Short Takes
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 3/26/2001
Judy Clain at Little, Brown paid $500,000 to preempt world rights (excluding Canada) for two novels by Canadian screenwriter Lori Lansens, the first of which, Rush Home Road, is a saga about a black community in southern Ontario founded by slaves who escaped America via the Underground Railroad. Toronto agent Denise Bukowski made the sale, and Jody Hotchkiss at Sterling Lord Literistic is handling dramatic rights.... A dramatic narrative about a Polish Jew's escape from wartime Europe to Britain to join the RAF and fight the Nazis was found in his belongings after his death and was bought by Katie Hall at Random from agent Peter Cox at London's Litopia agency. Reuben's War by Reuben Ainsztein will be published next summer; Random has world rights and will be offering it at the London Book Fair.... Ronda Rich is a Southern belle known for her What Southern Women Know, but she has also, for the past eight years, covered stock car racing as a journalist, and her agent, Richard Curtis, has just sold her book My Life in the Pits for six figures to Harper's Tom Dupree, who preempted it and will publish next spring.
