:
Fiction Debuts
Christopher Buehlman’sThose Across the River, “set in 1935 about a World War I veteran facing the battle of his life when he moves south with his lover to a dying cotton town and is targeted in a gruesome murder spree by a band of depraved werewolves squatting on a dilapidated plantation that belonged to his notorious Civil War General great grandfather,” to Berkeley, in “a very nice deal.”
Rosie Dastgir’s A Small Fortune, “which explores the loves, struggles, and tensions in the lives of a Pakistani family, from rural Pakistan to urban England, with a fond but wry eye, pitched as reminiscent of Monica Ali … ” to Riverhead.
General/Other
Liz Moore’s Heft, “a dual narrative about a deeply lonely 500-plus recluse and a seventeen-year-old orphaned baseball phenom and the phone call that brought their two worlds together, pitched as in the vein of Elizabeth McCracken’s The Giant’s House … ” to Norton “in a very nice deal.”
Thriller
Julie Heaberlin’s Playing Dead, “about a woman who receives a letter indicating that she may have been kidnapped as a baby and her whole life is a lie, and Lie Still, about a rape victim whose past catches up to her as she becomes involved in a mystery in an exclusive Texas town,” to Random House, in “a very nice deal.”
Cooking
James Beard Hall of Famer Mollie Katzen’s “distillation of her life’s work … into an illustrated guide to making easy, elegant food that puts vegetables front and center,” to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
There were other deal announcements, such as actor and former Brat-Packer Rob Lowe’s Stories I Only Tell My Friends, “a mid-career meditation based on his four decades as an actor, an account of his life, both in show business and with his family, sobriety and fatherhood,” but, alas, it is 6:38 pm and self needs to get dinner ready.
View from Self's Window, 3rd floor of Sheraton on Court PlaceFab writers: Brian Ascalon Roley and Luisa IgloriaMargarita and Becky in front of the newest Calyx book, Cass Dalglish's collection, HUMMING THE BLUES
So she could blog for an hour. My, the Denver Airport is just crawling with kids! In the shuttle to the airport, she rode with six fellow conference attendees, and got into a very pleasant conversation with a poet from Arizona (who knows self’s ex-Stanford classmate, Beth Alvarado!) The poet’s name is Rebecca Seiferle, and she works for The Art Center in Tucson.
As soon as self gets home, she’s gonna download the pictures she took at the conference: the pictures of Evelina, Luisa, Brian, Margarita, Rebecca Olson, and Kelsey. The best times self had at the conference were hanging out at the Calyx table. It’s too bad Calyx can’t afford to come every year (The charge for a table is $450, and that’s a lot for a small press). In fact, kudos to all those brave little magazines (like tuesdayjournal.org, and Poetry Flash) who pulled together the funds to make it. For the Bookfair would be so much the poorer without their presence.
Self noticed that Isotope wasn’t there this year. Oh, Isotope, what a brave little magazine that is! And she couldn’t find the table for The Chattahoochee Review. But she did see John Wang at Juked. And yes, she did finally get to meet Martha Bates of Michigan State University Press, in person. And almost just before the Bookfair closed, self got to hug Amy Hoffman of the Women’s Review of Books.
But back to Calyx. Where would self be in this life without Calyx? Nowhere, she would be nowhere. It’s amazing: Margarita Donnelly and son both attended the same high school: Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton. And Margarita is going to attend her 50th high school reunion this June! That should be a blast!
Beautiful New Generation at Calyx: Becky (Assistant Editor) and Kelsey (Assistant Director)the lovely Evelina and Margarita hamming it up, AWP Bookfair Day 2
Self also wants to say that Anthony Varallo, who was book-signing with her for The Writer’s Center; and Josh Weil, also book-signing, were absolute gents. And self can’t wait to read their books.
And, if self weren’t so worried about getting left behind by the last Frontier flight to San Jose, she would make this a much longer post. And say things like:
Becky Olson (Calyx Assistant Editor)’s favorite poet is Bridget Pegeen Kelly
And self talked to her a little bit about “the new feminism” (This would make a great topic for a panel, self feels!), and Becky talked about a new, “post-gender” type of feminism, which is “less about womanhood” and more like an “eco-feminism”. She says that in Oregon there is a new coming together of environmentalism and feminism and this excites self so much, she wishes it could be imported to California!
“Humming the Blues” is Calyx’s newest book. There was a gorgeous yellow poster on the table (and by the way, the Calyx table had the most books of any table at the Bookfair! And self isn’t saying that just because she’s a Calyx author!)
Plethora of Books at Calyx
Self asked Margarita Donnelly what she saw as the biggest challenge confronting Calyx in the last decade, and Margarita said, the demise of independent bookstores (which coincided with the rise of the chains), and also the bankruptcies of former distributors like Bookslingers, Book People, and Pacific Pipeline.
Self thinks we should all write to Oprah, and make a pitch for women’s press books to get on her book club list of recommendations!
There was one feminist panel at the AWP, and it was scheduled for the last part of the afternoon, and on it were supposed to be representatives from The Feminist Press, Seal Press, and others (but they forgot to include Calyx). At the last minute, the sole feminist panel at AWP was cancelled! For shame!
Kanlaon 