Thomas Dunne Inks Ed Hardy
Ed Hardy, the famed tattoo artist whose name now carries a worldwide fashion brand, has signed to do a memoir with Thomas Dunne Books. Rob Kirkpatrick bought world rights from agent Frank Weimann at the Literary Group International, and Joel Selvin will be co-writing. (Selvin coauthored Sammy Hagar's recent autobiography, Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock.) Hardy got his name inking members of the Hells Angels and certain celebrities in California during the 1960s, and his mentor, Sailor Jerry, spearheaded what the publisher called the "tattoo renaissance," as the underground art form moved to mainstream acceptance. After signing a licensing deal with Christian Audigier, Hardy's name became the cornerstone of an international clothing brand, and his retail business now brings in more than $700 million in sales annually.
King Gets 'Fatigued' for University of Wisconsin
Raphael Kadushin, senior editor at University of Wisconsin Press, took world rights to Roger King's memoir, Love and Fatigue in America. King, who is British and has written a number of novels including A Girl from Zanzibar (published in the States in 2002 by Helen Marx Books) and Sea Level (released in the U.S. through iUniverse), was represented by agent Andrew Blauner of Blauner Books Literary in the deal. In the book King, who has chronic fatigue syndrome, documents an American cross-country road trip. Kadushin called the book "a classic updated picaresque that explores both our exhausted, and exhausting, nation, and King's own stranded state of mind." Love and Fatigue is slated for a spring 2012 release.
Singh Nabs PEN Winner
Brigid Pasulka, who won the 2010 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for her debut novel, A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True (Mariner), sold her sophomore effort, The Sun and Other Stars, to Anjali Singh at Simon & Schuster. Wendy Sherman at Wendy Sherman Associates brokered the North American rights deal. In Stars, Pasulka follows a butcher who, with his son, is trying to recover from the untimely death of his wife. When a Ukrainian soccer player, whose best years are behind him, arrives in the butcher's small Italian seaside village, along with his sister, the protagonist's outlook on life is shaken up. Agent Jenny Meyer is handling foreign rights.
Page to Screen
Lifetime is exercising its option on dramatic rights to Jayne Garcia Valseca and Mark Ebner's true crime book, We Have Your Husband. The May title from Berkley offers a firsthand account from the American-born Valseca, whose husband, Eduardo, was kidnapped and then held hostage for seven months when the two were vacationing in the Mexican city of San Miguel Allende in 2007. Actors Esai Morales and Teri Polo are attached to star, and Tim Johnson is attached to produce. Joel Gotler sold the TV rights on behalf of Laura Dail at the Laura Dail Literary Agency.
Briefs
Brandon Proia at PublicAffairs took world rights to David H. Grimm's Citizen Canine from agent Jim Hornfischer at Hornfischer Literary Management. Grimm, the deputy editor at Science magazine, examines the amusing, and sometimes frightening, changes afoot in society as cats and dogs are being treated, and thought of, more like humans. The book zeroes in on the way this shift is happening socially, in the field of science as well as with the law.
Robert Pigeon at Da Capo bought world rights to the tentatively titled A Disease of the Public Mind by historian Thomas Fleming. Deborah Grosvenor brokered the deal for the book, which is slated for spring 2013. Fleming offers what the publisher described as "a character-driven history of the decades-long runup to the Civil War."
