Listening to Wendy
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 7/8/2002
Three keen-eared Simon & Schuster employees—Renee Brown, assistant to Atria's Judith Curr; Brigitte Smith, assistant to Pocket's Louise Burke; and assistant promotions manager Pam Grant—were listening to New York radio station WBLS-FM when they heard that station's "diva of dish," high-flying and gossipy Wendy Williams, declare that she wanted to do a book. In no time they contacted her, and a meeting was set up with their bosses, Curr and Burke. The pair agreed that a memoir by Williams, in which she talks of her problems, including drug use, several miscarriages, extensive plastic surgery and a very public fight with her previous bosses at WQHT Hot 97, would be much to their liking. They signed a North American rights deal with agent Ian Kleinert at William Morris, for a book to be coauthored by Karen Hunter and edited by Atria senior editor Malaika Adero. It will, say the publishers, motivate women facing similar challenges in their struggles for success, and will appear as an Atria hardcover next year and a Pocket mass market title the following year.
