Two Days, Two Big Buys

Viking's Pam Dorman stayed up late two nights in a row recently reading two big new debut women's novels and ended up winning one of them at auction and rapidly preempting the other. The auction win was of Telling Tales Out of School by Karen Quinn, a comic saga of upscale New Yorkers' shenanigans to get their infants into the best kindergartens (shades of The Nanny Diaries!). This was a North American rights buy from agent Robin Straus, with Andrew Nurnberg in London handling U.K. and translation, and CAA the movie rights. The preempt was of Capturing Light by Kim Edwards, a touching family saga by an award-winning short story writer. The agent here was Geri Thoma at Elaine Markson, also a North American rights deal. Both novels are aimed at the spring 2005 season.